UK Independence Party

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) is a British right-wing political party that is best-known for its call for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union and for other policies to control immigration. Its leader until July 2016 was Nigel Farage MEP.

The party won the most UK seats in the 2014 elections to the European Parliament. It also has one representative in the UK Parliament, Douglas Carswell, who was previously a Conservative MP but defected and resigned to trigger a by-election, which he successfully contested. Prior to the 2015 general election, UKIP had a second MP, Mark Reckless, who also defected from the Conservatives. In that election, UKIP polled almost four million votes (13% of the total) but returned only one MP.

UKIP won six seats in the Welsh Assembly in the 2016 elections. Their group leader is Neil Hamilton, a former Conservative MP best-known for the 'cash for questions' scandal in the 1990s. The party has no seats in the Scottish Parliament.

UKIP campaigned for Britain to leave the EU during the 2016 referendum, but was not part of the official 'leave' campaign. Farage predicted a narrow win for 'remain' on election night and pledged to fight on. As it happened, 'leave' won with 52% of the vote and Farage retracted his comments. He resigned as leader less than two weeks later.