In May 2013, 33 English and one Welsh council held local elections, with UKIP gaining 139 seats for a total of 147, with significant gains in Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Kent. ", Political scientist Stephen Driver, 2011[232], On economic policy, UKIP shares the main three parties' acceptance of the core principles of a capitalist market economy,[233] and the party is generally at ease with the global free market. [428], David Deacon and Dominic Wring's examination of press coverage of UKIP during their 2014 campaign demonstrated that of the elite newspapers, the pro-EU titles The Guardian and The Observer gave the most coverage to perceived racist and intolerant aspects of the party, while the Eurosceptic titles The Times and The Sunday Times instead focused on questioning the propriety and integrity of UKIP representatives. UKIP began as the Anti-Federalist League, a Eurosceptic political party established in 1991 by the historian Alan Sked. [30] Knapman hired the political campaign consultant Dick Morris to advise UKIP. In the Scottish Parliament election, the party received just 3,848 (0.14%) list votes across the whole country despite standing in every region in Scotland. [228] It has also advocated a 40% increase in the UK's national defence budget. [214], UKIP has placed great emphasis on the issue of immigration to the UK,[215] and in 2013 Farage described it as "the biggest single issue facing this party". Championships. In these messages, she had criticised Meghan Markle for marrying into the British royal family, stating that Markle was "a dumb little commoner" and "a black American. [277] Following her departure after 18 days, Banks said that he would leave UKIP if Steven Woolfe was prevented from running for leader, and if two other members remained in the party: "If Neil Hamilton and Douglas Carswell [UKIP's only MP] remain in the party, and the NEC decide that Steven Woolfe cannot run for leader, I will be leaving Ukip". it looks like civil war is the only solution. All structured data from the main, Property, Lexeme, and EntitySchema namespaces is available under the Creative Commons CC0 License; text in the other namespaces is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. jeff taylor ukip wiki [98] The June 2016 referendum produced a 51.89% majority in favour of leaving the EU: the accomplishment of UKIP's raison d'tre raised questions about the party's future. [418][419] Labour found that their campaign strategy of accusing UKIP of racism backfired, as rather than distancing UKIP supporters from the party it contributed to the perception that Labour failed to understand widespread concerns regarding immigration. [282] In 2014, the number was 36,000 on 22 April,[283] by 7 May reached 37,000[284] and on 19 May, less than a fortnight later and only three days before the 2014 European Parliament election, rose to 38,000. Furthermore, in the London mayoral election, the UKIP candidate, Peter Gammons, achieved 0.6% of the total vote, finishing 13th. [345] Carswell quit the party in March 2017 to become an independent, leaving UKIP without any MPs in the Commons. Should the alternative vote system be used instead? [379][381] In December 2014 UKIP co-founded the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe, a European political party whose membership is composed of several member parties of the EFDD parliamentary group. [285] In January 2015, UKIP membership was the fifth highest of British parties. He was backed in from 15/2 to 5/2 before we had to pull up the drawbridge and suspend the market."