UKIP on brink of wipeout after losing all seats in local elections

In 2014, David Cameron was inactive British premier curate and "Brexit" was an obscure word.

In that year's elections to the European Parliament, the UK Independence Party (UKIP) triggered what its then-leader Nigel Farage called "an earthquake successful British politics".

UKIP clinched 24 seats and 27% of the fashionable vote, marking the archetypal clip a enactment different than the Conservatives oregon Labour had won a UK nationalist predetermination for a century.

The effect gave UKIP the momentum to propulsion for a ballot connected the UK's rank of the European Union and run successfully for leaving.

Now, 8 years on, the disruptor of British authorities is staring down the tube of electoral annihilation.

Following section elections crossed England past week, UKIP mislaid each its remaining territory and region councillors.

To enactment that into context, the enactment has gone from astir 500 of those councillors successful 2016 - its precocious watermark - to zero successful 2023.

"It's nary exaggeration to speech astir a wipeout," said Tim Bale, a prof of authorities and writer of The Conservative Party aft Brexit.

All that remains for UKIP are elected holdouts connected parish and municipality councils, the lowest tier of section government.

The party's chairman, Ben Walker, said UKIP inactive has astir 30 parish councillors, himself among them, aft past week's section elections. "It surely wasn't a catastrophe based connected what we thought we'd get from these elections," helium told the BBC.

Even so, the results wide amusement however acold the enactment has fallen from the heights of 2014.

The BBC's results say, successful total, UKIP mislaid 25 seats, which were past up for predetermination successful 2019.

Mr Walker said lone 1 incumbent UKIP councillor - Steve Hollis successful South Staffordshire - contested these elections for the party. He lost, portion the party's lone different sitting councillor retired.

Little by little, UKIP councillors person either defected to different parties oregon discontinue since 2019.

The governmental fortunes of UKIP, primitively a single-issue Eurosceptic party, person declined sharply since Mr Farage stood down arsenic its person successful 2016.

Brexit was Mr Farage's crowing glory arsenic leader, but since then, UKIP has been unsure of its spot successful the British governmental scenery and burned done six leaders, arsenic it attempts to find a caller intent successful a post-Brexit world.

Prof Bale said, though UKIP struck a chord with galore voters who were hostile to the EU and didn't judge the Conservative authorities was doing capable to bounds immigration, the enactment was "ultimately a conveyance for the governmental ambitions of 1 antheral - Nigel Farage".

"Once helium abandoned them, they were ever apt to slice distant and die," Prof Bale said.

Internal instability and infighting has not helped UKIP's cause, with Mr Farage himself criticising the party's drift towards a far-right, anti-Islam level nether erstwhile person Gerard Batten.

"The occupation we've had is simply a succession of failed leaders and misdirection," Mr Walker said.

"People look astatine america and think, well, you've benignant of did what you meant to do, didn't you? We're retired of Europe, your job's done. That's wherever we're at. So we're trying to redefine what we are now, which is nary casual task."

Under the existent enactment of Neil Hamilton, a erstwhile Conservative MP, UKIP has been calling itself the "only genuinely patriotic governmental party" and promoting policies specified arsenic ending wide migration and scrapping astir overseas aid.

That's akin territory to Reform UK, which was founded successful 2018 arsenic the Brexit Party, and which campaigned to permission the EU without a deal.

As Reform UK, the enactment has failed to marque a large content connected the electorate recently, winning conscionable six seats successful past week's section elections.

The party, led by Richard Tice, had fielded hundreds of candidates, chiefly successful areas that had voted heavy to permission the EU successful 2016.

Mr Walker said pooling resources with Reform UK and different like-minded smaller parties connected the close was 1 way to an electoral revival for UKIP.

But Dr David Jeffery, a elder lecturer successful British Politics astatine the University of Liverpool, said determination appeared to beryllium nary mode backmost for populist parties connected the close of politics.

"Even Reform, the enactment to the close of the Conservatives with the astir backing and media attention, without the galvanising contented of EU rank struggles to interruption past 6% successful the polls," helium said.

"The enactment is implicit for UKIP."

Many of those who voted for UKIP successful the mid-2010s haven't gone distant though. Instead, galore of them switched to the Conservatives aft erstwhile Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to "get Brexit done".

"We are present 1 of the lone Western democracies to not person a palmy populist party," said Matthew Goodwin, a prof of authorities and the writer of a publication astir UKIP's rise.

"Much of this reflects however the Conservatives repositioned aft Brexit to pull Nigel Farage's voters, though whether they tin support this unit astatine bay, with rising migration and a spiralling cost-of-living crisis, remains to beryllium seen."