 | |
| Leader | Dirk Hazell |
| Founded | 2012 [1] |
| Headquarters | Office 103, 405 Kings Road, London, SW10 0BB |
| Ideology | Conservatism Pro-Europeanism |
| Political position | Centre-right |
| European affiliation | none |
| Colours | Blue, gold and red |
| Website | |
| www | |
The Alliance EPP: European People's Party UK, also known as UK EPP and the 4 Freedoms Party, is a pro-European Union, centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. It first contested an election at the 2014 European Parliament elections. [4]
The party leader is Dirk Hazell, who is a former Conservative councillor, [5] who has also been a candidate for the Liberal Democrats.
In its initial campaign before the 2014 European Parliament elections, the party was critical of the Conservative Party's departure from the European People's Party group in 2009 and opposed calls for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union. It positioned itself as a conservative, pro-European alternative to the Conservative Party and the UK Independence Party, which it condemned as "Britain's hard right". [6] The party called for EU reform and a greater focus on jobs and training. [7] It expressed support for Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, in addition to the EU's Four Freedoms. [8] The UK EPP claimed an association with the European People's Party family [3] but is not actually a member. [9]
In 2014, the party fielded candidates for the European election in the London constituency only. [10] It polled 28,014 votes across the city and failed to win any seats.
The party had little public activity following the 2014 European Parliament election.
Alliance EPP did not contest the 2019 European Parliament election. Its political space became occupied predominantly by Change UK, formed in early 2019 by former Labour and Conservative members, which stood candidates in all constituencies except Northern Ireland. Change UK gathered 571,846 votes (3.3%) but did not win any seats. [11]
Without any link to the Alliance EPP party, two British MEPs formerly elected with the Conservative Party, Richard Ashworth and Julie Girling, joined the European People's Party group on 28 February 2018. [12] Ashworth later joined Change UK [13] and was a candidate for it at the 2019 European Parliament election, at which he failed to be re-elected. Girling did not stand for re-election in the 2019 European Parliament election, declaring support for the Liberal Democrats, and later became the leader of the Renew Party. [14] Alliance EPP's founder, Dirk Hazell, has been critical of Girling and Ashworth on Twitter. [15]
The European People's Party Group is a political group of the European Parliament consisting of deputies (MEPs) from the member parties of the European People's Party (EPP). Sometimes it also includes independent MEPs and/or deputies from unaffiliated national parties. The EPP Group comprises politicians of Christian democratic, conservative and liberal-conservative orientation.
The UK Independence Party is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of parliament and was the largest party representing the UK in the European Parliament. The party is currently led by Nick Tenconi.
The 2004 European Parliament election was held between 10 and 13 June 2004 in the 25 member states of the European Union, using varying election days according to local custom. The European Parliamental parties could not be voted for, but elected national parties aggregated in European Parliamental parties after the elections.
Richard James Ashworth is a former British politician, who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 2004 until 2019. He formerly sat in the European Parliament for the Conservative Party, and was that party's leader there from March 2012 to November 2013. In April 2019 Ashworth defected to Change UK, but was not elected to the European Parliament at the 2019 election held the following month.
Gerard Joseph Batten is a British politician who served as the Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2018 to 2019. He was a founding member of the party in 1993, and served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for London from 2004 to 2019.
David Campbell Bannerman is a British politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East of England from 2009 to 2019. He is currently Chairman of the Conservative Democratic Organisation and The Freedom Association. A member of the Conservative Party, he previously served as Deputy Leader of UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 until 2010, when he was replaced by Paul Nuttall.
The 2009 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2009 European Parliament election, the voting for which was held on Thursday 4 June 2009. The election was held concurrently with the 2009 local elections in England. In total, 72 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation.
James Bruce Carver is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands region between 2014 and 2019. He was elected in 2014 for the UK Independence Party, second on the list for the region, being elected together with Jill Seymour and Bill Etheridge. He resigned from UKIP in May 2018.
The European Conservatives and Reformists Group is a soft Eurosceptic, anti-federalist political group of the European Parliament. The ECR is the parliamentary group of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party European political party, but also includes MEPs from other European parties and MEPs without European party affiliation.
The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 22 and 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties fielded candidates for President of the Commission.
Jonathan William Arnott is a British politician and former schoolteacher. After the 2014 European Parliament election, he served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the North East England region. Originally sitting as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) representative, he resigned from the party on 19 January 2018 to sit as an independent until designating as Brexit Party on 17 April 2019.
The 2014 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2014 European Parliament election, held on Thursday 22 May 2014, coinciding with the 2014 local elections in England and Northern Ireland. In total, 73 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation. England, Scotland and Wales use a closed-list party list system of PR, while Northern Ireland used the single transferable vote (STV).
Louise Bours, also known as Louise van de Bours, is a former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the North West England region. She was elected in 2014 as a UK Independence Party candidate but resigned from the party 2018, and sat as an independent until she stood down at the 2019 election.
Amjad Mahmood Bashir is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament for the Yorkshire and the Humber region between 2014 and 2019. He was elected in 2014 for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and defected to the Conservative Party on 24 January 2015. In April 2024 it was announced he had joined the Workers Party of Britain.
The 2019 European Parliament election was held in the European Union (EU) between 23 and 26 May 2019. It was the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent more than 512 million people from 28 member states. In February 2018, the European Parliament had voted to decrease the number of MEPs from 751 to 705 if the United Kingdom were to withdraw from the European Union on 29 March 2019. However, the United Kingdom participated alongside other EU member states after an extension of Article 50 to 31 October 2019; therefore, the allocation of seats between the member states and the total number of seats remained as it had been in 2014.
Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy was a Eurosceptic and populist political group in the European Parliament. The EFDD group was a continuation for the Eighth European Parliament of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group that existed during the Seventh European Parliament, with significant changes to group membership.
The 2019 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2019 European Parliament election. It was held on Thursday 23 May 2019 and the results announced on Sunday 26 and Monday 27 May 2019, after all the other EU countries had voted. This was the United Kingdom's final participation in a European Parliament election before leaving the European Union on 31 January 2020; it was also the last election to be held under the provisions of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 before its repeal under the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, and was the first European election in the United Kingdom since 1999 to be held on a day that did not coincide with any local elections. This was the first of two national elections held in the United Kingdom in 2019; the 2019 general election occurred six-and-a-half months later in December 2019.
Alexandra Lesley Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former politician.
The 2019 European Parliament election for the election of the delegation from the United Kingdom was held on 23 May 2019. These were the last elections to the European Parliament to be held before Brexit.