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 Neil Hamilton.
Nigel Paul Farage is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021. Farage is currently the Honorary President of Reform UK and a presenter for GB News. He served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union in 2020.
David Campbell Bannerman is a British Conservative Party 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 Freedom Association. He served as Deputy Leader of UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 until 2010, when he was replaced by Paul Nuttall.
Alexander Alan Craig is a British politician and community worker who previously served as leader of the Christian Peoples Alliance (CPA) from 2004 to 2012. He stood as a candidate for Mayor of London in 2008 and was a councillor in Newham for eight years. He defected to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 2014, where he served as UKIP's spokesperson for families and children from 2018 to around 2019.
Paul Andrew Nuttall is a British politician who served as Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2016 to 2017. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate, and served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England between 2009 and 2019, sitting in the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group. He left UKIP in December 2018, criticising the party's association with far-right activist Tommy Robinson, and joined The Brexit Party in 2019.
Margaret Lucille Jeanne Parker is a British former politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands region between 2014 and 2019.
Diane Martine James is a British politician who was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 2014 to 2019. She was briefly leader-elect of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from September 2016 to October 2016, but resigned before formalising her leadership. At the time of her election to the European Parliament, James was one of three UKIP MEPs for South East England, before joining the Brexit Party in 2019.
Jane Maria Collins is a British politician and horse show-jumper who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber from 2014 to 2019. She was elected in May 2014 as a member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), but defected to the Brexit Party in 2019 in the last months of her membership of the European Parliament.
Janice Ann Atkinson is a former British politician who was a Member of the European Parliament for the South East England region. She formerly represented the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and later sat as an independent: she was elected in 2014, second on the list for the region behind Nigel Farage. In March 2015, she was expelled from UKIP for "bringing the party into disrepute" after her chief of staff was recorded trying to fraudulently inflate her expenses.
Independence from Europe was a minor, Eurosceptic political party in the United Kingdom. The party was first registered in June 2012 but remained inactive until it was launched in October 2013 by sole party leader Mike Nattrass, a disaffected member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). It had no official political representation at the time of its dissolution in November 2017, but previously had one Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and three Councillors, all of whom were once members of UKIP.
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.
Elections for the London Borough of Merton were held on 22 May 2014 to elect members of Merton London Borough Council in England. This was on the same day as other local elections in England and an election to the European Parliament.
On 9 October 2014, a by-election was held for the UK parliamentary constituency of Clacton in Essex, England. The by-election was triggered by the Conservative MP for Clacton, Douglas Carswell, defecting to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and subsequently resigning his seat to seek re-election as its candidate.
A by-election was held on 20 November 2014 for the UK parliamentary constituency of Rochester and Strood in Kent, England. The sitting Member of Parliament (MP) Mark Reckless called it on joining the UK Independence Party (UKIP), from the Conservatives. He resigned his seat.
On 3 December 2015, a by-election was held in the UK Parliamentary constituency of Oldham West and Royton in Greater Manchester. This was the first by-election of the 56th UK Parliament.
The September 2016 UK Independence Party leadership election was triggered after Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, announced on 4 July 2016, following the Leave result in the UK referendum on EU membership, that he would step down when a new leader had been elected.
The November 2016 UK Independence Party leadership election took place following the announcement on 4 October 2016 by Diane James, the leader-elect of the UK Independence Party, that she would not accept the leadership of the party, despite winning the leadership election 18 days earlier. Nigel Farage, whom James was to succeed after the previous leadership election following his resignation, was selected the next day to serve as interim leader.
A by-election for the House of Commons constituency of Sleaford and North Hykeham in Lincolnshire, England, was held on 8 December 2016. It was triggered by the resignation of the Conservative member of parliament (MP) Stephen Phillips, who left Parliament on 4 November 2016 due to policy differences with the Conservative government led by the prime minister, Theresa May, over Brexit – the British withdrawal from the European Union (EU). The Conservatives nominated Caroline Johnson, a paediatrician, to replace Phillips; she won the by-election with more than 50 per cent of the vote, a sizable majority. The Conservatives' vote share fell slightly compared to the result at the previous general election in 2015.
The 2017 UK Independence Party leadership election was called following the resignation of Paul Nuttall as leader of the UK Independence Party on 9 June 2017, following the poor performance of the party in the 2017 general election. Former party chairman Steve Crowther was chosen three days later to serve as interim leader.
Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit and was a significant political force in 2019. After Brexit, it was renamed to Reform UK in January 2021, and became primarily an anti-lockdown party during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, in December 2022, it began campaigning on broader right-wing populist themes during the British cost-of-living crisis. As the Brexit Party, it gained 29 seats and the largest share of the national vote in the 2019 European Parliament election.
