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.
The Referendum Party was a Eurosceptic, single-issue political party that was active in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997. The party's sole objective was for a referendum to be held on the nature of the UK's membership of the European Union (EU). Specifically, it called for a referendum on whether the British electorate wanted to be part of a federal European state or to revert to being a sovereign nation that was part of a European free-trade bloc without wider political functions.
Roger Helmer is a British politician and businessman. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands region from 1999 to 2017. Before becoming an MEP, he was a business executive.
Boston and Skegness is a county constituency, represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. It is located in Lincolnshire, England. Like all British constituencies, Boston and Skegness elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first-past-the-post system of election. The seat has been represented by the Conservative MP Matt Warman since the 2015 general election, and is usually considered a safe seat for the party.
West Midlands was a constituency of the European Parliament. It was represented by seven MEPs using the D'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation. In 2009, the constituency was reduced to six seats, but also elected a "virtual MEP" who took her seat in the Parliament when the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect. The constituency was represented by seven MEPs prior to the 2009 election, until the UK exit from the European Union on 31 January 2020.
Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom is a continuum of belief ranging from the opposition to certain political policies of the European Union to the complete opposition to the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. It has been a significant element in the politics of the United Kingdom (UK). A 2009 Eurobarometer survey of EU citizens showed support for membership of the EU was lowest in the United Kingdom, alongside Latvia and Hungary.
Dame Glenis Willmott, is a retired British Labour Party politician who served as leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP) and Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands.
Nicole Sinclaire is a British former politician who was leader of the We Demand a Referendum Party, and served as a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands from 2009 to 2014.
Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) was a Eurosceptic political group in the European Parliament. The group was formed following the 2009 European parliamentary election, mostly composed of elements of the Independence/Democracy (IND/DEM) and Union for a Europe of Nations (UEN) groups that had existed during the 6th European Parliament. The group had a loose relationship with Movement for a Europe of Liberties and Democracy (MELD), a European political party founded in 2011.
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 People's Pledge was a political campaign to secure a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union. It aimed to achieve this by asking voters to sign a pledge that they would use their vote to help secure a majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) in support of an in-out referendum on EU membership. The 1975 European Communities membership referendum was the last time such a vote had occurred in Britain.
Rupert Oliver Matthews is a British Conservative Party politician serving as the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner since 2021. He previously served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands from June 2017 until his term ended on 1 July 2019, and has authored books on the paranormal.
Phillip Bennion is a British Liberal Democrat politician. He served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands from 2012 to 2014, and then from 2019 to 2020.
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).
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.
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.
Jill Seymour is a British politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands from 2014 to 2019. Elected for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in 2014, in April 2019 she defected to the Brexit Party. Despite her defection, she was not selected as a Brexit Party candidate for the 2019 European Parliament elections, and ceased to remain an MEP on 26 May 2019.
William Milroy Etheridge is an English politician who was previously a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the West Midlands region. He was elected in 2014 as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate, but left the party in October 2018 and joined the Libertarian Party. He joined the Brexit Party in 2019 but rejoined UKIP in September 2020.
The 2019 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2019 European Parliament election, held on Thursday 23 May 2019 and the results were 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, and 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.
Campaigning in the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum began unofficially on 20 February 2016 when Prime Minister David Cameron formally announced under the terms of the European Union Referendum Act 2015 that a referendum would be held on the issue of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union. The official campaign period for the 2016 referendum ran from 15 April 2016 until the day of the poll on 23 June 2016.
