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UK Independence Party facts for kids

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UK Independence Party
Abbreviation UKIP
Leader Vacant
Deputy Leader Vacant
Chairman Ben Walker (interim)
Deputy Chair Vacant
General Secretary Freddy Vachha (interim)
Founder Alan Sked
Founded 3 September 1993; 30 years ago (1993-09-03)
Preceded by Anti-Federalist League
Headquarters Lexdrum House
Unit 1
King Charles Business Park
Old Newton Road
Heathfield
Newton Abbot
TQ12 6UT
Youth wing Young Independence
Membership (2019) Decrease 26,447
Ideology Hard Euroscepticism
Right-wing populism
Economic liberalism
British nationalism
Political position Right-wing to far-right
(2018–present)

Historical:
Single-issue (1993–1997)
Right-wing (1997–2018)
International affiliation None
Colours           Purple, yellow
National Assembly for Wales
1 / 60
Local government
27 / 20,249
Nigel Farage MEP 1, Strasbourg - Diliff
Nigel Farage was the leader of the UK Independence Party until July 2016

The United Kingdom Independence Party (often called UKIP, said "you-kipp") is a political party in the United Kingdom. Its policies promote conservatism, national conservatism, and Euroscepticism. Their main policy is for the UK to leave the European Union.

The party was founded in 1993, and they first won seats in the European Parliament in 1999. They won 3 seats in 1999, which was increased to 12 in 2004 and 13 in 2009. It is now 9. The party does not do well under Britain's 'First-past-the-post' system of elections and only has one seat in the British House of Commons, although they received 3.8 million votes (12.6% of the total vote) at the 2015 UK general election.

Supporters of UKIP mostly believe in the following things:

  • The United Kingdom should leave the European Union.
  • There should be more referendums on certain issues.
  • British people should not have to carry ID cards.

In 2008 UKIP banned people who used to be members of the British National Party (BNP) from joining.

On 9 October 2014 Douglas Carswell became UKIP's first elected MP. Carswell quit the party in March 2017.

May 2014 local elections

In the May 2014 local elections UKIP got 30% of the vote in Sunderland. The party gained 155 local council seats across the country.

2015 general election

UKIP came third in the May 2015 general election, after the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. The party got 12.9% of the vote and gained one seat.

2017 general election

In the 2017 general election, UKIP's share of the vote went down to 1.8 and they didn't win any seats. The next day UKIP's leader Paul Nuttall resigned.

Current members

There are currently over 20,000 people who are members of the UKIP.

Gerard Batten becomes leader (2018)

In February 2018 Gerard Batten become leader of the party firstly on an interim basis before winning the UKIP leadership election in April 2018 unopposed.

2018 UK local elections

In the 2018 UK local elections UKIP lost 124 of the 126 seats it was defending, and gained a single seat in Derby.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Partido de la Independencia del Reino Unido para niños

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