London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Jul 26, 2025

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

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

In 2014, David Cameron was still British prime minister 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 in British politics".

UKIP clinched 24 seats and 27% of the popular vote, marking the first time a party other than the Conservatives or Labour had won a UK national election for a century.

The result gave UKIP the momentum to push for a vote on the UK's membership of the European Union and campaign successfully for leaving.

Now, eight years on, the disruptor of British politics is staring down the barrel of electoral annihilation.

Following local elections across England last week, UKIP lost all its remaining district and county councillors.

To put that into context, the party has gone from almost 500 of those councillors in 2016 - its high watermark - to zero in 2023.

"It's no exaggeration to talk about a wipeout," said Tim Bale, a professor of politics and author of The Conservative Party after Brexit.

All that remains for UKIP are elected holdouts on parish and town councils, the lowest tier of local government.

The party's chairman, Ben Walker, said UKIP still has about 30 parish councillors, himself among them, after last week's local elections. "It certainly wasn't a disaster based on what we thought we'd get from these elections," he told the BBC.

Even so, the results overall show how far the party has fallen from the heights of 2014.

The BBC's results say, in total, UKIP lost 25 seats, which were last up for election in 2019.

Mr Walker said only one incumbent UKIP councillor - Steve Hollis in South Staffordshire - contested these elections for the party. He lost, while the party's only other sitting councillor retired.

Little by little, UKIP councillors have either defected to other parties or quit since 2019.


Post-Farage decline


The political fortunes of UKIP, originally a single-issue Eurosceptic party, have declined sharply since Mr Farage stood down as its leader in 2016.

Brexit was Mr Farage's crowing glory as leader, but since then, UKIP has been unsure of its place in the British political landscape and burned through six leaders, as it attempts to find a new purpose in a post-Brexit world.

Prof Bale said, although UKIP struck a chord with many voters who were hostile to the EU and didn't believe the Conservative government was doing enough to limit immigration, the party was "ultimately a vehicle for the political ambitions of one man - Nigel Farage".

"Once he abandoned them, they were always likely to fade away and die," Prof Bale said.

Nigel Farage, a prominent Eurosceptic, resigned as UKIP leader in 2016


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 platform under former leader Gerard Batten.

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

"People look at us and think, well, you've kind of did what you meant to do, didn't you? We're out of Europe, your job's done. That's where we're at. So we're trying to redefine what we are now, which is no easy task."


Small parties squeezed


Under the current leadership of Neil Hamilton, a former Conservative MP, UKIP has been calling itself the "only truly patriotic political party" and promoting policies such as ending mass migration and scrapping most foreign aid.

That's similar territory to Reform UK, which was founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, and which campaigned to leave the EU without a deal.

As Reform UK, the party has failed to make a big impression on the electorate recently, winning just six seats in last week's local elections.

The party, led by Richard Tice, had fielded hundreds of candidates, mainly in areas that had voted heavily to leave the EU in 2016.

Mr Walker said pooling resources with Reform UK and other like-minded smaller parties on the right was one route to an electoral revival for UKIP.

But Dr David Jeffery, a senior lecturer in British Politics at the University of Liverpool, said there appeared to be no way back for populist parties on the right of politics.

"Even Reform, the party to the right of the Conservatives with the most funding and media attention, without the galvanising issue of EU membership struggles to break past 6% in the polls," he said.

"The party is over for UKIP."

Many of those who voted for UKIP in the mid-2010s haven't gone away though. Instead, many of them switched to the Conservatives after former Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to "get Brexit done".

"We are now one of the only Western democracies to not have a successful populist party," said Matthew Goodwin, a professor of politics and the author of a book about UKIP's rise.

"Much of this reflects how the Conservatives repositioned after Brexit to attract Nigel Farage's voters, though whether they can keep this force at bay, with rising immigration and a spiralling cost-of-living crisis, remains to be seen."

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Deputy attorney general's second day of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell has concluded
Controversial March in Switzerland Features Men Dressed in Nazi Uniforms
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
×