UK Independence Party

About

The UK Independence Party, often abbreviated to UKIP, is a eurosceptic political party based in Great Britain. The party has become criticised for its Anti-immigration staunch and has been accused of being xenophobic.

History

The UK Independence Party was founded in 1991 as the Anti-Federalist League by Alan Sked. It wasn’t until 1993 that the party gained its current name however. In 1997, Alan Sked left the party due to, according to himself, growing influence of far-right opinions. Alan Sked has since then become a critic of the party.^[1]

In the early years of the party, it was a relative minor force in british politics. The party was seen as a single-issue party, that issue being membership of the European Union, which the party opposes. After being elected as leader in 2006, Nigel Farage sought to change the image of UKIP by introducing a wide array of policies, including Tax cuts, reducing immigration and a less interventionist foreign policy. In 2004, UKIP got their first breakthrough when they won 12 seats in the european election in which the party came third. UKIP’s success continued in the next European election as well, where they came second with 13 seats, and in 2014, In which over 4 million people voted for party, giving them 24 seats.

2015 British General Election

On May 7th, 2015, Great Britain held a general election. In the election, UKIP managed to gain 12,6 % of the votes. Yet despite this, the party only managed to gain one seat out of 650 in the House of Commons. This caused outrage among UKIP supporters and UKIP has since criticised the First-past-the-post system used in Great Britain with Nigel Farage declaring the system for bankrupt.^[2] If the British election was held using a proportional voting system, UKIP would have won 83 seats in the House of Commons.^[3]

Notable People

Nigel Farage

Nigel Paul Farage (Born April 3rd, 1964) is the current leader of the UK Independence Party. Since 1999 he has been a member of the European Parliament where he co-chairs the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group. Farage was a member of the Conservative party until 1992, where he left in protest due to the signing of the maastricht treaty. Farage was elected as leader of UKIP in 2006 but stepped down in 2009 to concentrate on winning a seat in the 2010 general election. Farage was then in 2010 elected as leader of the party again, after being defeated in the 2010 general election. After having lost in the 2015 British General Election in South Thanet, Farage resigned as leader of the party but was reinstated again after 3 days due to the party’s national executive committee rejecting his resignation.^[4]
Online, he has gained a fan following, in particular on 4chan. As of July 2015, Nigel Farage has over 270.000 likes on Facebook^[5] while on Twitter he has over 240.000 followers^[6]. The phrase “Can’t barrage the Farage” is often used in Farage threads and in Youtube videos. Farage is also used in images that are similar to Doom Paul.

Douglas Carswell

Douglas Carswell (Born 3rd may, 1971) is the only member of UKIP in the House of Commons. Formerly, he was a member of the Conservative Party. Douglas Carswell was elected for UKIP first in October 2014 in a by-election and then in the 2015 British General Election.

Online history

UKIP operates both a facebook page and a Twitter profile. As of July 2015, the official UKIP Facebook page has over 490.000 likes^[6]. The UKIP Twitter page was first put up in August 2011 and has over 100.000 followers as of July 2015.^[8] On November 8th, 2012, A subreddit called Ukipparty was created as a forum to discuss the party and its politics.^[9]UKIP operates a official youtube channel.^[10] There are several fan channels dedicated to uploading UKIP material, including RobinHoodUKIP,^[11] Ukippers^[12] and Ukipmedia.^[13]

#WhyImVotingUKIP

#WhyImVotingUKIP is a hashtag created by UKIP, asking its supporters to explain why they intended to vote for UKIP in the 2014 local and European election. After its creation, it was hijacked by critics of the party.

Related Memes

Can’t Barrage the Farage

“Can’t Barrage the Farage” is a phrase often used in threads dedicated to Nigel Farage and UKIP on 4chan. A search on archive.moe, a site that achives 4chan threads, reveals more than 10 pages of results.^[14]

UKIP Will Make Anime Real

”UKIP Will Make Anime Real” is a satirical phrase stating that one of UKIPs policies is to make anime real. The phrase is often photoshoped into fake election posters from UKIP.

Search interests

External References