|
The UK Independence Party is a British political party, founded in 1993. ==Founding and early years== UKIP was founded in 1993 by Alan Sked and other members of the cross-party Anti-Federalist League, a political party set up in November 1991 with the aim of fielding candidates opposed to the Maastricht Treaty. The nascent party's primary objective was withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. It attracted a few members of the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party, which was split on the European question after the pound was forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992 and the struggle over ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. UKIP candidates stood in the 1997 general election, but were overshadowed by James Goldsmith's Referendum Party. (The Referendum Party contested 547 seats. In the 165 seats contested by both, the Referendum Party beat UKIP in all but two - Romsey and Glasgow Anniesland, the latter by just two votes.)〔Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, ''Revolt on the Right'', p30 and p56. Routledge (2014)〕 After the election, Sked resigned from the leadership and left the party because, he said, it contained members who "are racist and have been infected by the far-right" and was "doomed to remain on the political fringes". However, Goldsmith died soon after the election and the Referendum Party was dissolved, with a resulting influx of new UKIP supporters. The leadership election was won by the millionaire businessman Michael Holmes, and in the 1999 elections to the European Parliament UKIP gained three seats and 7% of the vote. In that election, Nigel Farage (South East England), Jeffrey Titford (East of England) and Michael Holmes (South West England) were elected. Over the following months there was a power struggle between Holmes and the party's National Executive Committee (NEC). This was partly due to Holmes making a speech perceived as calling for greater powers for the European Parliament against the European Commission. Ordinary party members forced the resignation of both Holmes and the entire NEC, and Jeffrey Titford was subsequently elected leader. After Holmes resigned from the party itself in March 2000, there was a legal battle when he tried to continue as an independent MEP until he resigned from the European Parliament in December 2002. Holmes was then replaced by Graham Booth, the second candidate on the UKIP list in South West England. UKIP put up candidates in more than 420 seats in the 2001 general election, attaining 1.5% of the vote and failing to win any representation at Westminster. It also failed to break through in the elections to the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly, despite those elections being held under proportional representation. In 2002, Titford stood down as party leader, but continued to sit as a UKIP MEP. He was replaced as leader by Roger Knapman. In 2004 UKIP reorganised itself nationally as a private company limited by guarantee, with the legal name of United Kingdom Independence Party Limited, though branches remained as unincorporated associations. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of the UK Independence Party」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|