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.