Anti-EU party wins first British parliament seat

Britain’s anti-EU UK Independence Party won its first elected seat in parliament on Friday, highlighting the threat it poses to Prime Minister David Cameron seven months before a national election. UKIP’s candidate in Clacton, Douglas Carswell, defeated his Conservative opponent by a majority of more than 12,000 votes. Carswell defected from Cameron’s Conservatives in August, triggering Thursday’s vote. He said at the time that he had switched allegiance because he doubted the prime minister’s determination to reform the EU. The breakthrough, coupled with an unexpectedly strong UKIP showing in another by-election held on Thursday, showed UKIP’s ability to split the mainstream Conservative party’s vote and cloud over its re-election prospects in 2015. It also raised pressure on Cameron to become more Eurosceptic, three years before a referendum on European Union membership which he has promised to hold if re-elected.

To the electorate of Clacton, my gratitude, thank you for electing me. I resigned from parliament to face this election because I answer first, foremost, and last, to you.

UKIP’s Douglas Carswell

Tapping into a weariness with mainstream politics, UKIP won European elections in Britain in May, poached two of Cameron’s lawmakers in the last six weeks, and polling suggests it may win up to six of 650 seats in the British parliament in next year’s national election. Cameron, who once derided UKIP as a bunch of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists”, has said his is the only party able to deliver a referendum on EU membership. UKIP believes its success will begin to unravel a political establishment under which until recently Britain’s two main parties, the right-leaning Conservatives and left-leaning Labour, have taken turns to govern. But Conservative strategists said they are more concerned about the possibility of defeat in another special election. Triggered by another defection to UKIP, the election expected in November will be in Rochester, a part of southern England where voters are seen as less UKIP-friendly and where the UKIP candidate Mark Reckless, a former Conservative, is regarded as far more vulnerable than Carswell.

Ever since I was old enough to vote I have always voted Conservative. But this time I voted UKIP. This place needs a shake-up. The Conservatives have promised stuff before and not delivered. I don’t trust them any more.

Clacton voter David Ashton

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