The initial reports from the UK’s local elections yesterday were certainly encouraging for the UK Independence Party:
Britain’s populist United Kingdom Independence Party made sweeping gains in local elections and finished second in a parliamentary by-election, according to results announced Friday, shaking mainstream political parties, consolidating its position as an emerging political force and claiming a “sea change” in national life.
Once scorned by Prime Minister David Cameron as “a bunch of fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists,” the party, which wants Britain to leave the European Union and strictly control immigration, gained about a quarter of the vote in a series of elections in different areas of the country on Thursday, according to an initial count. The outcome represented the party’s fourth electoral advance in six months.
“We have been abused by everybody, the entire establishment,” Nigel Farage, the Independence Party leader, told the BBC, “and now they are shocked and stunned that we are getting over 25 percent of the vote everywhere we stand across the country. This is a real sea change in British politics.”
A government minister, Kenneth Clarke, had also dismissed party members as “clowns,” prompting Mr. Farage, in a string of TV and radio interviews, to parry with, “Send in the clowns.”
