Abstract

As part of a special issue devoted to anti-system parties this articles examines the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) which has been on the British political scene for about twenty years. After a short premise devoted to the concept of anti-system parties and, in particular, Giovanni Sartori's distinction between ideological and relational anti-system parties the essay examines the origins of UKIP and its transversal electorate (despite being dubbed as right-wing). The paper then goes on to analyse UKIP's triumph at the European Elections in 2014 and the alliance it subsequently brokered with another anti-system party: the Italian Five Star Movement. The essay ends by focusing on the salient elements of UKIP's general election manifesto and the reasons why "the system beat the anti-system party" at the polls in May 2015.