The rise and fall of Ukip in Wales

Once upon a time the Welsh didn’t much care for the Kippers. In successive European elections (1999, 2004 and 2009), Scotland always produced Ukip’s worst result and Wales was the second or third worst. It was a similar story in Welsh Assembly elections: in 2003, 2007 and 2011, Ukip talked up their chances of winning seats on the regional list, only to fall well short in the end. Wales seemed barren territory for what looked like a very English party.

Then things started to change. In the 2014 European election, Ukip came within a whisker of actually topping the poll in Wales. This was followed in the 2015 general election by the party securing 13.6 percent of the vote there, easily pushing Plaid Cymru into fourth place. The contrast with Scotland was by now stark: every single Ukip candidate in Scotland lost their deposit, whereas in Wales Ukip stood in all forty seats and every one of their candidates retained their deposit.