United Kingdom Independence Party - History - 2010 General Election

2010 General Election

UKIP fielded 572 candidates in the 2010 general election; its main target seat was Buckingham, Bercow's constituency. UKIP hoped for a hung parliament in which the Liberal Democrats would drive through proportional representation as a key demand to form a coalition government. Lord Pearson asked some prospective candidates to stand down in favour of Eurosceptic Conservative and Labour MPs. However, some refused to do so. This did not stop Lord Pearson from campaigning on behalf of the Conservative candidates stating that he was "putting country before party". These decisions drew some criticism from within the party from the likes of Michael Heaver of Young Independence.

On the morning of polling day, Farage was injured when a passenger in a light aircraft which crashed near Brackley, Northamptonshire.

In the election the party polled 3.1% of the vote (919,471 votes), but took no seats. This made it the party with the largest percentage of the popular vote to win no seats in the election. (In a fully proportional system, 3.1% of 649 seats would be just over 20 seats.)

In UKIP's key target of Buckingham, Farage obtained just 17% of the vote – despite Lord Tebbit and numerous senior Conservatives voicing support for him and a Conservative Home online survey putting Farage on 64% and Bercow on 25%. Thus he came third behind Bercow and the independent John Stevens (Buckinghamshire Campaign for Democracy), who had previously resigned from the Conservatives to found the Pro-Euro Conservative Party. UKIP was also third in three other constituencies: North Cornwall, North Devon and Torridge and West Devon. Farage's result was the best of all constituencies that the party contested in that election. The constituency of Boston and Skegness also achieved a large percentage of vote, the party's second best in terms of percentage.