‘Loonies and closet racists’ knock down Tories into third place in UK byelection

The British Conservative party has for the first time been pushed into third place in a by-election in the town of Eastleigh, by a party David Cameron dubbed “fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists.”

The UKIP (the UK Independence Party) strongly opposes immigration, and advocates for the UK to leave the European Union. The party has apparently gained credibility, at least in the Eastleigh midterm by-elections, which usually follow a vacancy arising in the House of Commons.

In the Eastleigh vote, the Lib Dem Party polled at 13,342 votes, UKIP at 11,571, the Conservatives at 10,559 and Labour at 4,088. UKIP took almost 28 percent of the vote, one of their best-ever results in a British parliamentary election.

“I think it’s unlikely we’re going to be the biggest party in Westminster in 2015 but what we could well do is catalyze some sort of realignment of British politics,” UKIP head Nigel Farage told RT. “It’s pretty clear to me that the Conservative Party is going through just about its deepest crisis in history. There are two distinct groups of the Tories who don’t agree with each other on virtually anything and I think if UKIP gets much stronger that it is today we could see something really new and really exciting in British politics.”

Voters’ voices seem to echo Farage’s remarks: some said they were “absolutely sick of mainstream politics; they’ve got nothing out of it except unemployment.”

One senior Conservative Party figure, former leadership candidate David Davis, warned before the vote that a "crisis" would follow should the defeat happen.

David Cameron acknowledged that the result was "disappointing" for his party, but insisted he was "confident" that the Tories would be able to win in the 2015 general election.

The result, which saw the Liberal Democrat Party take first place, could pile pressure on Cameron from lawmakers within his own party who worry he may not be able to lead them to victory in 2015, Reuters reported.