Current Affairs

Local elections 2018: The far-right loses out, and which LGBT+ councillors have secured a seat?

May 04 2018
Written by Jasmine Andersson

People enjoy a lunchtime drink in the sunshine outside the Anglesea Arms, which is acting as a polling station in the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London on May 3, 2018, as local council elections take place across the capital. – Voters in England went to the polls Thursday to choose local councillors in the first electoral test for Prime Minister Theresa May since she lost her parliamentary majority last year. (Photo by Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP) (Photo credit should read DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images)

UKIP has lost all of its 92 seats while Anne-Marie Waters’ For Britain party came last in nearly every seat it contended in the local elections on Thursday.

The UK Independence Party, which is currently led by Gerard Batten – a man who called same-sex marriage a “nightmare” – has lost the vast majority of its seats in the vote.

UKIP had lost 92 out of its 540 seats by Friday morning as the results came in, reported The i.

Rosettes are pictured at the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) conference (Carl Court/Getty)

This might not come as a surprise because the anti-EU far-right party has changed its leader five times in the past two years. There have also been questions over whether UKIP will survive in its current form.

And UKIP is not the only right-wing extremist party to experience a crushing defeat at the polls.

Far-right party For Britain, has done “really badly” in the few seats it contested, mainly coming last, reported The Guardian‘s Peter Walker.

“Niche far-right news. New party of ex-Ukip anti-Muslim obsessive Anne-Marie Waters, For Britain, has done *really* badly in the few seats it contested, mainly coming last. Some vote totals: Washington: 156, Leeds: 489, 238, 162, 168, 241, Hartlepool: 195, Sandwell: 135, 258, 256,” wrote the political correspondent.

The party, which is backed by singer Morrissey, runs on an anti-Muslim, anti-immigration agenda.