“Racist”, “sexist” and “unprofessional” are words that have recently been used to describe the UK Independence Party. It may be unfair to claim these commonly adopted terms are entirely true, but it would be equally naïve to dismiss them as completely erroneous. Professor Alan Sked, the founder of UKIP and professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science, earlier suggested that the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage used the ‘n-word’ to refer to black voters. Farage’s recent remarks about Romanians, implying that they were responsible for a crime wave in Britain and admitting that he would feel “uncomfortable” if they moved in next door has contributed to the Party’s ‘racist’ persona. Godfrey Bloom, the UKIP MEP who referred to women as “sluts” and the uncovering of Mujeeb ur Rehman Bhutto’s (previously UKIP’s Commonwealth Spokesman) criminal activities in Pakistan have also delivered a bitter blow towards the party’s image.

Despite the stigma attached to the right-wing nationalist party, a new question has arisen in the contemporary political world. Is UKIP a force to be reckoned with? The results of the 2014 local and European elections seemed to have rocked the road towards, in Nigel Farage’s words, a “political earthquake”. In the local elections, UKIP secured 17% of the vote and obtained 163 new councillors thus defeating the Liberal Democrats who under Nick Clegg, only secured 13% of the vote and lost a staggering 310 councillors. The European election acted as the biggest success for Nigel Farage as his party won 24 seats and attained 27.5% of the vote, which equates to over 4 million. This election drew extra attention for two reasons. Firstly, this was the first time in a century that either Labour or the Conservatives have failed to win a national election and secondly UKIP became the first ever party in history to win a national election without a single seat in Westminster.

And it doesn’t stop there. With former Tory MP Douglas Carswell being re-elected in his constituency of Clacton- this time representing UKIP and subsequently making history as the party’s first ever elected MP- this earthquake seems to be growing in force. Carswell pulled off arguably the biggest political stunt of the year by forcing the Tories to face a humiliating by-election defeat in which the defector won with a majority of 12,404 votes. The Eurosceptic party is also on course to win another by-election in Kent next month with another ex-Tory MP, Mark Reckless, leading the way.

UKIP, previously dismissed by the Conservatives and Labour as a threat has now begun to attract attention. David Cameron has started appealing to UKIP voters whilst Conservative backbenchers have even called for a pact with the more right-wing Farage in preparation for the next general election. A significant amount of UKIP’s 50,000 members are speculated to be disgruntled Conservatives, which implies that the growing nationalist party has the potential of splitting the Conservative Party’s vote making an outright majority seem increasingly like a dream for David Cameron in the next general election. UKIP’s rise has also caused anxiety amid fears the Tories may begin to lean more towards the right in order to bring back some of their disgruntled members as well as appeal to UKIP’s more loyal voters. UKIP supporters have accounted Cameron’s commitment to deliver an in/out EU referendum- that the Prime Minister said he would resign if he failed to deliver- to their party’s strong anti-European vibe.

At first glance, the UKIP earthquake would appear to be of a high magnitude. However, perhaps the quake is not as high up on the Richter scale as we might have first thought. Despite UKIP obtaining in excess of 150 seats in the 2014 local elections, the party fails to run a single council. Additionally, UKIP may have a majority of seats in Europe but, if the party’s wish of leaving the EU is achieved, their European seats will no longer be of any significance. After the European elections Nigel Farage boldly claimed the “UKIP fox is in the Westminster hen house”, for now he’s right, that fox is Douglas Carswell, but how much damage can a single fox cause before its chased away by an angry farmer? The true question of the UKIP threat can only clearly be exemplified in the upcoming general election.

Despite UKIP’s recent success, their growth has in many cases been overrated. To truly measure the potential threat of the party, more seats must be obtained in Westminster. Those still undecided about the potency of Farage and his party will be waiting for the next general election to answer this perplexing question. For now, however, although UKIP’s first quake caused Tory and Lib Dem casualties, it was merely a tremor… but that’s not to say the UKIP Earthquake is over.