Insurgent populist parties are now a familiar feature of the European political landscape, yet their rise is so recent and so sharp that it still has the power to shock the mainstream. In by-elections on October 9th the right-wing uk Independence Party (ukip), which wants to stop immigration and pull Britain out of the European Union, not only won its first parliamentary seat, which it took from the Conservative Party, but also nearly grabbed one from the Labour Party, which hitherto regarded ukip as the Tories' problem. Polls since the by-election have put the party anywhere from 13% to 25% of the vote nationally. Next month another by-election offers ukip the chance to grab another Tory seat.
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