The populist UKIP's achievement in confounding expectations and winning 25 per cent of the vote falls into an anti-establishment pattern seen with the rise of the US Tea Party, the maverick Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement in Italy, Golden Dawn and Syriza in Greece and similar parties in The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland and even Germany, where the upstart Alternative fur Deutschland is on 27 per cent in opinion polls. The common theme is disenchantment with mainstream parties and a feeling of helplessness and, in Europe, over the intrusive power of Brussels, the eurozone crisis and the economic and social effects of immigration.
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