Ukip win piles pressure on main parties

British prime minister David Cameron’s Conservatives lost a second parliamentary seat to the anti-EU Ukip, an embarrassing defeat heralding a possible fragmentation of Britain’s two-party system in next year’s national election.

With distrust of mainstream parties and anxiety about immigration rising, Ukip, the UK Independence Party, overturned a majority of almost 10,000 to beat Cameron’s party in a special election in the southeast constituency of Rochester and Strood six months before an unusually close-run national vote.

Ukip, which favours an immediate British exit from the EU and sharply lower immigration, won the contest despite Cameron ordering his party to do everything it could to hold the seat and visiting himself five times.