He founded the Anti-Federalist League (in order to oppose the Maastricht Treaty) and its successor the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

He is Professor Emeritus of International History at the London School of Economics and has stood as a candidate in several parliamentary elections.

This was because in November 1991 he had founded the Anti-Federalist League (AFL), an anti-EC political party that ran candidates, including Sked, in the 1992 general election, when he contested Bath.

In 1993, Sked stood in two parliamentary by-elections: one at Newbury, where he shared a platform with Enoch Powell, who spoke in his support, and a second, soon afterward, at Christchurch.

A few days before the 2004 election to the European Parliament, in which UKIP increased its representation from three to twelve seats, he criticised his former party in a national newspaper, saying, "They are racist and have been infected by the far-right.

The clause about a lack of prejudices was abolished and all sorts of nasty statements were made against blacks, Muslims and gays.

The party itself has deliquesced into a cult around Farage, whose electoral failure in 2015 has made him an object of scorn in the media and prompted his financial backers to desert him.

Farage has become a convenient figure with which to frighten moderate voters about the consequences of fulfilling my party’s original mission—withdrawal from the European Union.