As well as attracting many ex-BNP members, who then constituted a sizeable percentage of the English Democrats' electoral candidates, in 2015 the political party Veritas merged into it.

Ideologically committed to English nationalism, the party previously called for England to become an independent state, thus leaving the United Kingdom.

In 1998, in response to calls for the devolution of power to Scotland and Wales, Robin Tilbrook aimed at reforming the English National Party, which had ceased operating in 1981.

In December 2004, it was rumoured that Robert Kilroy-Silk, the former UKIP MEP had entered into negotiation to join the English Democrats.

[12] The party's most significant electoral success came when Peter Davies (a former UKIP and Reform UK member), its candidate for Mayor of Doncaster, was elected.

[15] One of its councillors, Mick Glynn, resigned the following day after the party's chairman, Tilbrook, launched a personal attack on Davies, thus reducing its number of elected representatives to two.

[19] The first person to stand as a candidate for the English Democrats was Gary Cowd, who stood in Rushmoor—West Heath Ward in North Hampshire[20] in a council by-election in May 2003.

[29] Garry Bushell, the former Sun journalist and current Daily Star Sunday TV critic, became the most high-profile candidate for the English Democrats, standing in the Greenwich and Woolwich constituency in London.

The English Democrats fielded Joanne Robinson as their candidate in the by-election forced by the resignation of former shadow home secretary David Davis from the House of Commons.

[citation needed] In the 2016 Batley and Spen by-election, the English Democrats received 4.8% of the votes, coming second to Labour's Tracy Brabin, when all of the other major parties did not stand out of respect for the murdered MP, Jo Cox.

[citation needed] The English Democrats stood candidates for the 2004 European Parliament election in five of the nine regions of England.

[citation needed] The party had an unexpected success when Peter Davies, its candidate for Mayor of Doncaster, was elected.

[citation needed] The two sitting English Democrat councillors on Calderdale and Blackburn with Darwen councils retired, and the party did not nominate any candidates to contest the seats.

The party fielded a candidate in the 3 March 2011 local by-election for the Walkden North ward of Salford City Council.

In the 2011 Welsh Assembly election, the Kent-based Steve Uncles was the candidate in Monmouth, in line with its view that Monmouthshire have English governance restored.

[59] In January 2008, he stepped down as candidate because of work commitments and Matt O'Connor, the founder of Fathers 4 Justice, was selected by the English Democrats in his place with his campaign expected to start on 14 February.

One week before the election, on 25 April, O'Connor told Vanessa Feltz and the BBC that he was dropping out of the Mayoral race, giving as his reasons the lack of support within the English Democrats on St George's Day and a lack of press coverage[61] as well as the party's co-operation with the far-right group England First.

[62] The English Democrats released a press statement on their website in response to his resignation voicing disappointment at his decision to quit the contest.

Results were: David Allen also contested the South Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner by-election in October 2014.

[71] Later that year, Markyate Parish councillor Simon Deacon defected from the British National Party, to the English Democrats, having been elected unopposed.

[73] The EDP lost one of its district councillors, Elliott Fountain, on 25 July 2013 after he failed to attend any meetings in six months.

In March 2017, Steven Uncles, the former regional chairman and candidate for the Kent Police and Crime Commissioner election, was imprisoned for seven months after he had completed County Council nomination forms using fake names such as "Anna Cleves" and "Rachelle Stevens", or real people who had not signed the relevant forms.

Since 2016, they propose creating a unified, devolved English parliament, within a federal UK, not an independent sovereign state.

It proposes fiscal devolution so that the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments become responsible for financing their own expenditure.

[79] In 2006, the party rejected suggestions that non-English MPs in the House of Commons should be barred from voting on England-specific matters, on the basis that this would lead to there being, in effect, two parliaments in the same building and that this would be problematic.

[80] From March 2014 to the 2015 general election, the party chairman, Robin Tilbrook, had suggested England should become an independent country.

[81] Temporarily rekindling its roots, his 2015 general election campaign launch was moved on from Traitors Gate (Tower of London), to the nearby Hung, Drawn and Quartered pub.

[85] On 17 November 2011, the chairman of the English Democrats, Robin Tilbrook, met Sergey Yerzunov, a member of the executive committee of the Russian right-wing group Russky Obraz.

[91] Brooker stood down at the 2007 local elections and Tibby was unsuccessful in seeking re-election for the English Democrats, coming third.

[93][94] Reform UK Party[95] was a small UKIP splinter group of those opposing Nigel Farage,[93][96] led by Harold Green from 2000 to 2004, when it merged with the English Democrats.