UKIP Wins First Commons District With Conservative Defector

The U.K. Independence Party, which wants Britain out of the European Union, showed the extent of its reach by winning its first elected parliamentary seat in southeast England and almost taking another in the northwest.

Douglas Carswell, who forced a special election in his coastal district of Clacton when he defected from the Conservatives to UKIP on Aug. 28, became the party’s first elected lawmaker, holding the seat with 60 percent of the vote, one of the biggest swings in British electoral history.