Nigel Farage left the Conservative Party in 1992 after the Maastricht Treaty was signed by John Major's Conservative government. He was first elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 1999 and was re-elected in 2004 and 2009. In September 2006, he was elected to become the UKIP leader and was party leader during the 2009 European Parliament election where UKIP received the second highest number of votes after the Conservative Party.