The party was founded in 1993, and they first won seats in the European Parliament in 1999. They won 3 seats in 1999, which was increased to 12 in 2004 and 13 in 2009. It is now 9. The party does not do well under Britain's 'First-past-the-post' system of elections and only has one seat in the British House of Commons, although they received 3.8 million votes (12.6% of the total vote) at the 2015 UK general election.