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Dr Alan Sked (born 1947) is a senior lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics. He studied History at Glasgow, then Merton College, Oxford. One of his professors at Oxford was A. J. P. Taylor, who was a major influence on Sked. In particular, Sked's writings on Austria-Hungary owe much to Taylor.

He stood as a Liberal candidate in Paisley in the 1970 general election, but later rejected the party's pro-EU stance. He was associated with the Conservative-linked Bruges Group until the early 1990s, when he fell out with its leading members. He was the founder in 1991 of the Anti-Federalist League, an anti-EU pressure group in the United Kingdom, and the founder leader in 1993 of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). He resigned the leadership shortly after UKIP failed to make any impact in the 1997 general election, saying that the party was "doomed to remain on the political fringes," and that it was taking too much time away from his academic career.

Shortly before each subsequent national election (1999, 2001 and 2004) he published articles accusing UKIP of extremism and incompetence. A few days before the 2004 election to the European Parliament, in which UKIP increased their 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."^[1] He also went on record as saying, "UKIP is even less liberal than the BNP. Certainly, there is a symbiosis between elements of the parties,"^[2] and, "UKIP’s MEPs are a standing joke at Strasbourg, where their attendance record, even by the standards of most MEPs, is relatively poor and where, according to independent research by the European Studies centre at the London School of Economics, the three often vote in different ways on the same issue."^[2] He is also a keen squash player.

• Sked, A. & Cook, C. (eds.) (1976) Crisis and controversy: essays in honour of A.J.P. Taylor. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-18635-4.
• Sked, A. (1979) The survival of the Habsburg Empire: Radetzky, the imperial army and the class war, 1848. London: Longmans. ISBN 0-582-50711-1.
• Sked, A. (1987) Britain's decline: problems and perspectives. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-15084-6.
• Sked, A. & Cook, C. (1993) Post-war Britain: a political history (1945–1992). (4th ed.) Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-017912-7.
• Sked, A. (2001) The decline and fall of the Habsburg empire, 1815–1918. (2nd ed.) London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-35666-0.

1. ^ The People (6 June 2004)
2. ^ Sunday Telegraph (30 May 2004)

• Alan Sked page on the LSE website
• Interview with Alan Sked