Send In The Clowns

Send In The Clowns

Tonight will be a night of celebration for UKIP after a brilliant set of local election results, if the 2013 election is remembered it will be for one thing, the election UKIP made its mark on the domestic political scene.  Although they did not win the most seats, they had a healthy net gain of 139 new councillors and have started to lay roots in local politics, which will be essential if they intend to establish themselves as the fourth main party of British politics. 

The three main parties did not do so well the Lib Dems lost 124 seats and were wiped out in the South Shields by election.  Meanwhile Labour showed once and for all they are not the one nation party they claim to be, experts said Labour should be gaining 500 to 600 seats, that estimate has been revised to 350 seats but on all accounts they failed to hit the number of seats they should have won.  Labour had a gain of 291 councillors and gained control of 2 councils, publicly Labour said they would have been happy to win 200 but they know that, that sort of total would not be good enough for this stage of the election cycle.  As for the Conservatives, David Cameron will not be celebrating at the fact his party lost 335 councillors but many experts were expecting much worse with numbers like 600 being mentioned.   The Conservatives also lost control of 10 councils Labour only took control of two of these councils while the rest had no overall majority, one gold nugget amongst the Conservative results was that they held onto Staffordshire one of Labours big targets.  The Conservatives took control of Staffordshire for the first time since 1981 in 2009 and were expected to lose control of the council this time round, failing to regain Staffordshire is a glaring defeat for the Labour party.

There is one piece of bad news for UKIP though Sky news showed on Friday night that if the support in the local elections were the same across the country in 2015 UKIP would fail to win a seat due to the first past the post system.  Labour would have a slim majority of 12 on 331, the Conservatives would have 245 seat, the Lib Dems 48 seats and other parties on 26 seats.  However, Labour will not celebrate at this statistic, they know they are not doing nearly well enough at this stage of the electoral cycle and if the UKIP vote is eroded by 2015 (which it probably will be) then they are likely to remain in opposition for another term.

UKIP the UK’s Tea Party

UKIP the UK’s Tea Party

The Eastleigh by –election was a great success for UKIP and a dismal night for the Conservatives, 22% of Eastleigh’s Tory voters in 2010 voted UKIP in the by –election.  However, UKIP are not just stealing Tory votes, 19% of the 2010 Lib Dem vote turned to UKIP this time round, and 17% of Labours 2010 supporters decided UKIP was for them.  A poll showed that 55% of UKIP voters said that immigration was their key issue.  However immigration is not the only reason UKIP’s vote is growing.

UKIP is now a rallying point for voters who a sick of the three main parties who are seen as out of touch, scandals like the Iraq war and expenses have severely damaged the main party’s reputations.  Also inability to deal with mass immigration, housing and crime has helped UKIP’s cause,  UKIP are becoming more than a party of disgruntled former Tories it is becoming the party of those who are disillusioned with the main parties.  UKIP has also tapped into a new group of voter, people in their mid 20’s and 30’s who have never voted before, this group is turning out and are voting UKIP according to Nigel Farage.  If this is true this further supports the claim that UKIP are the party for people who are sick and left out of mainstream politics.

Although UKIP did fantastic in the by-election the general election could be very different to what we have seen in Eastleigh.  There are two main reasons for this, the first is that if UKIP are a protest vote for disillusioned Tories when it comes to 2015 there is a good chance they will vote Conservative again through fear of gifting seats to Labour or the Lib Dems.  This does not mean that the UKIP vote will collapse or that they won’t damage the Conservatives.  As seen in Eastleigh, those who don’t usually vote may vote UKIP and disillusioned floating voters may float towards UKIP and it is these floating voter which the Conservatives will need to win on top of their traditional base if they want a majority in 2015.  The second reason UKIP may not do as well in 2015 is Lynton Crosby, he is the Conservative party’s Karl Rove and is nicknamed as the Wizard of Oz due to his electoral success in Australia.  He will be in charge of the Conservative party’s strategy in 2015, he will digest the Eastleigh result and will be drawing up a plan to take UKIP’s vote.  In other words, he will try to make the Conservatives look more in touch with the electorate in an attempt to steal UKIP votes, if he is successful with this then UKIP’s vote may collapse.  However just like the US Tea party UKIP are showing just how many of the people are angry with the mainstream parties and that means they may be a new power in UK politics.