Talk Elections

UKIP are not doing too bad in Westminster polls at the moment. They would like to think they can be the UK's third party, but to that they need to win seats. I don't think they would get there on  their current polling of 7-9% of the national vote, but I am open to those with better local knowledge.

Here is a link to some number crunching on the matter.

http://poliquant.com/can-ukip-win-westminster-seats/ (http://poliquant.com/can-ukip-win-westminster-seats/)

Can UKIP win Westminster seats? Can they move still higher in the polls?

No.

Ok, but if the Greens can target one seat and win with far less national support than what UKIP is getting now, why can't UKIP?

The Greens have always had a strong base in Brighton Pavillion while UKIP are trying to be a national party. The swing needed to deliver a seat to UKIP is v. unlikely.

UKIP does not have a distinctive socio-economic demographic base. How many groups of local councillors (as opposed to individuals who function as essential independents) do they even have?

UKIP control the town council in Ramsey in Huntingdonshire, and also have all 3 of its district councillors and the county councillor. And they've had a few strong results in local elections in the area recently as well - the upcoming district by-election in nearby Earith may be worth keeping an eye on.

But as far as Westminster seats are concerned, North West Cambridgeshire is safely Conservative (and will be split up with the new boundaries if the initial proposals go ahead unchanged).

I personally think they should run Farage against Cameron in Witney, run a full-scale campaign there, and try to get the Labour candidate to withdraw.

Probably still won't win but it'll get media attention (Daily Mail might even endorse it if they're lucky), and more still if they can break 35% or so.

Of course, Labour would never withdraw its candidate for the sake of the UK Independence Party.

If they were smart they would.

Politicians aren't smart.

Explain.

They'd only look smart if UKIP ended up winning Witney. And they wouldn't.

Cameron's personal vote in Witney (as with any leader) would be beyond difficult to overcome, an exception being a politician like Clegg in Sheffs.

Every vote for UKIP is a vote taken from the Tories (or .7 of a vote or so), so Labour should try to get them as much publicity and popularity as possible.  I can't imagine that the uncharismatic, unpopular, unexciting and unintereresting Cameron has that much of a personal vote, and it's possible he's even a slight negative.

Perhaps in seats winnable for labour, yes, but the whole of UKIP really is to act as a force for the tory party to go further right (especially, of course, on Europe). So I don't see it as a win-win. And of course Cameron has a personal vote, party leaders always get a large vote simply because of that fact (well, in most jurisidictions).

As others have said there's no way Labour would stand down for UKIP.

If UKIP are going to win seats, I think they need to do what the Greens have done in Brighton: focus on an area, get councillors elected, put effort in for two or three general elections in a row, start producing some Lib Dem style dodgy bar charts to squeeze other parties, and if they chose their target well they might have a chance.  I'm inclined to think the best chance might be a reasonably safe Tory seat in a socially conservative but not very well off area.  Boston & Skegness, where they got nearly 10% in each of the last two elections, came to mind.

A byelection in a Tory seat in a bad area for Labour in the current political atmosphere might be another way.

Isn't that *also* good for Labour?  (Of course, most of the issues that UKIP pressures the Tories on were inexplicable "moderation" in the first place, as the "moderate" position is less popular than the "right-wing" position).

Only if you believe that what people really want is "Centrists". Which is nonsense. Only American journalists believe that.

Any vaguely familiar with the history of British politics over the last 40 years could tell you why labour wishing for a more right-wing tory party would not be a wise investment on their part.

That's what I just said...  Even without the presence of UKIP the Tories would win more votes by moving "right" on Europe/immigration/crime.  Of course, the pre-Falklands SDP surge, 1992, Blair, and Cleggmania all seem to suggest that Britons are in search of "centrists," but YMMV.

None of things suggest that Brits are in search of centrists. Cleggmania was a non-event in the end, Blair won in large part due to anti-tory fatigue, it is dubious to say that Major was more centrist than Kinnock in 1992 except that Major and the tories were more familiar and the Pre-Falkands SDP surge had more to do with the fact that Margaret Thatcher and the Tories had spend 3 years destroying Britain's industrial base (1982 was pretty much the nadir of the late 1970s-1980s global recession) and Labour were an organizational mess. But whatever.

I'm not sure whether the Tories would win more votes if they moved to the right, especially as they are very much to the right on everything already. But whatever..

UKIP are having difficulty winning themselves many seats on local authorities, which says a lot. And they've disintegrated in one of the few areas where they had made serious progress on that front (Newcastle under Lyme). Unless you can do that then it's kind of hard to actually win yourself a seat at Westminster.
 
Saying that, however...

If there were to be a by-election in a Coalition seat where Labour tends to poll 10% in a really, really good year, then, well, stranger things have happened. Trouble is, UKIP are much more offensive than the LibDems/Alliance/Liberals were back when they were the default option in such situations.

Absolutely not. That would just shift the entire body politic to the right.

In the short to medium term, UKIP cannot usurp the Conservatives as the party of the right in the UK, it can only split the right of centre vote.

I doubt that UKIP can pull the Tories right as it took so much poltiical effort for the Tories to occupy at least come of the centre ground today, they are not going to give it up lightly. Cameron didn't call UKIP "swivel eyed" for nothing.

A Conservative party that chased UKIP votes would find it hard to win 35% nationally.

So I don't think UKIP poses a long term threat to Labour by portending a rightward political spectrum shift as it does not have the pulling power to achieve it.