Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
It all depends on free movement. A BBC Comres poll has 18% of voters wanting to stay in the single market with free movement, 52% stay in the single market with limits on free movement and 26% leave the single market and end the rules on free movement completely. Amongst Leave voters the totals are 7%, 54% and 35% respectively. May is most likely to agree the second option eventually and that will be the basis of Brexit. That means 35% of Leave voters will be up for grabs for UKIP ie about 18% of the electorate ie 5% more than they won at the 2015 general election. Add in the 15% of Remain voters who following Brexit want to leave the single market and end free movement completely and you get to 25% of the electorate potentially being open to voting UKIP on a 'Leave the Single Market and end rules on free movement entirely' platform.
If Corbyn Labour falls to 27% as some polls are showing you could end up with a situation close to 1983 when Labour got 27% and the SDP 25%. It only takes 1 or 2% more and UKIP overtake Labour in voteshare. The LDs may win the odd council by-election but they are going nowhere in the polls. They might pick up the odd diehard EUphile who wants to stay in the single market with free movement as it is now but they are not as big a block as anti single market and anti free movement voters, coupled with the fact the LDs got 5% less than UKIP at the general election. http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BBC-News_Tables_Brexit-Expectations_11072016.pdf
I think you are assuming Brexit will be popular in 2020. Lib Dems are definitely picking up many of the left-of-centre Remain voters. The type of Brexit we get will be important but regardless of that I would be prepared to bet that the Lib Dems will poll more than UKIP at the next GE whatever happens.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
It all depends on free movement. A BBC Comres poll has 18% of voters wanting to stay in the single market with free movement, 52% stay in the single market with limits on free movement and 26% leave the single market and end the rules on free movement completely. Amongst Leave voters the totals are 7%, 54% and 35% respectively. May is most likely to agree the second option eventually and that will be the basis of Brexit. That means 35% of Leave voters will be up for grabs for UKIP ie about 18% of the electorate ie 5% more than they won at the 2015 general election. Add in the 15% of Remain voters who following Brexit want to leave the single market and end free movement completely and you get to 25% of the electorate potentially being open to voting UKIP on a 'Leave the Single Market and end rules on free movement entirely' platform.
If Corbyn Labour falls to 27% as some polls are showing you could end up with a situation close to 1983 when Labour got 27% and the SDP 25%. It only takes 1 or 2% more and UKIP overtake Labour in voteshare. The LDs may win the odd council by-election but they are going nowhere in the polls. They might pick up the odd diehard EUphile who wants to stay in the single market with free movement as it is now but they are not as big a block as anti single market and anti free movement voters, coupled with the fact the LDs got 5% less than UKIP at the general election. http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BBC-News_Tables_Brexit-Expectations_11072016.pdf
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
Should be good if we have a referendum on EU membership :-)
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
26% of the electorate wants no free movement at all and Britain to leave the single market completely. Those voters are easy targets for UKIP. They will have voted for Leave and will want a complete divorce from the EU and an end to immigration to be delivered, if it is not they may well vote UKIP in protest. The Brexit negotiations and their aftermath will keep UKIP centre stage and Wolfe or whoever leads UKIP will demand a complete end to free movement week in and week out in the media and will cry 'betrayal' if May fails to deliver it. Yes, they will promise a bit more money for the NHS and pensioners here and there but immigration and an anti free movement message will be the basis of their platform at the next general election.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
It all depends on free movement. A BBC Comres poll has 18% of voters wanting to stay in the single market with free movement, 52% stay in the single market with limits on free movement and 26% leave the single market and end the rules on free movement completely. Amongst Leave voters the totals are 7%, 54% and 35% respectively. May is most likely to agree the second option eventually and that will be the basis of Brexit. That means 35% of Leave voters will be up for grabs for UKIP ie about 18% of the electorate ie 5% more than they won at the 2015 general election. Add in the 15% of Remain voters who following Brexit want to leave the single market and end free movement completely and you get to 25% of the electorate potentially being open to voting UKIP on a 'Leave the Single Market and end rules on free movement entirely' platform.
If Corbyn Labour falls to 27% as some polls are showing you could end up with a situation close to 1983 when Labour got 27% and the SDP 25%. It only takes 1 or 2% more and UKIP overtake Labour in voteshare. The LDs may win the odd council by-election but they are going nowhere in the polls. They might pick up the odd diehard EUphile who wants to stay in the single market with free movement as it is now but they are not as big a block as anti single market and anti free movement voters, coupled with the fact the LDs got 5% less than UKIP at the general election. http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BBC-News_Tables_Brexit-Expectations_11072016.pdf
I think you are assuming Brexit will be popular in 2020. Lib Dems are definitely picking up many of the left-of-centre Remain voters. The type of Brexit we get will be important but regardless of that I would be prepared to bet that the Lib Dems will poll more than UKIP at the next GE whatever happens.
The LDs will only poll more than UKIP if May takes the UK out of the single market and ends free movement completely, which she won't as only a minority of the electorate wants that and she knows the economic damage it will cause. Hence Brexit will be a fudge ie we stay in the single market with some free movement controls which will mean Brexit will not affect growth much and will still be relatively popular overall in 2020. However for diehard Leavers full Brexit will not have been delivered, hence they will vote UKIP in protest
.... Woolfe would represent a real threat to Labour. He will be able to cut through in ways that Farage never could.
Woolfe comes across well and is much better than Corbyn and probably is better than Farron. Key is whether Woolfe has the Leadership qualities of being able to pick the right people, direct them and delegate. All of which were Farage's failings.
.... Woolfe would represent a real threat to Labour. He will be able to cut through in ways that Farage never could.
Woolfe comes across well and is much better than Corbyn and probably is better than Farron. Key is whether Woolfe has the Leadership qualities of being able to pick the right people, direct them and delegate. All of which were Farage's failings.
Good morning all.
I follow the leading kippers on Twitter. Their modus vivendi is fighting like ferrets in a sack. I can't see it changing in the short term.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
I have spent a few days pondering the likelihood of Labour finishing closer to third than first in percentage terms and wonder if there will be a betting market in it.
You Gov: Labour are -12 from first, +15 from third ICM: Labour are -16 from first, +14 from third
Opinium's re-weightings turned an 11 point deficit into 6 points from raw data, compared to a 13 point lead on third.
Ipsos' comedy 55% leftist bloc needs no consideration.
Woolfe would represent a real threat to Labour. He will be able to cut through in ways that Farage never could.
Very possible the real story of the 2020 election if Corbyn is leader of Labour and Woolfe of UKIP like 1983 will not be who will win but whether Labour can hold second place in terms of voteshare. Then the threat was from the SDP and now it is UKIP
True. Labour's 27/29% looks IMHO very soft. There is also the possibility of UKIP gaining a defection from Labour MPs. Not many but 1 or 2 are possible if Woolfe shifts UKIP into a pro nationalist economic policy with state ownership of railways etc.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
It all depends on free movement. A BBC Comres poll has 18% of voters wanting to stay in the single market with free movement, 52% stay in the single market with limits on free movement and 26% leave the single market and end the rules on free movement completely. Amongst Leave voters the totals are 7%, 54% and 35% respectively. May is most likely to agree the second option eventually and that will be the basis of Brexit. That means 35% of Leave voters will be up for grabs for UKIP ie about 18% of the electorate ie 5% more than they won at the 2015 general election. Add in the 15% of Remain voters who following Brexit want to leave the single market and end free movement completely and you get to 25% of the electorate potentially being open to voting UKIP on a 'Leave the Single Market and end rules on free movement entirely' platform.
If Corbyn Labour falls to 27% as some polls are showing you could end up with a situation close to 1983 when Labour got 27% and the SDP 25%. It only takes 1 or 2% more and UKIP overtake Labour in voteshare. The LDs may win the odd council by-election but they are going nowhere in the polls. They might pick up the odd diehard EUphile who wants to stay in the single market with free movement as it is now but they are not as big a block as anti single market and anti free movement voters, coupled with the fact the LDs got 5% less than UKIP at the general election. http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/BBC-News_Tables_Brexit-Expectations_11072016.pdf
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Oh big difference! Either way the SDP were just 2% behind Labour. I am not suggesting under FPTP UKIP will end up with more MPs than Labour even if they get more votes but if they do get more votes than Labour then the dam will have been burst, it only takes a few percent more Labour voters to switch to UKIP and Labour seats will start falling to the purples like skittles!
Corbyn wants new laws to curb raids by SAS: Labour leader calls for 'loophole' which allows special forces to be deployed on secret missions to be shut down
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I have spent a few days pondering the likelihood of Labour finishing closer to third than first in percentage terms and wonder if there will be a betting market in it.
You Gov: Labour are -12 from first, +15 from third ICM: Labour are -16 from first, +14 from third
Opinium's re-weightings turned an 11 point deficit into 6 points from raw data, compared to a 13 point lead on third.
Ipsos' comedy 55% leftist bloc needs no consideration.
Woolfe would represent a real threat to Labour. He will be able to cut through in ways that Farage never could.
Very possible the real story of the 2020 election if Corbyn is leader of Labour and Woolfe of UKIP like 1983 will not be who will win but whether Labour can hold second place in terms of voteshare. Then the threat was from the SDP and now it is UKIP
True. Labour's 27/29% looks IMHO very soft. There is also the possibility of UKIP gaining a defection from Labour MPs. Not many but 1 or 2 are possible if Woolfe shifts UKIP into a pro nationalist economic policy with state ownership of railways etc.
Thank you for this. Atleast there are some sensible left wingers er, left!
A very good observation og how the cenre right win working class and lower middle class votes. Although I think it is completley legtimate strategy for the Centr-right to do at the last election I did vote Tory partly to stop a Labour-SNP stitch up of England and going on how New Labour acted before my fears are well founded.
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
Brexit will keep them live throughout the Parliament.
They have functioned very successfully as an electoral pressure group for the last few years and they will be the force that will be there to make sure the Tories 'keep it real' on Brexit.
Their template is the SNP who have soaked up some votes to enable them to act as a Scotland's lobbyists without going the whole hog on independence.
A fair proportion of the electorate seem increasingly promiscuous, choosing their electoral partners according to how they feel at that moment without going all-in on full blown support.
I expect UKIP to win very big at Euros 2019 if Brexit has not reached a conclusion.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Oh big difference! Either way the SDP were just 2% behind Labour. I am not suggesting under FPTP UKIP will end up with more MPs than Labour even if they get more votes but if they do get more votes than Labour then the dam will have been burst, it only takes a few percent more Labour voters to switch to UKIP and Labour seats will start falling to the purples like skittles!
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
Anyone who claims safe seats are safe should look at Scotland.
SOs point that the lack of EU elections deny UKIP a platform is significant.
Not necessarily, the county council elections are next year and UKIP won 20% in the 2013 county council elections, just 1% behind Labour who won 21% of the votes cast
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
As many of us on the Remain side arguing, the drivers behind the Leave victory were driven primarily by the challenges of globalisation which won't be resolved by any sane implementation of Brexit. As such there will still be plenty of people looking to cast a protest vote against the modern world and UKIP should be able to exploit this.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
As many of us on the Remain side arguing, the drivers behind the Leave victory were driven primarily by the challenges of globalisation which won't be resolved by any sane implementation of Brexit. As such there will still be plenty of people looking to cast a protest vote against the modern world and UKIP should be able to exploit this.
The LEEAvers have also acknowledged this - cleverly not before referendum day though They were happy to ask people to take back control, before telling them that actually no-one ought to take any control, but thanks for leaving the EU for us so we can make more money
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
What odds would you give that UKIP are more than 10% behind Labour in the popular vote at the next general election?
Anyone who claims safe seats are safe should look at Scotland.
SOs point that the lack of EU elections deny UKIP a platform is significant.
Not necessarily, the county council elections are next year and UKIP won 20% in the 2013 county council elections, just 1% behind Labour who won 21% of the votes cast
Local by election results are strongly suggesting that UKIP will lose many of their 2013 gains.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
I think you and Mr. Observer have this about right. UKIP was set up to get the UK out of the EU, that is now going to happen. Its reason for being is over. If it is going to survive as a political party it will have to re-think its purpose and then devise policies to match.
Whether it wants to do such a thing or is even capable of doing it, I don't know. If I were forced to put money on it I'd say that UKIP will fade away, its job done.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Oh big difference! Either way the SDP were just 2% behind Labour. I am not suggesting under FPTP UKIP will end up with more MPs than Labour even if they get more votes but if they do get more votes than Labour then the dam will have been burst, it only takes a few percent more Labour voters to switch to UKIP and Labour seats will start falling to the purples like skittles!
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
You may be right but who knows, once the SDP-Alliance had become the main opposition in voteshare Jenkins would have stayed on as SDP leader and been a more effective opposition leader than Kinnock and would have claimed the moral right to be the official opposition leader.
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
Brexit will keep them live throughout the Parliament.
They have functioned very successfully as an electoral pressure group for the last few years and they will be the force that will be there to make sure the Tories 'keep it real' on Brexit.
Their template is the SNP who have soaked up some votes to enable them to act as a Scotland's lobbyists without going the whole hog on independence.
A fair proportion of the electorate seem increasingly promiscuous, choosing their electoral partners according to how they feel at that moment without going all-in on full blown support.
I expect UKIP to win very big at Euros 2019 if Brexit has not reached a conclusion.
The SNP made a conscious decision to move leftwards and also worked very hard at local level. They were and are extremely disciplined. Crucially, they have not yet got what they are after.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
I think the issue here isn't what people say they want, but how strongly they want it. We know from polls going way back that most people when asked were anti-EU, but also that few of them saw it was the priority issue. I suspect now that we are leaving, the number of people obsessed with the detail will be even smaller.
So, whilst I agree that UKIP won't die and there will be a market in people disaffected with the eventual flavour of Brexit, the longer term challenge for UKIP is whether it can broaden out into a wider political platform. Labour's turmoil offers a potential short term pay off. However, all my experience of UKIP is that its membership tends to the elderly, is largely inactive, and often somewhat eccentric. So I am not convinced it is going to break through, myself.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
What odds would you give that UKIP are more than 10% behind Labour in the popular vote at the next general election?
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
Brexit will keep them live throughout the Parliament.
They have functioned very successfully as an electoral pressure group for the last few years and they will be the force that will be there to make sure the Tories 'keep it real' on Brexit.
Their template is the SNP who have soaked up some votes to enable them to act as a Scotland's lobbyists without going the whole hog on independence.
A fair proportion of the electorate seem increasingly promiscuous, choosing their electoral partners according to how they feel at that moment without going all-in on full blown support.
I expect UKIP to win very big at Euros 2019 if Brexit has not reached a conclusion.
The SNP made a conscious decision to move leftwards and also worked very hard at local level. They were and are extremely disciplined. Crucially, they have not yet got what they are after.
Do you think they would or should fold if Scotland were to become independent? Would there still be Con and Lab parties trying to rebuild the union?
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
As many of us on the Remain side arguing, the drivers behind the Leave victory were driven primarily by the challenges of globalisation which won't be resolved by any sane implementation of Brexit. As such there will still be plenty of people looking to cast a protest vote against the modern world and UKIP should be able to exploit this.
Anyone who claims safe seats are safe should look at Scotland.
SOs point that the lack of EU elections deny UKIP a platform is significant.
Not necessarily, the county council elections are next year and UKIP won 20% in the 2013 county council elections, just 1% behind Labour who won 21% of the votes cast
Local by election results are strongly suggesting that UKIP will lose many of their 2013 gains.
If we went on local by election results William Hague and Ed Miliband would both have won the 2001 and 2015 elections by landslides! Brexit has also not been implemented yet, when it starts to be next year and some free movement is retained UKIP will clearly be able to exploit that
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
What odds would you give that UKIP are more than 10% behind Labour in the popular vote at the next general election?
The SNP made a conscious decision to move leftwards and also worked very hard at local level. They were and are extremely disciplined. Crucially, they have not yet got what they are after.
That's true, but we've yet to see that UKIP have fully achieved their aims.
They have certainly progressed further than the SNP managed by winning a referendum but the terms of Brexit remain critical.
Continuing free movement that allows a plumber from Warsaw to compete with a plumber in Walsall is not what many voted for. Nor are restrictive trade agreements with the EU that result in a customs union with an external border.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
I think you and Mr. Observer have this about right. UKIP was set up to get the UK out of the EU, that is now going to happen. Its reason for being is over. If it is going to survive as a political party it will have to re-think its purpose and then devise policies to match.
Whether it wants to do such a thing or is even capable of doing it, I don't know. If I were forced to put money on it I'd say that UKIP will fade away, its job done.
UKIP's job will now be to push an end to free movement, ensuring 'Brexit really does mean Brexit', instead Brexit will almost certainly be a fudge, leaving UKIP pushing an anti immigration agenda
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
What odds would you give that UKIP are more than 10% behind Labour in the popular vote at the next general election?
2-1
£50?
I am not betting anything until the terms of Brexit are achieved, if May agrees a complete end to free movement then in that scenario UKIP will wither away. I think that is unlikely and she will agree controlled free movement but we will have to wait and see
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
What odds would you give that UKIP are more than 10% behind Labour in the popular vote at the next general election?
2-1
£50?
I am not betting anything until the terms of Brexit are achieved, if May agrees a complete end to free movement then in that scenario UKIP will wither away. I think that is unlikely and she will agree controlled free movement but we will have to wait and see
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
I think you and Mr. Observer have this about right. UKIP was set up to get the UK out of the EU, that is now going to happen. Its reason for being is over. If it is going to survive as a political party it will have to re-think its purpose and then devise policies to match.
Whether it wants to do such a thing or is even capable of doing it, I don't know. If I were forced to put money on it I'd say that UKIP will fade away, its job done.
What happens to Ukip voters? If they had all voted EdM then Labour would have won almost 300 seats. If they had all voted DC then the Tories would have won over 400 seats.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
Should be good if we have a referendum on EU membership :-)
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The absence of any more Euro elections, which are under a form of PR, is a huge blow for UKIP. They have done well in PR elections such as the Euros and Welsh Assembly and not well in FPTP elections. With most elections from now on bringing little return for UKIP it's voters will become disenchanted.
The SNP made a conscious decision to move leftwards and also worked very hard at local level. They were and are extremely disciplined. Crucially, they have not yet got what they are after.
That's true, but we've yet to see that UKIP have fully achieved their aims.
They have certainly progressed further than the SNP managed by winning a referendum but the terms of Brexit remain critical.
Continuing free movement that allows a plumber from Warsaw to compete with a plumber in Walsall is not what many voted for. Nor are restrictive trade agreements with the EU that result in a customs union with an external border.
Indeed, UKIP have only won half the battle so far, a complete victory for them still has to be fought for
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
Look at the figures I posted earlier, 26% of the electorate want no free movement and no access to the single market, they will almost certainly not get what they want. Now while that is not going to match the 45-50% the SNP now get nonetheless it is a very significant share of voters for UKIP to target and would take them very close to the 27-29% Corbyn Labour is now polling
What odds would you give that UKIP are more than 10% behind Labour in the popular vote at the next general election?
2-1
£50?
I am not betting anything until the terms of Brexit are achieved, if May agrees a complete end to free movement then in that scenario UKIP will wither away. I think that is unlikely and she will agree controlled free movement but we will have to wait and see
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Oh big difference! Either way the SDP were just 2% behind Labour. I am not suggesting under FPTP UKIP will end up with more MPs than Labour even if they get more votes but if they do get more votes than Labour then the dam will have been burst, it only takes a few percent more Labour voters to switch to UKIP and Labour seats will start falling to the purples like skittles!
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
You may be right but who knows, once the SDP-Alliance had become the main opposition in voteshare Jenkins would have stayed on as SDP leader and been a more effective opposition leader than Kinnock and would have claimed the moral right to be the official opposition leader.
Jenkins could claim what he liked , but in practice he was not a great success as SDP leader - or indeed of the Alliance during the 1983 campaign. The famous Ettrick Bridge meeting just two weeks before Polling Day led to the Liberal leader - David Steel - being given the more prominent role in the latter part of the campaign. Jenkins also failed to shine in the Commons following his return post the 1982 Hillhead by election.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
I think you and Mr. Observer have this about right. UKIP was set up to get the UK out of the EU, that is now going to happen. Its reason for being is over. If it is going to survive as a political party it will have to re-think its purpose and then devise policies to match.
Whether it wants to do such a thing or is even capable of doing it, I don't know. If I were forced to put money on it I'd say that UKIP will fade away, its job done.
What happens to Ukip voters? If they had all voted EdM then Labour would have won almost 300 seats. If they had all voted DC then the Tories would have won over 400 seats.
I think UKIP voters came from all over the spectrum. I would expect them to return to their old parties or, in many cases, to the ever-growing do not vote block. There is probably a chance for the major parties to recruit some new voters but I doubt any will take it.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I think you are assuming Brexit will be popular in 2020. Lib Dems are definitely picking up many of the left-of-centre Remain voters. The type of Brexit we get will be important but regardless of that I would be prepared to bet that the Lib Dems will poll more than UKIP at the next GE whatever happens.
The LDs will only poll more than UKIP if May takes the UK out of the single market and ends free movement completely, which she won't as only a minority of the electorate wants that and she knows the economic damage it will cause. Hence Brexit will be a fudge ie we stay in the single market with some free movement controls which will mean Brexit will not affect growth much and will still be relatively popular overall in 2020. However for diehard Leavers full Brexit will not have been delivered, hence they will vote UKIP in protest
If we assume that a majority of voters were anti-EU before the referendum this has never translated into any depth of support for UKIP (other than at Euro elections obviously) .I can't therefore see voting UKIP after Brexit is going to be any more appealing to voters than it was pre-Brexit.
People took the opportunity to vote Brexit when it was offered and then largely on the promise of "goodies: for themselves once the immigrants left or stopped coming.
Post-Brexit I doubt there will be any sizeable increase in UKIP's vote unless they manager to articulate a clear policy niche for themselves. Simply being anti-immigration is not enough to get very far particularly with a party that has such a poor presence on the ground.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
Should be good if we have a referendum on EU membership :-)
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The absence of any more Euro elections, which are under a form of PR, is a huge blow for UKIP. They have done well in PR elections such as the Euros and Welsh Assembly and not well in FPTP elections. With most elections from now on bringing little return for UKIP it's voters will become disenchanted.
Not entirely true, UKIP won 20% at the 2013 local elections and 17% at the 2014 local elections, more than the 16.5% they won at the 2009 Euro elections, the 16% they won at the 2005 Euro elections and the 7% they won in the 1999 Euro elections.
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
I think you and Mr. Observer have this about right. UKIP was set up to get the UK out of the EU, that is now going to happen. Its reason for being is over. If it is going to survive as a political party it will have to re-think its purpose and then devise policies to match.
Whether it wants to do such a thing or is even capable of doing it, I don't know. If I were forced to put money on it I'd say that UKIP will fade away, its job done.
What happens to Ukip voters? If they had all voted EdM then Labour would have won almost 300 seats. If they had all voted DC then the Tories would have won over 400 seats.
I think UKIP voters came from all over the spectrum. I would expect them to return to their old parties or, in many cases, to the ever-growing do not vote block. There is probably a chance for the major parties to recruit some new voters but I doubt any will take it.
I think they did come from all over the spectrum but that faced with the decision of rejoining mainstream politics, there is only one party they would seriously consider now (if they are in England and Wales). That or DNV. Perhaps chalking Labour down about 25 seats before one even applies the Corbyn effect.
It has been something of a strange month since the referendum. We have all had to disentangle ourselves from the unconventional alliances we forged, whether for Remain or Leave and try to return to business as usual party politics. Meanwhile we have a new PM and government without a vote being cast, leadership elections in three other parties and discussions on PB and elsewhere regarding the future existence of Labour in its current form.
I have no regrets about voting Leave. Dare I say it, I think we Labour Leavers are the only group to have secured our goal. Remember our campaign to 'wipe the smile off their faces' (Dave & George). Mission accomplished. Achieving a more successful version of the Spanish Republic may take a little longer.
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
Brexit will keep them live throughout the Parliament.
They have functioned very successfully as an electoral pressure group for the last few years and they will be the force that will be there to make sure the Tories 'keep it real' on Brexit.
Their template is the SNP who have soaked up some votes to enable them to act as a Scotland's lobbyists without going the whole hog on independence.
A fair proportion of the electorate seem increasingly promiscuous, choosing their electoral partners according to how they feel at that moment without going all-in on full blown support.
I expect UKIP to win very big at Euros 2019 if Brexit has not reached a conclusion.
The SNP made a conscious decision to move leftwards and also worked very hard at local level. They were and are extremely disciplined. Crucially, they have not yet got what they are after.
Do you think they would or should fold if Scotland were to become independent? Would there still be Con and Lab parties trying to rebuild the union?
My guess is that the SNP would end up in the same position as Adolfo Suarez's UCD in Spain diring the transition to democracy. They'd win the first GE, lose ground in the second and become marginal by the third, with job done. I'd expect Labour to be in power in Scotland within in ten years of independence. But I am no expert, of course.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years. No decision on Heathrow. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government. Osborne and Gove out of government.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Oh big difference! Either way the SDP were just 2% behind Labour. I am not suggesting under FPTP UKIP will end up with more MPs than Labour even if they get more votes but if they do get more votes than Labour then the dam will have been burst, it only takes a few percent more Labour voters to switch to UKIP and Labour seats will start falling to the purples like skittles!
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
You may be right but who knows, once the SDP-Alliance had become the main opposition in voteshare Jenkins would have stayed on as SDP leader and been a more effective opposition leader than Kinnock and would have claimed the moral right to be the official opposition leader.
Jenkins could claim what he liked , but in practice he was not a great success as SDP leader - or indeed of the Alliance during the 1983 campaign. The famous Ettrick Bridge meeting just two weeks before Polling Day led to the Liberal leader - David Steel - being given the more prominent role in the latter part of the campaign. Jenkins also failed to shine in the Commons following his return post the 1982 Hillhead by election.
Jenkins won a higher share of the vote for a third party in 1983 along with Steel than any third party had won since 1923 and no third party has since bettered that share of the vote at a general election
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
UKIP will only go away if May delivers the hard Brexit the most passionate Leavers want, ie a complete end to free movement. If, as is more likely, she agrees free movement with controls those voters will use UKIP to express their frustration
I think that the numbers for that will be significantly smaller than they were the last time. The difference between UKIP and the SNP (which would certainly survive an independence vote) is that that the latter are a party of government. UKIP will struggle to remain relevant.
I think you and Mr. Observer have this about right. UKIP was set up to get the UK out of the EU, that is now going to happen. Its reason for being is over. If it is going to survive as a political party it will have to re-think its purpose and then devise policies to match.
Whether it wants to do such a thing or is even capable of doing it, I don't know. If I were forced to put money on it I'd say that UKIP will fade away, its job done.
What happens to Ukip voters? If they had all voted EdM then Labour would have won almost 300 seats. If they had all voted DC then the Tories would have won over 400 seats.
I think UKIP voters came from all over the spectrum. I would expect them to return to their old parties or, in many cases, to the ever-growing do not vote block. There is probably a chance for the major parties to recruit some new voters but I doubt any will take it.
If and when some free movement is agreed UKIP will hold their 13% won last May and add to it
We're all Bexiteers now. This has implications for people who think we should either be out of the EU or be in the EU, on the principle. It's all about damage limitation now. How can we extricate ourselves from the EU with the least damage possible. That's not something to get the emotive juices flowing.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Oh big difference! Either way the SDP were just 2% behind Labour. I am not suggesting under FPTP UKIP will end up with more MPs than Labour even if they get more votes but if they do get more votes than Labour then the dam will have been burst, it only takes a few percent more Labour voters to switch to UKIP and Labour seats will start falling to the purples like skittles!
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
You may be right but who knows, once the SDP-Alliance had become the main opposition in voteshare Jenkins would have stayed on as SDP leader and been a more effective opposition leader than Kinnock and would have claimed the moral right to be the official opposition leader.
Jenkins could claim what he liked , but in practice he was not a great success as SDP leader - or indeed of the Alliance during the 1983 campaign. The famous Ettrick Bridge meeting just two weeks before Polling Day led to the Liberal leader - David Steel - being given the more prominent role in the latter part of the campaign. Jenkins also failed to shine in the Commons following his return post the 1982 Hillhead by election.
Jenkins won a higher share of the vote for a third party in 1983 along with Steel than any third party had won since 1923 and no third party has since bettered that share of the vote at a general election
The Falklands war meant that the 1983 GE was unusual.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years. No decision on Heathrow. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government. Osborne and Gove out of government.
I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
Red meat for Tory Leavers and Tofu for Social Democrats. An interesting mix.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
You may be right but who knows, once the SDP-Alliance had become the main opposition in voteshare Jenkins would have stayed on as SDP leader and been a more effective opposition leader than Kinnock and would have claimed the moral right to be the official opposition leader.
Jenkins could claim what he liked , but in practice he was not a great success as SDP leader - or indeed of the Alliance during the 1983 campaign. The famous Ettrick Bridge meeting just two weeks before Polling Day led to the Liberal leader - David Steel - being given the more prominent role in the latter part of the campaign. Jenkins also failed to shine in the Commons following his return post the 1982 Hillhead by election.
Jenkins won a higher share of the vote for a third party in 1983 along with Steel than any third party had won since 1923 and no third party has since bettered that share of the vote at a general election
Yes but probably in spite of him rather than because of him. With hindsight it was judged a mistake not to have given David Steel the leading Alliance role for the entire campaign.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
Should be good if we have a referendum on EU membership :-)
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The absence of any more Euro elections, which are under a form of PR, is a huge blow for UKIP. They have done well in PR elections such as the Euros and Welsh Assembly and not well in FPTP elections. With most elections from now on bringing little return for UKIP it's voters will become disenchanted.
Not entirely true, UKIP won 20% at the 2013 local elections and 17% at the 2014 local elections, more than the 16.5% they won at the 2009 Euro elections, the 16% they won at the 2005 Euro elections and the 7% they won in the 1999 Euro elections.
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I think that you're backing up what I said. UKIP did win 22% in 1983 Council elections and got 147 councillors, the LibDems got 14% and won well over than twice as many seats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2013 They did win 13% at the GE and got one semi-detached MP.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
Should be good if we have a referendum on EU membership :-)
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The absence of any more Euro elections, which are under a form of PR, is a huge blow for UKIP. They have done well in PR elections such as the Euros and Welsh Assembly and not well in FPTP elections. With most elections from now on bringing little return for UKIP it's voters will become disenchanted.
Not entirely true, UKIP won 20% at the 2013 local elections and 17% at the 2014 local elections, more than the 16.5% they won at the 2009 Euro elections, the 16% they won at the 2005 Euro elections and the 7% they won in the 1999 Euro elections.
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I think that you're backing up what I said. UKIP did win 22% in 1983 Council elections and got 147 councillors, the LibDems got 14% and won well over than twice as many seats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2013 They did win 13% at the GE and got one semi-detached MP.
147 councillors is nothing to be sniffed at and in local elections voteshare is always reported, often even more so than the number of councillors actually won
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
Should be good if we have a referendum on EU membership :-)
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The absence of any more Euro elections, which are under a form of PR, is a huge blow for UKIP. They have done well in PR elections such as the Euros and Welsh Assembly and not well in FPTP elections. With most elections from now on bringing little return for UKIP it's voters will become disenchanted.
Not entirely true, UKIP won 20% at the 2013 local elections and 17% at the 2014 local elections, more than the 16.5% they won at the 2009 Euro elections, the 16% they won at the 2005 Euro elections and the 7% they won in the 1999 Euro elections.
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I think that you're backing up what I said. UKIP did win 22% in 1983 Council elections and got 147 councillors, the LibDems got 14% and won well over than twice as many seats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2013 They did win 13% at the GE and got one semi-detached MP.
147 councillors is nothing to be sniffed at and in local elections voteshare is always reported, often even more so than the number of councillors actually won. (The 22% figure is projected national voteshare not the actual voteshare won in areas voting)
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
Actually the 1983 GB vote shares were 28.3% and 26.2% for Labour and the Alliance respectively. However, even had those figures been reversed Labor would have managed circa 200 MPs with the Alliance having no more than 35. Labour would easily have remained the official Opposition.
Oh big difference! Either way the SDP were just 2% behind Labour. I am not suggesting under FPTP UKIP will end up with more MPs than Labour even if they get more votes but if they do get more votes than Labour then the dam will have been burst, it only takes a few percent more Labour voters to switch to UKIP and Labour seats will start falling to the purples like skittles!
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
You may be right but who knows, once the SDP-Alliance had become the main opposition in voteshare Jenkins would have stayed on as SDP leader and been a more effective opposition leader than Kinnock and would have claimed the moral right to be the official opposition leader.
Jenkins could claim what he liked , bu.
Jenkins won a higher share of the vote for a third party in 1983 along with Steel than any third party had won since 1923 and no third party has since bettered that share of the vote at a general election
The Falklands war meant that the 1983 GE was unusual.
Only in terms of boosting the Tory voteshare not so much in terms of the split between Labour and the SDP
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
I don't believe that the course of history would have been very different had the Alliance - not the SDP who were only half the Alliance! - edged past Labour in the popular vote in 1983. Labour would still have recovered under Kinnock.
You may be right but who knows, once the SDP-Alliance had become the main opposition in voteshare Jenkins would have stayed on as SDP leader and been a more effective opposition leader than Kinnock and would have claimed the moral right to be the official opposition leader.
Jenkins could claim what he liked , but in practice he was not a great success as SDP leader - or indeed of the Alliance during the 1983 campaign. The famous Ettrick Bridge meeting just two weeks before Polling Day led to the Liberal leader - David Steel - being given the more prominent role in the latter part of the campaign. Jenkins also failed to shine in the Commons following his return post the 1982 Hillhead by election.
Jenkins won a higher share of the vote for a third party in 1983 along with Steel than any third party had won since 1923 and no third party has since bettered that share of the vote at a general election
Yes but probably in spite of him rather than because of him. With hindsight it was judged a mistake not to have given David Steel the leading Alliance role for the entire campaign.
Really? Spitting image lampooned Steel in the 80s, without Jenkins and the SDP the Liberals would not have won much more than the 13% Steel got in 1979
We're all Bexiteers now. This has implications for people who think we should either be out of the EU or be in the EU, on the principle. It's all about damage limitation now. How can we extricate ourselves from the EU with the least damage possible. That's not something to get the emotive juices flowing.
Free movement and control of immigration though certainly does get some voters' emotive juices flowing
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The absence of any more Euro elections, which are under a form of PR, is a huge blow for UKIP. They have done well in PR elections such as the Euros and Welsh Assembly and not well in FPTP elections. With most elections from now on bringing little return for UKIP it's voters will become disenchanted.
Not entirely true, UKIP won 20% at the 2013 local elections and 17% at the 2014 local elections, more than the 16.5% they won at the 2009 Euro elections, the 16% they won at the 2005 Euro elections and the 7% they won in the 1999 Euro elections.
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I think that you're backing up what I said. UKIP did win 22% in 1983 Council elections and got 147 councillors, the LibDems got 14% and won well over than twice as many seats. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2013 They did win 13% at the GE and got one semi-detached MP.
147 councillors is nothing to be sniffed at and in local elections voteshare is always reported, often even more so than the number of councillors actually won. (The 22% figure is projected national voteshare not the actual voteshare won in areas voting)
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years. No decision on Heathrow. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government. Osborne and Gove out of government.
I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
Not the greatest of starts, but hopefully the next few months will improve matters.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
In a general election, voters in the north - and elsewhere - will need to hear a lot more.
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
I doubt it. UKIP didn't get close to that under Farage and they had a national stage then. There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The
Not entirely true, UKIP won 20% at the 2013 local elections and 17% at the 2014 local elections, more than the 16.5% they won at the 2009 Euro elections, the 16% they won at the 2005 Euro elections and the 7% they won in the 1999 Euro elections.
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I think that you're backing up what I said. UKIP did.
147 councillors is nothing to be sniffed at and in local elections voteshare is always reported, often even more so than the number of councillors actually won. (The 22% figure is projected national voteshare not the actual voteshare won in areas voting)
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
The Euro elections were just the vehicle for UKIP's rise not the cause of it. After all in 1999 (before the arrival of Eastern European migrants) they polled just 7% in the European elections, by 2014 after Eastern European migration and with rising Islamic terrorism they polled 27%. Unless freedom of movement is ended completed the cause of UKIP's rise, immigration, will still be there
Since May took power we have seen: ........................ I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years - disappointing that our civil service are so inept, but that is what we all have to deal with. No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship".. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions.. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good. Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
Time will obviously tell but, assuming UKIP has the sense to let him stand, SW looks an outstanding candidate to fulfil UKIP potential, whatever that is. I don't think UKIP is a busted flush, far from it given Labour's dash to desert its working class base.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years. No decision on Heathrow. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government. Osborne and Gove out of government.
I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
Not the greatest of starts, but hopefully the next few months will improve matters.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years. No decision on Heathrow. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government. Osborne and Gove out of government.
I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
Mr. L, getting rid of Osborne is a massive plus and his fiscal framework wasn't worth the paper it was written on. A nasty political chancellor, in the mould of Brown, that wasn't very good at his job and who spent too much time politicking and scheming at the expense of what he was being paid to do. His departure from the government benches is to be celebrated not mourned. The Conservative party and the governance of this country will be better for his return to the backbenches.
As for the rest of your list, I think we will cope OK, and hopefully the delay on Hinkley C will be the forerunner of cancelling the whole wretched project.
Thank you for this. Atleast there are some sensible left wingers er, left!
A very good observation og how the cenre right win working class and lower middle class votes. Although I think it is completley legtimate strategy for the Centr-right to do at the last election I did vote Tory partly to stop a Labour-SNP stitch up of England and going on how New Labour acted before my fears are well founded.
He has been banging this drum for some time now, and he is right. There are a number of other left wing commentators who are rebelling against Corbyn and his clique, but there are not enough of them to in any way ameliorate the tide of left wing bile pouring forth currently.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
I guess you could define "real" opposition to mean anything that suits you.
I think it far more likely that UKIP becomes an irrelevance after Brexit than the "real opposition"
Jenkins could claim what he liked , but in practice he was not a great success as SDP leader - or indeed of the Alliance during the 1983 campaign. The famous Ettrick Bridge meeting just two weeks before Polling Day led to the Liberal leader - David Steel - being given the more prominent role in the latter part of the campaign. Jenkins also failed to shine in the Commons following his return post the 1982 Hillhead by election.
Jenkins won a higher share of the vote for a third party in 1983 along with Steel than any third party had won since 1923 and no third party has since bettered that share of the vote at a general election
Yes but probably in spite of him rather than because of him. With hindsight it was judged a mistake not to have given David Steel the leading Alliance role for the entire campaign.
Really? Spitting image lampooned Steel in the 80s, without Jenkins and the SDP the Liberals would not have won much more than the 13% Steel got in 1979
Yes really! The Alliance was struggling prior to the Ettrick Bridge summit and only gained great momentum in the last ten days of the 1983 campaign - and indeed some eve of poll forecasts put them ahead of Labour. This sudden change in the Alliance campaign fortunes led many observers to the view that if Steel had been given the leading role earlier the Alliance would have come second in terms of the popular vote. The Spitting Image lampooning of Steel came later - in the 1983 - 87 Parliament when he was being compared with David Owen.
Since May took power we have seen: ........................ I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years - disappointing that our civil service are so inept, but that is what we all have to deal with. No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship".. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions.. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good. Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
Universal credit requires a direct link between HMRC's and DWP's systems (amongst others).. I also suspect based on freedom of information requests I have made over the years that HMRC's systems are no where near as good as they claim (On about 4 occasions recently I have asked for data that should be top level report information from existing systems that have been refused on cost grounds)....
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
Time will obviously tell but, assuming UKIP has the sense to let him stand, SW looks an outstanding candidate to fulfil UKIP potential, whatever that is. I don't think UKIP is a busted flush, far from it given Labour's dash to desert its working class base.
That's the other way of maintaining momentum - winning Parliamentary By-Elections. UKIP have never done that without a defecting MP. If they did win the disunited party aspect could scupper them - how do Carswell and Woolfe get on?
Since May took power we have seen: ........................ I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years - disappointing that our civil service are so inept, but that is what we all have to deal with. No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship".. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions.. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good. Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
Universal credit requires a direct link between HMRC's and DWP's systems (amongst others).. I also suspect based on freedom of information requests I have made over the years that HMRC's systems are no where near as good as they claim (On about 4 occasions recently I have asked for data that should be top level report information from existing systems that have been refused on cost grounds)....
This is clearly not an insignificant number - we must remember that it's *full* roll out that has been extended; UC will have a significant impact in the meantime.
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The
Not entirely true, UKIP won 20% at the 2013 local elections and 17% at the 2014 local elections, more than the 16.5% they won at the 2009 Euro elections, the 16% they won at the 2005 Euro elections and the 7% they won in the 1999 Euro elections.
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I think that you're backing up what I said. UKIP did.
147 councillors is nothing to be sniffed at and in local elections voteshare is always reported, often even more so than the number of councillors actually won. (The 22% figure is projected national voteshare not the actual voteshare won in areas voting)
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
The Euro elections were just the vehicle for UKIP's rise not the cause of it. After all in 1999 (before the arrival of Eastern European migrants) they polled just 7% in the European elections, by 2014 after Eastern European migration and with rising Islamic terrorism they polled 27%. Unless freedom of movement is ended completed the cause of UKIP's rise, immigration, will still be there
You're missing the point, they have one MP and far fewer councillors than their percentage result should give them. Without PR elections, such as the Euros, they will struggle to make an impact.
everyone keeps talking about a new centre left party to replace Labour but the tories are not real conservatives. I want to start a new Centre-rigtht party called "People FOR profit", it would be unashamedly pro business! Who's with me!
everyone keeps talking about a new centre left party to replace Labour but the tories are not real conservatives. I want to start a new Centre-rigtht party called "People FOR profit", it would be unashamedly pro business! Who's with me!
I've lost heart ever since the failure of my 'Logan's Run' party. It would have solved our welfare and demographic problems at a stroke.
The SNP made a conscious decision to move leftwards and also worked very hard at local level. They were and are extremely disciplined. Crucially, they have not yet got what they are after.
That's true, but we've yet to see that UKIP have fully achieved their aims.
They have certainly progressed further than the SNP managed by winning a referendum but the terms of Brexit remain critical.
Continuing free movement that allows a plumber from Warsaw to compete with a plumber in Walsall is not what many voted for. Nor are restrictive trade agreements with the EU that result in a customs union with an external border.
The problem with UKIP is the same as the problem for the Labour moderates. They are struggling to define what they are for. We will Brexit, and there is always scope for an anti-immigration nationalist party. Such parties get 10-20% support across other bits of Europe. With our MEPs days numbered, FPTP making MPs very difficult and little obvious for such a party to do in local government it is a difficult path to tread. I suspect that they will stagnate under any leader, becoming the puppets of their millionairre backers.
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
I'm pretty sure that whatever deal is reached on free movement will be more or less unintelligible certainly initially and probably for years.
No one will be sure what it will actually mean for the number of people coming to the UK (and don't forget we have a solid base of nearly 200,000 non- EU immigrants annually anyway).
I think on balance this will be good for UKIP as they will be able to spin the numbers as they are released. On the negative side for them you would really have to care about immigration to follow it so assiduously over the next decade (and you would need not to die in the interim).
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
Time will obviously tell but, assuming UKIP has the sense to let him stand, SW looks an outstanding candidate to fulfil UKIP potential, whatever that is. I don't think UKIP is a busted flush, far from it given Labour's dash to desert its working class base.
'That's the other way of maintaining momentum - winning Parliamentary By-Elections. UKIP have never done that without a defecting MP. If they did win the disunited party aspect could scupper them - how do Carswell and Woolfe get on?'
They came within 600 votes of winning Heywood and Middleton, if Woolfe is elected leader by the membership what he says goes, regardless of what Carswell thinks. Woolfe, running on an anti free movement platform could get UKIP up to 25% of the vote, Carswell, running on a relatively libertarian, not bothered that much about immigration platform would take UKIP back to about 5%
Wolfe looks a far more able leader than Corbyn and if Corbyn is reelected UKIP would be well placed to capitalise and push themselves as the 'real' opposition. Wolfe being a northerner, unlike Corbyn and May, could do particularly well there with a tough message on free movement and immigration
If some free movement is agreed that gives UKIP a sold base of working and lower middle-class Leave voters to target, up to 25% of the vote
There'll be no more Euro elections to help them now, so they'll struggle to stay centre stage. What they need is a long hard think about what they're for. A swing leftwards on economic and fiscal policy is key, but the leadership and members are mostly very dry.
I think that you've hit upon the central point. The
Not entirely true, UKIP won Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I think that you're backing up what I said. UKIP did.
147 councillors is nothing to be sniffed at and in local elections voteshare is always reported, often even more so than the number of councillors actually won. (The 22% figure is projected national voteshare not the actual voteshare won in areas voting)
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
The Euro elections were just the vehicle for UKIP's rise not the cause of it. After all in 1999 (before the
You're missing the point, they have one MP and far fewer councillors than their percentage result should give them. Without PR elections, such as the Euros, they will struggle to make an impact.
It is voteshare we are talking about and the more that goes up the higher UKIP's chances of winning more councillors and MPs under FPTP. The fact there are no Euro elections anymore is not that relevant, they only won 7% in the 1999 European elections after all and just 3 MEPs. If UKIP won 25% of the vote at the next general election on an anti free movement platform they would win at least 35 MPs, maybe more http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/ukip
Ha! Excellent to see you on here this afternoon, I expect now that it is getting towards Sunday Lunch time you cat has let you out of bed. Anyway, I wonder if I could ask a favour.
There is an article in the Telegraph this morning that is about hospitals apparently employing too many nurses. It mentions Leicester by name. Might I ask you, please, to cast your eye over the article and tell us what is really going on, in your experience?
everyone keeps talking about a new centre left party to replace Labour but the tories are not real conservatives. I want to start a new Centre-rigtht party called "People FOR profit", it would be unashamedly pro business! Who's with me!
About 5% of voters, mainly in central London and Surrey!
Since May took power we have seen: ........................ I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years - disappointing that our civil service are so inept, but that is what we all have to deal with. No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship".. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions.. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good. Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
The positive aspect of Brexit is that since the government has no idea what to do, and can't write a coherent real-world plan for fear of upsetting at least half the people who voted for it not to mention most of the people who didn't, there are all kinds of decisions - spending, trade, infrastructure, everything - that it just isn't able to make.
Historically Britain's most effective governments have been the ones that can't really do anything, and the most damaging the ones with a concrete plan and the ability to carry it out.
Since May took power we have seen: ........................ I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years - disappointing that our civil service are so inept, but that is what we all have to deal with. No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship".. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions.. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good. Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
The positive aspect of Brexit is that since the government has no idea what to do, and can't write a coherent real-world plan for fear of upsetting at least half the people who voted for it not to mention most of the people who didn't, there are all kinds of decisions - spending, trade, infrastructure, everything - that it just isn't able to make.
Historically Britain's most effective governments have been the ones that can't really do anything, and the most damaging the ones with a concrete plan and the ability to carry it out.
Ha! Excellent to see you on here this afternoon, I expect now that it is getting towards Sunday Lunch time you cat has let you out of bed. Anyway, I wonder if I could ask a favour.
There is an article in the Telegraph this morning that is about hospitals apparently employing too many nurses. It mentions Leicester by name. Might I ask you, please, to cast your eye over the article and tell us what is really going on, in your experience?
They came within 600 votes of winning Heywood and Middleton, if Woolfe is elected leader by the membership what he says goes, regardless of what Carswell thinks. Woolfe, running on an anti free movement platform could get UKIP up to 25% of the vote, Carswell, running on a relatively libertarian, not bothered that much about immigration platform would take UKIP back to about 5%
Most polling indicates that the EU per se is not a very salient issue in determining votes at a General Election. Post Brexit that is probably even more likely to be the case unless a real sense of 'betrayal' takes hold. To that extent UKIP has lost its core issue or raison d'etre - though it also attracted significant support based on immigration fears and as repository of 'a plague on all your houses ' protest vote. In the last Parliament the LibDems lost their place as the 'none of the above' option in England to UKIP and - to some extent - the Greens.There has been no evidence todate of a LibDem recovery at Parliamentary elections despite some successes at local by elections - nor is there any sign of the Greens advancing further. UKIP had a very disappointing result at the Oldham by election and polled just 12% at the local elections based on NEV.Effectively there are going to be three parties fishing for disaffected votes , and as such there has to be a good possibility that none of them will manage to break out in the way we have observed in earlier Parliaments.
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
Time will obviously tell but, assuming UKIP has the sense to let him stand, SW looks an outstanding candidate to fulfil UKIP potential, whatever that is. I don't think UKIP is a busted flush, far from it given Labour's dash to desert its working class base.
'That's the other way of maintaining momentum - winning Parliamentary By-Elections. UKIP have never done that without a defecting MP. If they did win the disunited party aspect could scupper them - how do Carswell and Woolfe get on?'
They came within 600 votes of winning Heywood and Middleton, if Woolfe is elected leader by the membership what he says goes, regardless of what Carswell thinks. Woolfe, running on an anti free movement platform could get UKIP up to 25% of the vote, Carswell, running on a relatively libertarian, not bothered that much about immigration platform would take UKIP back to about 5%.
"could get up to 25%" means "will get much less".
There will be some kind of fudged free movement deal which will hive off a good chunk of the polite company anti-foreigner vote.
Since May took power we have seen: ........................ I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years - disappointing that our civil service are so inept, but that is what we all have to deal with. No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship".. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions.. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good. Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
Universal credit requires a direct link between HMRC's and DWP's systems (amongst others).. I also suspect based on freedom of information requests I have made over the years that HMRC's systems are no where near as good as they claim (On about 4 occasions recently I have asked for data that should be top level report information from existing systems that have been refused on cost grounds)....
This is clearly not an insignificant number - we must remember that it's *full* roll out that has been extended; UC will have a significant impact in the meantime.
You are aware of why its only 280,000 currently on it? Hint I know an awful lot more than I can say on here....
Since May took power we have seen: ........................ I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years - disappointing that our civil service are so inept, but that is what we all have to deal with. No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship".. A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions.. An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown. David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good. Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
Universal credit requires a direct link between HMRC's and DWP's systems (amongst others).. I also suspect based on freedom of information requests I have made over the years that HMRC's systems are no where near as good as they claim (On about 4 occasions recently I have asked for data that should be top level report information from existing systems that have been refused on cost grounds)....
This is clearly not an insignificant number - we must remember that it's *full* roll out that has been extended; UC will have a significant impact in the meantime.
You are aware of why its only 280,000 currently on it? Hint I know an awful lot more than I can say on here....
At the moment when Brexit is still an unformed beast UKIP have a role to play in pushing for a hard Brexit with minimal/no freedom of movement. The problem is that their future and their electoral prospects are not in their own hands.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
I'm pretty sure that whatever deal is reached on free movement will be more or less unintelligible certainly initially and probably for years.
No one will be sure what it will actually mean for the number of people coming to the UK (and don't forget we have a solid base of nearly 200,000 non- EU immigrants annually anyway).
I think on balance this will be good for UKIP as they will be able to spin the numbers as they are released. On the negative side for them you would really have to care about immigration to follow it so assiduously over the next decade (and you would need not to die in the interim).
It also needs to be an issue that the media focuses on as relentlessly as it has up to now. Not sure that will be the case now that we have voted Leave and the Tories are set fair for years in office.
Most polling indicates that the EU per se is not a very salient issue in determining votes at a General Election. Post Brexit that is probably even more likely to be the case unless a real sense of 'betrayal' takes hold. To that extent UKIP has lost its core issue or raison d'etre - though it also attracted significant support based on immigration fears and as repository of 'a plague on all your houses ' protest vote. In the last Parliament the LibDems lost their place as the 'none of the above' option in England to UKIP and - to some extent - the Greens.There has been no evidence todate of a LibDem recovery at Parliamentary elections despite some successes at local by elections - nor is there any sign of the Greens advancing further. UKIP had a very disappointing result at the Oldham by election and polled just 12% at the local based on NEV.Effectively there are going to be three parties fishing for disaffected votes , and as such there has to be a good possibility that none of them will manage to break out in the way we have observed in earlier Parliaments.
There is hope for the Lib dems, in the Scottish Parliament they gained Fife North East, and Edinburgh West, both were Lib dem strongholds before the coalition, they will gain those two as well as Cambridge and a couple others next time.
Comments
Key is whether Woolfe has the Leadership qualities of being able to pick the right people, direct them and delegate. All of which were Farage's failings.
I follow the leading kippers on Twitter. Their modus vivendi is fighting like ferrets in a sack. I can't see it changing in the short term.
If May delivers a Brexit that most people are comfortable with and it has been implemented by the next election (which I expect, I can see no upside for her in an early election when the biggest issue in recent times is still up in the air) then you have to seriously wonder if UKIP will be fighting the 2020 election at all, let alone overtaking Labour.
My guess is that if Brexit has been delivered and people have moved on UKIP will be back amongst the Greens as a distinctly minority interest with the best part of 10% worth of the electorate looking for a new home. This is likely to help the Tories more than most but it may be that quite a lot just will not vote. Only if Brexit goes seriously off the rails in terms of the deal or the failure to get a deal will they play a meaningful role.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3716412/Now-Corbyn-wants-new-laws-curb-raids-SAS-Labour-leader-calls-loophole-allows-special-forces-deployed-secret-missions-shut-down.html
SOs point that the lack of EU elections deny UKIP a platform is significant.
A very good observation og how the cenre right win working class and lower middle class votes. Although I think it is completley legtimate strategy for the Centr-right to do at the last election I did vote Tory partly to stop a Labour-SNP stitch up of England and going on how New Labour acted before my fears are well founded.
They have functioned very successfully as an electoral pressure group for the last few years and they will be the force that will be there to make sure the Tories 'keep it real' on Brexit.
Their template is the SNP who have soaked up some votes to enable them to act as a Scotland's lobbyists without going the whole hog on independence.
A fair proportion of the electorate seem increasingly promiscuous, choosing their electoral partners according to how they feel at that moment without going all-in on full blown support.
I expect UKIP to win very big at Euros 2019 if Brexit has not reached a conclusion.
Whether it wants to do such a thing or is even capable of doing it, I don't know. If I were forced to put money on it I'd say that UKIP will fade away, its job done.
So, whilst I agree that UKIP won't die and there will be a market in people disaffected with the eventual flavour of Brexit, the longer term challenge for UKIP is whether it can broaden out into a wider political platform. Labour's turmoil offers a potential short term pay off. However, all my experience of UKIP is that its membership tends to the elderly, is largely inactive, and often somewhat eccentric. So I am not convinced it is going to break through, myself.
They have certainly progressed further than the SNP managed by winning a referendum but the terms of Brexit remain critical.
Continuing free movement that allows a plumber from Warsaw to compete with a plumber in Walsall is not what many voted for. Nor are restrictive trade agreements with the EU that result in a customs union with an external border.
Gallup polling Hofer on 52%
Indeed the 13% UKIP won at the 2015 general election was almost double the voteshare they won in the 1999 European elections
I have no regrets about voting Leave. Dare I say it, I think we Labour Leavers are the only group to have secured our goal. Remember our campaign to 'wipe the smile off their faces' (Dave & George). Mission accomplished. Achieving a more successful version of the Spanish Republic may take a little longer.
A decision that Universal Credit will not be rolled out for another 6 years.
No decision on Heathrow.
A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point.
An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it.
David Davis and Liam Fox back in government.
Osborne and Gove out of government.
I am trying to remain positive. I really am.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_local_elections,_2013
They did win 13% at the GE and got one semi-detached MP.
No decision on Heathrow - Looks to be a matter of weeks and a better chance of a joined up decision under May than the "Osborne dictatorship"..
A delay in the decision on Hinkley Point - Another one of Osborne's incoherent decisions..
An abandonment of Osborne's fiscal framework with little indication of what is replacing it - What fiscal framework? Targets shifted back almost every year just like Brown.
David Davis and Liam Fox back in government - Good.
Osborne and Gove out of government - Good.
The only issue of concern is if May really is going to micro manage Govt rather than run it as Cabinet Govt and on that the jury is still out.
Maybe, but under FPTP people will see the 'UKIP vote is a Wasted Vote' argument being used and being predominantly true. The UKIP bandwagon has already slowed, ironically the Euro Elections which they have helped kill off would have been what sustained them.
Time will obviously tell but, assuming UKIP has the sense to let him stand, SW looks an outstanding candidate to fulfil UKIP potential, whatever that is. I don't think UKIP is a busted flush, far from it given Labour's dash to desert its working class base.
As for the rest of your list, I think we will cope OK, and hopefully the delay on Hinkley C will be the forerunner of cancelling the whole wretched project.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/31/daredevil-skydiver-jumps-from-76km-without-a-parachute
That's the other way of maintaining momentum - winning Parliamentary By-Elections. UKIP have never done that without a defecting MP.
If they did win the disunited party aspect could scupper them - how do Carswell and Woolfe get on?
This is clearly not an insignificant number - we must remember that it's *full* roll out that has been extended; UC will have a significant impact in the meantime.
The Labour party's recent experiment in waiving the rules hasn't exactly set a happy precedent, unfortunately.
No one will be sure what it will actually mean for the number of people coming to the UK (and don't forget we have a solid base of nearly 200,000 non- EU immigrants annually anyway).
I think on balance this will be good for UKIP as they will be able to spin the numbers as they are released. On the negative side for them you would really have to care about immigration to follow it so assiduously over the next decade (and you would need not to die in the interim).
If they did win the disunited party aspect could scupper them - how do Carswell and Woolfe get on?'
They came within 600 votes of winning Heywood and Middleton, if Woolfe is elected leader by the membership what he says goes, regardless of what Carswell thinks. Woolfe, running on an anti free movement platform could get UKIP up to 25% of the vote, Carswell, running on a relatively libertarian, not bothered that much about immigration platform would take UKIP back to about 5%
Ha! Excellent to see you on here this afternoon, I expect now that it is getting towards Sunday Lunch time you cat has let you out of bed. Anyway, I wonder if I could ask a favour.
There is an article in the Telegraph this morning that is about hospitals apparently employing too many nurses. It mentions Leicester by name. Might I ask you, please, to cast your eye over the article and tell us what is really going on, in your experience?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/31/hospitals-under-pressure-to-cut-pay-bill-after-taking-on-too-man/
Historically Britain's most effective governments have been the ones that can't really do anything, and the most damaging the ones with a concrete plan and the ability to carry it out.
In the last Parliament the LibDems lost their place as the 'none of the above' option in England to UKIP and - to some extent - the Greens.There has been no evidence todate of a LibDem recovery at Parliamentary elections despite some successes at local by elections - nor is there any sign of the Greens advancing further. UKIP had a very disappointing result at the Oldham by election and polled just 12% at the local elections based on NEV.Effectively there are going to be three parties fishing for disaffected votes , and as such there has to be a good possibility that none of them will manage to break out in the way we have observed in earlier Parliaments.
That will leave a rump of 5-8%.