How UKIP outspent Labour in the Euro Elections

UKIP’s stunning performance in the Euro Elections on June 10 was on the back of having the budget to outspend both Labour and the Liberal Democrats according to new figures out today from the Electoral Commission. These show the following amounts were spent by each party on the campaign.

Conservatives £3.13m
UKIP £2.36m
Labour £1.7m
Lib Dems £1.19m
Greens £404k

The campaign took UKIP into third place, ahead of the Lib Dems with an extra 10 MEPs.

Much of the UKIP funding came from Yorkshire millionaire Sir Paul Sykes, who helped bankroll the party’s campaign. Whether Sykes will do this for UKIP at the General Election is unclear. In a welcome boost for Michael Howard at the start of the the Tory conference in October Sykes said he would not support UKIP party if it put candidates against Tory Euro sceptics.

Because UKIP does not have the same on the ground organisation of the other parties it needs to be able to spend big money in the media to get its message across. Whether Sykes or other donors will be available could have an impact on the General Election outcome.

The UKIP Commons seat spread with Sporting Index is 1-1.5 seats while IG have the party at 0.6-1.4 seats. A sell with SportingIndex might be a good bet and provide coverage if Robert Kilroy-Silk is still with the party and does run for a Westminster seat. We cannot see any other UKIP MPs being elected.