Exactly six months to go: The EU elections that could make or break UKIP

Exactly six months to go: The EU elections that could make or break UKIP

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But why the absence of polling?

On May 22nd next year the whole of the UK will be voting in the elections for the European Parliament yet there’s been very little media coverage and almost no polling. Whilst we have eight or nine Westminster VI polls a week you have to go back until early October to find the last EP2014 survey.

This is surprising because EP2014 represents a massive opportunity for the new insurgent party of British politics, UKIP. If they have progressed as much as current Westminster polling is pointing to then there’s a realistic chance that they could come out with most votes – an outcome that would make it harder for the party to be dismissed at GE2015 – a year later.

    Topping the poll on May 22nd 2014, for instance, would make it much more difficult for Nigel Fatage to be denied a place in the GE2015 TV debates.

That last polling, by Survation for the Mail on Sunday, had LAB 35%: UKIP 22%: CON 21%: LD 11%. The drawback is that these findings were weighted to Westminster tunout levels and not the expected much reduced figure that we see at Euro elections.

In 2009 just under 35% of the electorate voted compared with the 65% who turned at for GE2010. A lot depends on the simultaneous elections that are due to take place on the same day which are not as widespread as in some years.

So I am please to see that Survation has an EP2014 poll in the field that does include turnout weighting for May 2014. Given that UKIP tends to attract more support from those segments of the electorate who are most likely to vote, the oldies, then we should expect UKIP to be a lot closer to Labour.

These are a set of elections where the red team has struggled to get its people interested and out to vote. In fact they have never topped the UK aggregate totals since the closed list voting system was intrdouced even during the early Blair years.

Last time UKIP pipped Labour for second place. This time the expectation is, just look at the betting, that they’ll come top.

  • Bookie links: Ladbrokes, PaddyPower, Bet365, Hills, PaddyPower

    • Mike Smithson

    For the latest polling and political betting news


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