At last news a survey on EU2014 – next May’s national contest that nobody seems to want to poll
UKIP, odds on favourites to win trail LAB by 7%
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 had until tonight 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 Farage 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 turnout levels and not the expected much reduced figure that we see at Euro elections.
Tonight’s poll, which was carried out at the end of November, has LAB maintaining its 7% lead. Unlike the previous survey the results were weighted to a specific EP2014 turnout question.
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 introduced 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.