Against a less than optimal backrop, Eastleigh was a remarkable victory for the Lib Dems. And yet, the by-election was by no means unqualified success –support fell by 14 points relative to the 2010 general election result, with Mike Thornton winning in large part because the Conservative’s share dropped by a similar amount.
Of course, it was UKIP’s performance that caused such a divergence from the 2010 result. The UKIP question, then, is an important one – how will a surging centre-right party affect the electoral dynamics of the 30 or so constituencies in which the main threat to Lib Dem incumbents comes from Tory candidates?
It is tempting to think recent developments bode well for the Lib Dems. Last weekend The Telegraph was awash with editorials bemoaning the success of UKIP. Daniel Hannan MEP and Toby Young led calls to ‘Unite the Right’, fearing that in the absence of a pact between UKIP and the Tories, the Lib Dems will benefit.
But the data from Eastleigh does not support the Hannan/Young analysis. As Nigel Farage maintained over the weekend, UKIP took votes from across the political spectrum. And polling conducted over the course of the campaign bears this analysis out – Survation (February 23rd) and Lord Ashcroft (February 24th) both indicated Diane James was picking up support from previous Lib Dem and Tory voters in equal measure. Survation had 18% of 2010 Tory support going to UKIP compared to 17% of 2010 Lib Dem voters. Ashcroft’s poll had the figures at 18% and 15% respectively.
More worrying still is the evidence that UKIP’s campaigning was particularly effective at softening up the Lib Dem vote. Towards the end of the campaign UKIP support was evenly spread across previous Lib Dem and Tory voters. But in polls conducted immediately after the by-election was triggered, those intending to vote for Diane James were far more likely to be ex-Tory voters as Survation found in its February 8th poll, with 20.1% of the 2010 Tory vote was going to UKIP compared to 8.3% of 2010 Lib Dems.
UKIP’s cross-party appeal is significant for two reasons. While it seems difficult to square UKIP’s ability to attract votes from the centre-left given the party’s political inclination, the most common explanation – that UKIP is picking up votes from those disaffected with the main three parties – is supported by the data from Eastleigh. But then the Young/Hannan diagnosis seems misguided – UKIP’s success is not indicative of some grand coalition of the right, but rather the party’s ability to profit on the misfortunes of others. (Cameron, take note).
Secondly, the evidence from Eastleigh does not indicates a confident UKIP will help the Lib Dems defend seats in the South West and other Lib Dem/Tory marginals. It is, of course, always difficult to generalise trends from by-election results. But given how soft the Lib Dem vote proved to be last Thursday, complacency over an emboldened UKIP should be resisted.
* William is currently working as a Research Intern at Survation while completing his MSc at the London School of Economics.
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30 Comments
The key thing is that in Eastleigh in 2010, over 85% of the vote went to either us or the Tories, now the two parties of government. Given the need for the government to be making unpopular budget decisions right now, it is inconceivable for the LD+Con vote to remain so high. The interesting thing is that the inevitable collapse in LD+Con vote share all went to UKIP in the Eastleigh by-election. What we need to think about is what will happen in the many other LD v Con marginals in 2015 where the combined LD+Con vote is similarly high. Keeping a winning share of the vote will rely on local factors (i.e. our grassroots activity from now to polling day), as well as substantial differentiation from the Tories so that they take the bigger hit when faced with the choice of them or us.
good piece, thank you.
nice to see reference to ukip based on analysis rather visceral emotion.
UKIP are definitely not a ‘centre-right’ party. They are a far right anti immigration party whose policy is to deport all post 2004 immigrants. They are racist, xenophobic, homophobic, ant-abortion and misogynistic. They want massively increased defence spending, huge cuts to welfare and a flat tax of 31% that would massively benefit the wealthy.
No “victory” at Eastleigh! Everyone seems to be forgetting the nearly 50% of voters who didn’t bother to turn out to vote. Many non-voters are definitely not happy with local Lib Dems, don’t see them acting for local people and they see that the local Lib Dem Councils are saying they’re protecting our countryside, whilst doing the opposite – already pushing through supposedly 16-year housing developments at break-neck speed on our best countryside! There were so many candidates that many people just didn’t know who to vote for, especially in such a short time scale. The continual posting through our letter boxes of multiple leaflets saying exactly the same thing also turned off many people from voting. Had the campaign been just a week longer, UKIP might likely have had their first MP in Parliament. Diane James was by far the strongest of the candidates as an individual and came across far better at the hustings, as someone who would stand up in Parliament and be counted – not just follow her leader’s or Party’s line. If the campaign had been longer and UKIP had not fielded Diane James, the local Independent candidate Danny Stupple, or the NHS local candidate Iain Maclennan might just have easily have been the Eastleigh MP – if they’d been allowed to speak at hustings or get time in the press and on TV! The mistake many of us made when voting Lib Dems at the last lot of national and local elections was that many of us now have Lib Dems not just toeing the Conservative line nationally but also at local Borough Council and even Parish Council levels (in fact our Borough Council leader is also the Leader of one of the Parish Councils and not the one he lives in – why is this allowed to happen?). It’s also a common view locally that all the Lib Dem parish councillors are too scared to disagree with the Borough Council Leader! EG Any emails we send to our Parish Councillors are just forwarded on to him to answer! We are no longer being listened to locally and people like myself who were considering joining the Lib Dem party when the Coalition first went into power are now no longer voting Lib Dem at any level. Lib Dems in the Eastleigh area at least need to get back to acting for their constituents. That includes our new MP, who must not just be the mouthpiece of the leader of our Borough Council (Mike Thornton’s “agent”!) but listen to, and speak for, people within the whole “Eastleigh” area.
We are being attacked and losing support for agreeing to income tax cuts for the rich while everyone else is getting poorer – but UKIP support BIGGER tax cuts for the rich.
We are being attacked and losing support for agreeing to the NHS moving more towards a commissioning organisation with private sector companies doing the work – but UKIP supports MORE privatisation of the NHS.
In recent years we have seen how the EU involves international coordination to fight back at the way the power of big money plays one country against another, forcing all to kowtow to the demands of the big bankers to extract huge amounts of money from us. Do people in this country REALLY feel oppressed at the EU capping bankers’ bonuses, or at the EU establishing a right not to be forced to work excessive hours? Underneath, these seem to be the main EU things that really concern the Tory right-wing and UKIP. Is it really so difficult for us to draw attention to this, to show up what UKIP is really like – a party just like the Tories but even more right wing?
People are stopping supporting us because they feel our participation in the coalition means we have become too right-wing, and then moving to UKIP. Is it really beyond our powers to show up to those people what UKIP is REALLY about?
I would draw an exactly opposite conclusion namely that the figures at the start of the campaign represent the much higher proportion of regular Tory supporters who feel a natural affinity with UKIP while the final figures show a roughly equal proportion across the political spectrum who wish to protest. This is very good news for the Lib Dems.
@ Matthew
People aren’t voting UKIP because of their policies. Lord Ashcroft’s polling has shown as much. They are voting for them because they are generally fed up and see it as a means of kicking all three mainstream parties where it hurts. Arguments based on policy are destined to fail because they assume people are employing reasoning and logic before they vote. UKIP may have absurd policies – I’m not sure if they want a better 1950s or a better 1930s – but that won’t save us.
I spoke to people on the doorstep in Eastleigh and I agree that we should not be at all complacent about the result. Those people who would come to the door were standing there with arms folded, presenting a stone wall of cynicism. Very few were persuadable that the Lib Dems were delivering on their promises and achieving something in government. Most people felt comprehensively let down and angry.
People are voting UKIP because they blame the government (and foreigners in some vague, unreasoned way) for their falling living standards. They’re wrong to do so, because a period of falling living standards and the diet of cuts and austerity were already “baked in the cake” when we came into power and are not to do with government policy but the underlying, parlous state of the UK economy and the international context of high oil, food and commodity prices and the Eurozone crisis. However,that will be no help to us. People just won’t listen in their current state of empty-bellied anger.
What is more, the picture in Lib Dem/Tory marginals was better by far than the out and out collapse that Lord Ashcroft’s polling has found in ones where we face Labour as an opposition. The mountain to climb is far, far larger there. Frankly, in that context, the rise of UKIP is only one half of our worries.
The only way to fight back is actually to deliver in government and find some way, whatever, of getting people’s living standards rising again, preferably before the end of this year. More than that, we have to be able to communicate what we are doing nationally in very simple, clear terms, directly on the doorstep, because in terms of the “air war” nationally we’ve been shot down in flames constantly for three years now .
It’s an interesting analysis and I think a lot of it is probably right. Down the years UKIP has often attracted LibDem supporters (and even some LibDem councillors) – this isn’t a new phenomenon. The difference now is that the numbers are much greater partly because of the factors above and partly because these days a UKIP vote looks a lot less like an obviously wastes vote. However, I think one factor is overlooked here and also by every LibDem activist I’ve ever chatted to on the subject. This is that LibDem voters include lots of people who aren’t actually that keen on the EU, and some people who are dead against it. Many of them have been voting LibDem either because of a general attachment to liberalism, or as a protest vote but despite rather than because of the party’s pro-EU stance.
@ Tom Wilde
I have to agree that I am one of those people who like many Lib Dem ideals and policies but aren’t that keen on the EU. On balance, it is a good thing in terms of its role of day to day management of a trading zone and a few other matters, but it needs to be kept on a very short leash and as for its flights of fancy about becoming a unified United States of Europe, I am utterly and totally opposed. Fortunately, I think events are likely to overtake UKIP in any case, given the situation emerging vis a vis the inability of the Eurozone countries to achieve fiscal union.
However, nothing, but nothing, would convince me to vote UKIP.
This is a slightly hysterical over-reaction. Protest parties often do well in Elections that most voters dont think important, ie all Elections except General Elections. Look at Respect in Bradford or The Greens in the 1989 Euros.
Its possible UKIP could see a substantial increase in their vote in 2015 but even a 70% increase would only give them 5% of the national vote. The Evidence suggest half the increase would come from The Tories with the other half shared between everyone else. On balance a small help to us & Labour but not enough to change anything much.
@ Paul
But the assertion that half of UKIP’s support comes from the Tories and the rest spread across the other parties wasn’t borne out in the Eastleigh data. The polling done towards the back end of the election illustrated a pretty even spread of UKIP support across the political spectrum.
People vote UKIP because they want the UK to leave the EU. It is as simple as that! Why do Liberal Democrats and others close their minds to that explanation?
Why, oh why, is it considered right wing to want to leave the EU? It is not right wing. There are good liberal reasons for not wanting to be ruled from Brussels by a bureaucracy, including being taxed in order to pay wealthy land owners hundreds of thousands of pounds every year for the privilege of owning land that they have inherited tax free thanks to unlimited exemptions from Inheritance Tax.
There are many reasons why I would not want to see a UKIP government, including in particular their policy of abolishing Inheritance Tax, which would lead to an ever more unequal UK. And I cannot understand their opposition to gay marriage. But I am a Liberal who does want the UK to leave full membership of the EU. So I belong to the Liberal Party, because it is the nearest, extremely liberal, thing to an extremeluy liberal version of UKIP.
If I had been a voter in the Eastleigh by-election I would certainly not have voted for a pro-EU party, which is what the Liberal Democratic Party so emphatically is. I would have voted UKIP, unless there had been an EU-sceptic Liberal standing, regardless of all the good work that I am sure Liberal Democrat local councillors do locally. It is time there was a UKIP MP. Our X Voting democratic system stinks. By elections are opportunities to outwit it.
“However, I think one factor is overlooked here and also by every LibDem activist I’ve ever chatted to on the subject. This is that LibDem voters include lots of people who aren’t actually that keen on the EU, and some people who are dead against it.”
This.
Whatever you think about UKIP, they are a touchstone for voters, who see the three main parties as no more that vacuous Westminster chatter, doing nothing to help them and their lives. At the same time Europe, and the European project is increasingly being exposed for the bloated and expensive sham that it is. And the anti Europe paradigm shift is gathering pace in core areas of the euro zone. For example Germany and Italy :-
In Germany : http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/11/us-germany-eurosceptics-idUSBRE92A07F20130311
And in Italy : Beppe Grillo is portrayed as a clown, but he is a “comedian” in the same way that Bill Hicks and George Carlin were comedians. He is very serious. If this man can gather a cohesive political following he could potentially cause a political tsunami across Europe.
The Lib Dem fixation on UKIP, is losing sight of the bigger picture, and the trend. The euro punchbowl is empty, and the Lib Dems, sadly, appear to be the last to see it. It is about a growing economic crisis, and the cosy established Westminster fraternities’ unwillingness, to recognise their impotence and irrelevance, to a growing number of voters.
John Dunn
And in Italy : Beppe Grillo is portrayed as a clown, but he is a “comedian” in the same way that Bill Hicks and George Carlin were comedians. He is very serious.
He’s just another Berlusconi – bloke who’s become famous for being on the telly, who thinks because of this he has the answer to everything, and can just come in and “sort out” politics. It’s quote clear there is no coherence to the people he’s attracted, and if they ever did have to take responsibility for anything they’d split into pieces because their opinions cover just about every point there is.
Dane Clouston
Why, oh why, is it considered right wing to want to leave the EU?
I’m not saying UKIP are right-wing for wanting to leave the EU, they’re right-wing for all the other policies they have – most of it is cutting taxes on the rich, more power to big business, along with a big dollop of social conservatism. They also have various plans for vastly increased public expenditure, such as hugely more spending on defence. Put together these plans would cost many times what our country pays to the EU.
RC
People aren’t voting UKIP because of their policies
Er, yes. Was I saying they were? No.
In fact I was saying what I was saying precisely BECAUSE people aren’t voting UKIP for their policies. I don’t think people realise just how much their policies are all the things they dislike the current government for taken to even more extremes. UKIP get by through putting a layer of populist claptrap on top of what is actually a very right-wing economics.
This idea that somehow we shouldn’t be attacking UKIP and showing up what their policies are because it’s just a protest party is rather like saying we shouldn’t be telling people that the BNP is a racist party because people just vote for them out of protest instead of out of real support for racism.
Dane Clouston
People vote UKIP because they want the UK to leave the EU. It is as simple as that!
Yes, and why do they want the UK to leave the EU? Mostly because of a load of nonsense they’ve read in the Tory press which turns out to be laughably far from the truth.
What those behind the Tory press really don’t like about the EU is things like its protection for workers rights, the way it’s trying to get nations together to fight against the way big money plays one against the others, curbing the way the bankers leach from us to live lives of luxury. But in order to get support from the naive, they give us this silly “straight banana” stuff, and make out the EU is the biggest threat to our national sovereignty while ignoring the way our land and infrastructure is being bought up by foreign money.
I don’t think that the LDs are ‘fixated’ by UKIP, but people who come here are politically interested and the ‘rise’ of ukip is of passing interest. I think that the Tories are more fixated by ukip, because they are their SDP and will split their vote. UKIP of course is fixated with UKIP, and with measuring everyone else’s response to them.
My prediction is that, like the SDP, they’ll bandwagon off to the right but poll well, for a while, perhaps even within single figures of the Tories, but gain no seats. They’ll then drift back to their Tory host party when DC has gone and, eek, Ed and Ed are in power with a massive majority.
Matthew Huntbach,
I am not saying that UKIP are right wing for wanting to leave the EU. I agree with you that they are right wing because of their other policies. What I am asking is why people are considered to be right wing for wanting to leave the EU. You have missed the point of my question.
At present, liberalism in the UK is fatally divided by the EU. In the 1970s we were clearly distinguished from both Labour and Tories by standing for a far fairer country without Clause IV nationalisation. Today I hope that Liberals, instead of being fatally divided by the EU, will come together to stand, uniquely, for a fair fairer country without full membership of the EU,
Um, yes, Ukip pick up votes from across the spectrum, but this isn’t the whole story either.
I found that votes were going to Ukip for different reasons in Eastleigh. Tories were losing ‘positive’ votes, while LibDems were losing ‘protest’ votes. So in that sense alone the by-election success of Mike Thornton is a vindication of LibDems.
Furthermore, the fact that LibDems had more votes to lose in Eastleigh indicates in part the success of the local party in converting protest votes into positive votes in between elections, while tories lost any protest and couldn’t keep hold of their positive votes – indicating their ineffectualness during elections.
In Eastleigh, Ukip were lucky in their attempt to try to come through the middle.
It was largely overlooked that the constituency is one of their strongest bases (it fought all wards at council level, gaining 10+% in each), and I didn’t think it’s much of a coincidence that fears around immigration take hold in a seat with a significant international airport!
Add in the general dislike of coalition, unpopularity at austerity, and attempts to whip up controversy from scandal and it’s easy to see the result was quite logical.
The distribution of positive and protest votes varies enormously across the country, so it’s impossible to predict how the differential trends will play out within the local spectrum of debate. But events and circumstances mean it will be a surprise if Ukip can do much better than Eastleigh anywhere else.
I’d’ve thought Dover would be Farage’s first target – like all foreign invaders!
Matthew Huntbach
People increasingly want to leave full membership of the EU because they do not share the ideal of a country called Europe and recognise that cynically putting the currency cart before the political horse has disastrously prevented countries from adjusting currency exchange rates to reflect different national economic realiities and so has caused totally unnecessary austerity.
@ Matthew – “Yes, and why do they want the UK to leave the EU? Mostly because of a load of nonsense they’ve read in the Tory press which turns out to be laughably far from the truth.”
Leaving aside the “they” for i am not a UKIP voter; I wish to leave the EU if we can no longer remain within as a sovereign nation-state once the cumulative effects of post-crisis euro- convergence lead to caucused fiscal policy managed by ECB.
I do not recognise a sufficiently converged set of aims and expectations to legitimise a common european governance, and thus i will reject the EU if that is the direction that Britain is being coerced into.
Gladstone’s power of the purse, and the desire for indirect governance that is [both] represenative of, [and] accountable to my will.
Dane Clouston
People increasingly want to leave full membership of the EU because they do not share the ideal of a country called Europe.
It seems to me when I look at the rest of Europe and travel in it, the French are still pretty French, the Germans are still pretty German, the Italians are still pretty Italian, the Dutch are still pretty Dutch and so on. I don’t particularly see any destruction of national identities.
In this country it seems to me the threats to our national identity, ability to control our destiny, and cultural stability are things like the American dominance of entertainment, oil money sovereign wealth funds buying things up, the world’s shady people seeing us a no-question-asked bolt-hole, privatisation of our most vital infrastructure assets leading to foreign control of it, our reliance on a rootless finance industry whose top people care nothing whatsoever for this country. These are all far bigger threats to UK independence than the EU. When our big football teams, which are such a big emotional part of our identity (for some of us at least, not me), are owned by foreign billionaires and running around in outfits emblazoned with the names of their owners, is it really so difficult to persuade people that those who go on and on about the EU being a big threat to our national identity are largely doing so as a distraction from the real threats which they themselves are all in favour of ?
Dane could hardly be more wrong. UKIP support has little to do with anti-EU feelings and those UKIP voters who are anti-EU are anti most things.
I’m in the middle of a local by-election in an area where we’ve had no presence for many years and in a marginal Labour/Tory ward. Few people are raising our position in the coalition or national issues with us, and those who do are as often positive as negative.
Before the election was called, our surveys showed quite encouraging In Lib Dem support, suggested Tory and Labour votes were soft – and left me seriously worried about UKIP. As far as I could tell, UKIP supporters seemed to be angry across a range of issues and anti-politician. In a more Tory area, they might have come largely from the Tories and I suspect that could still happen in the Westcountry. In this area, I reckon they probably came from all other parties, certainly including Labour.
UKIP have failed to put up a candidate. Despite the possibility that this might somewhat benefit the Tories, I’m relieved. We need to start building expertise in how to fight them.
Matthew Huntbach,
The aim of the EU is ever closer union, and the currency cart before the political horse is part of its plan to get there. The USA has no plans to try to make us another State. The things you mention that need dealing with need dealing with by the UK, not by the EU. Europeans, like Americans and Commonwealth countries, are our friends and allies. It is a pity to note the anti-American slant in your comments.
Simon Banks
A local council by-election is perhaps not the best occasion to test whether people want to leave the EU or not. Wait and see what the EU elections tell us. The rationale of UKIP is to have an independent UK. Pro-EU Liberal Democrats kid themselves if they think UKIP voters are not in favour of that. Note: in favour of leaving, rather than against the EU.
Dane Clouston
It is a pity to note the anti-American slant in your comments.
How is it any different from the anti-European slant in yours?
Matthew Huntbach
There was no anti-European slant in my remarks. I am not at all anti-European. I am anti the UK being a full member of the EU, which wants its member countries to be on a track to an ever closer union in a country called Europe and which is prepared to risk another Depression by abolishing national currency flexibility before, and in order to bring about, their goal of political unity.
There did, however, seem to be an anti-American slant in yours, as I was sorry to note. As I said, they are not wanting the UK to be another USA State, Now that would be a worry!
Dane Clouston
A local council by-election is perhaps not the best occasion to test whether people want to leave the EU or not. Wait and see what the EU elections tell us. The rationale of UKIP is to have an independent UK. Pro-EU Liberal Democrats kid themselves if they think UKIP voters are not in favour of that.
In favour of it, yes, but I think they have very little idea what it means. If you ask people how exactly it is that the EU is oppressing them and stopping Britain being British, or even what exactly it is that the EU does, they will reply with vague answers because actually they don’t know. They will repeat soem of the silly and misleading storied they have read in the right-wing press, because they are the source of their concerns – NOT actual oppression by the EU. I appreciate that there is a real concern about immigration, but that’s not entirely an EU issues, after all we have many recent immigrants from non-EU countries. As for the rest, I believe the anti-EU feeling to be mainly whipped up hysteria from the political right done to distract the people from what is really damaging this country’s ability to control its own destiny – the power of big money.
You accuse me, Dane, of being “anti-American” simply for noting that USA influence is bound to be strong in this country as we share a common language and they are a bigger country than us. They also have a very isolationist culture and the media products they export are made for the home market, with any overseas sales an incidental extra. I find amongst many young people they know more about the USA than they do about our own country because of the amount of time they spend with USA entertainment products. As an example, take a few young people here and ask them what they understand about “the Civil War”. How many will talk about Cromwell and how many will talk about Lincoln?
Now, you accuse me of being anti-American, but I write the above as facts. One may think it is good that we are becoming more American. But I am suggesting if you claim to have a concern for “UK independence” then this ought to be an issue, and I raise it just as one amongst several. Sorry, but it seems to me that looking rationally at the various forces which are leading to a decline in traditional Britishness and an inability of British governments to exert complete control over what is going on in this country, EU membership comes quote low down on the list. From this I would say a political party which claims it is about “UK Independence” but puts this solely in terms of EU membership is being extremely misleading, whether deliberately or just because it is run and its membership consists of people who are … well, let’s say, not the brightest stars in the sky … is a matter of judgment. However I certainly think its agenda is being pushed by people who know exactly what they are doing and why, in particular Mr Murdoch.
I do have a concern for UK independence. That is why I opposed the Pound going into the Euro and why I rejoined the Liberal Party when I discovered that it shared that opposition. It is high time more Liberal Democrats did the same thing.
European countries must be able to adjust their currencies to reflect economic and political realities or we will head towards a repeat of the 1930s. The Euro is the Gold Standard of the 21st Century. It is doomed to failure, as is the Liberal Democratic Party if it carries on being the standard bearer for the Euro and the EU.