Can you imagine how you’d feel, waking up on the 24th February, to hear the BBC headline ‘In what is being seen as a stunning boost to the hard Brexit campaign, Paul Nuttall, the leader of UKIP, sensationally snatched the seat of Stoke-on-Trent Central from a disintegrating Labour party. Nigel Farage is now live.’
I’d feel utterly gutted. The Tories, with Labour’s acquiescence, are already following the UKIP line closely enough, without an extra UKIP MP.
I’ve been talking to people in Stoke, and looking at the figures. Labour are in massive trouble there. It’s more than a decade since they got over 40% in any election, local or national there, with a huge decline in their actual votes. Less than half their voters in 2001 were still voting for them in 2015, with 14,000 having abandoned them, and that was even before Jeremy Corbyn. Sadly, many people are deserting Labour and looking for an alternative. For some, that alternative will be UKIP – we have to provide a better option for them.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Michael Meadowcroft: A Liberal of Intellectual Rigour and Uncommon Integrity
Debt-ridden graduates claim they are seen as cash cows
Why non-fiction books need their indexes
Changes in status: Local Elections wrap up
Tom Bailey 
Daniel Walker 
Matt (Bristol) 
Hywel 