Commons success for Ukip far from a certainty

Figures can illustrate much. John Defty took nearly 30 per cent of the vote in Hetton Ward in the Sunderland City Council elections on Thursday, coming just 120 votes behind the candidate who won, Labour’s John Cummings.

Elsewhere in the one-time industrial city in the northeast, Ukip came second in 16 of the 25 wards – including Shiney Row, where Ukip’s Tom Fowdy won 940 votes, losing out to Labour’s Mel Speding, who got 1,168.

Meanwhile, the 2012 census shows that, of the population of Sunderland, 0.82 per cent registered as Mixed; 2.06 per cent Asian or Asian British; 0.71 per cent Black or Black British; and 0.28 per cent gave their lineage as Chinese.

The UK Independence Party, therefore, is not just appealing to those who have lost out because of rapidly increased immigration from eastern Europe, but even in those places such as Sunderland where immigration has barely impacted upon the face of the city.

The party has become the voice of the disgruntled. Equally, however, the vote for Ukip in Sunderland, if replicated in the 2015 House of Commons general election, will not be enough to win a seat for Nigel Farage’s team, under first-past-the-post rules.

In Norfolk, Ukip took 10 places after it secured 37 per cent of votes cast on Great Yarmouth Borough Council – five of them had previously been occupied by Labour, while five had been in the hands of the Conservatives.

Base for assault For now, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have been pummelled by Ukip’s performance in the local elections – but the seats now held on councils, says Farage, will provide the base for the assault on Westminster next year.

However, an inspection of the result from Eastleigh in Hampshire, where Ukip came second to Labour in a byelection year, offers a cautionary note to any in Ukip who believe that Commons success is now a certainty.

Then, Ukip’s Diane James ran the Liberal Democrats’ Mike Thornton close. Indeed, Ukip won the largest share of those who voted on the day in that byelection, losing only because a majority of those who had cast postal votes supported Thornton.

Despite James’s success in February 2013, Ukip has failed to establish a local base in Eastleigh. On Thursday, with about a third of the seats on the Hampshire council up for grabs the majority of them went to the Lib Dems and the rest to the Conservatives.

For Labour, the results are worrying. The party has gained council seats, but so it should in mid-term elections when it is in opposition. It has not made the kind of gains – partly because of Ukip’s success – that it should have.

Labour leader Ed Miliband now faces difficult months. Under him, Labour has pushed a statist, interventionist agenda – one, it seems, that many voters favour in a time where capitalism faces critique, but they appear reluctant to back Miliband as the one to lead the change.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ David Cameron, who faces more bad news in tomorrow’s Euro election count, hopes that many of those who voted for Ukip can be drawn back into the Conservative fold because of his pledge to hold an EU membership referendum in 2017.

Economic upswing Equally, the British economy is improving. A year more of improving economic news, if it is not knocked back by rising interest rates, may improve the tempers of some of those who are disgruntled today.

For now, however, neither Cameronnor Miliband can hope to lead a majority government after May 2015, even if support for Ukip in a Commons election falls back substantially on where it ended up last night.

Most British politicians and much of the public have not been persuaded about the merits of coalition since the sunny days in the Downing Street Rose Garden in May 2010.

Coalitions, however, may be a habit that is hard to break.