Political Crossfire Forums

So in the three most recent by-elections; Croydon North, Middlesbrough, & Rotherham, UKIP finished ahead of the Lib Dems in the share of the vote in all three elections.

The largest share the Lib Dems could manage was 9.9% in Middlesbrough, while they only managed 3.5% and 2.1% in Croydon North & Rotherham respectively. Whilst UKIP got 5.7%, 11.8% and 21.8%.

Could these results reflect the next election? If the Lib Dems got less than 10% of the vote, that would decimate the number of MPs they have.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... on-results

Lib Dems are screwed for sure, but I highly doubt that they'll get less votes (nevermind seats) than UKIP. You have to take into account weird shit can often happen in by-elections (not that the Lib Dems weren't decimated). Plus UKIP are riding a wave of recent publicity, particularly in Rotherham.

So is this good for the Labo(u)r Party? I can't see how Labor still has a following, they literally embody the worst of American policy.

I think it is plausible that UKIP are the new never to be elected third party instead of the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems were always full of policies that wouldn't work in government so they have had to abandon them the moment they got into government which upset many of the people who voted for them. UKIP have equally daft policies so I'm sure they will take over at least temporarily.

UKIP will erode support from both Labour and the Tories because much of Labour's core support has been abandoned by the party as they fight with the Tories over Middle England. The mixture of traditional values, pro-national sovereignty, anti-immigration and anti-EU policies will chime with a chunk of the Labour vote just as it will the Tories. When you take the fact the Eurozone is currently being blamed for everything that is wrong with the UK economy by the government that will help their support.

Simply put sections of the the lib dem vote has been made up of the protest vote against the government in protest. Now they are in power those votes are going to other parties.

As well as the libertarian anti-EU Tory votes the Ukip also seem to be getting some of the old Labour votes; people who naively believed Labour represented the working man now often see Ukip as representing them. I would probably vote for them if I could be arsed to vote and they put up a candidate where I live.

Ive read that UKIP are libertarian, what is their platform about? Are they similar to the LP in the US?