Ukip and the element of surprise

All of the four new Ukip councillors elected in Shepway in Kent today – Folkestone and the surrounding area – were surprised to win. 

Indeed, the result was so unexpected to David Baker that he went on holiday before the count.  Indeed his colleagues told me this lunchtime that he still may not know that he is now Cllr Baker.

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And the same must be true all over England tonight – people suddenly finding they’ve been elected Ukip councillors who weren’t expecting it. In due course that may prompt quite a few resignations as Ukip people find that being a councillor is a lot more demanding than they can cope with.

Until this year Ukip has never taken local government very seriously, though they’ve had a few councillors elected over the years, and also gained dozens of defectors, mainly from the Conservatives. 

But in 2013 they adopted a total new strategy, having observed how in the past the Liberal Democrats have used success in local government elections to greater success. They decided to fight every seat they could.

For any party, having councillors develops a whole new class of semi-professional activists, and a new source of funds if Ukip decides to demand a tithe of their council allowances (as other parties do). Councillors and their families and friends provide a ready-made team of campaign-workers. And the very act of fighting a campaign helps recruit new members and supporters, and gets people into the habit of voting Ukip.

Ukip’s fortunes have seen an extraordinary transformation in the last  few months, downplayed by their opponents, and downplayed by many politcal commentators and editors. 

After scoring votes of 20 per cent or more in by-electons in Rotherham and Eastleigh, it was likely they would do well yesterday. The more people vote Ukip, the more respectable they become as a party, and the harder it gets to dismiss them as cranks and “fruitcakes”.

And the more Ukip shows it has significant support, the more TV and radio broadcasters have to include them in their coverage. This will have serious repercussions when it comes to dividing up the airtime at the 2015 general election.

Currently broadcasters divide airtime roughly 4-4-3 – with three minutes for the Lib Dems for every four minutes given to both the Conservatives and Labour. Now Ukip will seek to bust that 4-4-3 ratio, and demand an automatic place both in any leaders’ debates, and the daily election round-table discussions on TV and radio. It will interesting to see how much the broadcasters resist, and the issue could well go to court.

But rapid expansion brings huge problems. Ukip and Nigel Farage will come under much closer scrutiny. Their candidates and policies will be closely examined.  Expect a big purge of Ukips strange collection of MEPs before next year’s euro election, and lots of stories about maverick and racist Ukip candidates suddenly being dropped by the party.

On Today this morning the BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson said there was “no prospect of a Ukip MP”. I disagree.  True, Ukip suffers from having its vote spread so evenly across the country – like the Lib Dems – rather than certain areas, like the Tories and Labour.

But with first past the post, in what is quickly becoming a four-party system, the threshold for victory is significantly lower. If Ukip builds a little more on its vote in recent elections it could well win a seat or two in a by-election. Their best prospect would be if a popular Tory MP  was to switch to Ukip, resign their seat on principle, and fight the subsequent by-election under Ukip colours.

The next two years could be fascinating. In all probability Ukip  will do extremely well in the 2014 European elections – indeed I expect they’ll fulfill their aim of topping  the poll – but then fall back to single-figure support at the 2015 election (and get no MPs).

But it is just possible that we are seeing the birth of a major new British political party.

And even if Ukip was to pack up tomorrow, that party, without a single MP to its name, has already had a significant effect on British politics, dragging the three established major parties to the  right on immigration and Europe.

That looks set to continue.

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