Eastleigh: A reality check for UKIP

It is gratifying to learn that other political commentators haven't been taken in by UKIP's claim of a 'victory' in Eastleigh. Being defeated by a pro-EU party is not something that we would wish to celebrate!

Here are a few words of wisdom from Richard North:

More than usual hyperventilation has attended this by-election, with some pretty bizarre predictions, even by the rather low standards of British political commentary. For what it is worth, my (private) prediction was that the Lib-dims would romp home, the Tories would come a poor second, Labour third and UKIP would keep their deposit with about seven percent of the vote … all on a very low turnout of 40 percent.

But then, I was certainly wrong on the turnout, as early reports put the it at 52 percent. This is higher than I expected although low in contrast to the 69.3 percent cast in the 2010 general election. All the same, no one at the beginning of the count was expecting the earlier tosh about UKIP winning to materialise, although there was still some expectation that UKIP might make second place.
 

As always though, the postal votes were set to play a crucial part, with 14,000 issued, and the Lib-Dems expected to take the lion’s share. Given that most of these votes were in before the latest groping controversy, that vote was expected to be fairly solid.

UKIP had to beat Ray Finch’s 2010 performance, when he took 1,933 votes, taking 3.6 percent of the votes cast, losing his deposit. In the 1997 election, the Referendum Party fronted Victor Eldridge and took 2,013, also coming in with 3.6 percent of the votes. Thirteen years had not delivered any appreciable enhancement in eurosceptic sentiment in Eastleigh.
 

The talk though is of UKIP becoming the reservoir of the protest vote, and in particular capitalising on concerns about immigration.
 

And, at just after 2.30 am, the result came through. The Lib-Dems did indeed romp home, coming in with 13,342 votes, against the second comer at 11,571 votes – UKIP. Second place for Farage’s party, nearly a thousand ahead of the Conservatives at 10,599. Labour trails at 4,088 votes. So much for my powers of prediction.
 

Mike Thornton’s vote of 13,342 votes compares with Chris Huhne’s 24,966 in 2010, yet Thornton talks of a Lib-Dem “mandate”, having dragged in a pitiful 32 percent of the votes cast, and 17 percent of the electorate of 78,313. UKIP’s great victory amounts to 28 percent of the votes cast, or 14.8 percent of the electorate.
 

This is a victory of sorts – bald men fighting over a comb, squabbling over a diminishing quantum, where an MP goes to parliament with a “mandate” of 17 percent of the electorate. It never was democracy. Now, it isn’t even representative.

 

To read the original: LINK

 

The media are glibly talking of the “humiliation” variously of David Cameron (Independent) and the Conservatives (Telegraph), completely unconscious of the fact that the by-election result represented a humiliating defeat for the political class as a whole.

As Your Freedom and Ours points out, people are not turning out to vote for any of the candidates in any numbers. But, when the lead candidate goes to Westminster on the back of 17 percent of the electorate – not even one in five of the voters – that represents a crashing failure of the political class to take the people with them.

But then, when we see Clegg stand alongside the new MP and proclaim “we overcame the odds”, while The Times talks of a “stunning” victory, the nature of the problem becomes apparent.

The great divide then yawns into a chasm when Lib-Dem party president, Tim Farron, claims: “This is a staggering result … it will be a turning point in this parliament and that we are in a position to win this seat completely changes the narrative of the parliament”.

And while the voters delivered a majority of 1,771 for the Lib-Dems, it is interesting to note that aside from the Lib-Lab-Con-UK matrix, there were ten other parties in the field, including the Monster Raving Loony Party, which collectively polled 2,056 votes.

Farage talks glibly about the Conservatives “splitting the UKIP vote”, and also hails UKIP’s “strong showing” as a sign of “revulsion” at the three main parties across Britain. But there were over two thousand voters who thought more of the likes of the Beer, Baccy and Crumpet Party than they did of his offer. Those votes were sufficient to deprive his candidate of a seat in Parliament.

What is thus very, very clear from this result is that the politicians simply haven’t got the message – any more than has the media. They are regarded, collectively, with a mixture of indifference and contempt. Party politics and voting in this country have become a minority preoccupation.

The result today, therefore, is not a disaster, per se for Cameron and his Conservatives, as some would have it. It is a disaster for the flawed experiment in representative democracy, another nail in the coffin of a failed system.

As for UKIP, the picture remains muddy. Your Freedom and Ours observes that their plan to become the third party after the Lib-Dims has fallen by the wayside by the latter’s victory in Eastleigh.

They cannot pretend that they are the second party in the country with no MPs and very few councillors. So, despite the undoubted rejoicing in the UKIP ranks and despite the nauseating plaudits that will be heaped on the Dear Leader, the fact remains: after 20 years and in the most propitious circumstances they remain in no-man’s land.

Increasingly though, this is becoming the “no-electors’ land” – a wasteland of democracy. And the politicians can’t even bring themselves to admit it.

To read the original: LINK

Also see: LINK