Peter Kellner on five myths about UKIP
Peter Kellner has an interesting article on what the opinion polls tell us about UKIP support in the Guardian which you can read at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/02/five-myths-ukip-conservatives-farage-newark.
Basically he points out that UKIPs very good performance in the European election was not achieved by persuading a majority of the electorate to take a better view of them - in fact the proportion of the electorate which takes a negative view of UKIP as risen since 2009 from 37% to 53% - but by persuading a much higher proportion, among the third of the electorate which actually votes in European parliament elections, of the smaller proportion within that group who do take a positive view of UKIP to actually vote for UKIP rather than another party.
Kellner asks
"How can Ukip win 27% of the vote and yet be regarded positively by only 22% of the electorate?"
And answers his own question:
"Part of the answer is that only one elector in three turned out to vote in the recent election. Ukip won the support of just 9% of the electorate.
"More detailed analysis shows that in 2009 Ukip secured the support of fewer than half the voters who felt positively about it. The rest voted Conservative or BNP – or, in smaller numbers, Labour, Green or Liberal Democrat. Last month Ukip harvested almost three-quarters of those who felt positive about it. This time round Ukip benefited from the collapse in BNP support and the greater willingness of unhappy Tories to lend their votes to Ukip this time round.
"Overall, Ukip has not so much won new friends as polarised public opinion. Ukip did better this time at turning diminishing approval into votes, but it also alienated far more of the electorate."
The UKIP challenge to the major parties is just part of a more serious challenge - the alienation of a major part of the electorate from politics, many of whom have stopped voting.
We cannot deal with that problem by trying to out-UKIP the kippers. But we do need to address, hopefully in a more constructive way, the problems which are leading some people to stop voting and others to vote UKIP.
A link to Peter Kellner's article is here.
Basically he points out that UKIPs very good performance in the European election was not achieved by persuading a majority of the electorate to take a better view of them - in fact the proportion of the electorate which takes a negative view of UKIP as risen since 2009 from 37% to 53% - but by persuading a much higher proportion, among the third of the electorate which actually votes in European parliament elections, of the smaller proportion within that group who do take a positive view of UKIP to actually vote for UKIP rather than another party.
Kellner asks
"How can Ukip win 27% of the vote and yet be regarded positively by only 22% of the electorate?"
And answers his own question:
"Part of the answer is that only one elector in three turned out to vote in the recent election. Ukip won the support of just 9% of the electorate.
"More detailed analysis shows that in 2009 Ukip secured the support of fewer than half the voters who felt positively about it. The rest voted Conservative or BNP – or, in smaller numbers, Labour, Green or Liberal Democrat. Last month Ukip harvested almost three-quarters of those who felt positive about it. This time round Ukip benefited from the collapse in BNP support and the greater willingness of unhappy Tories to lend their votes to Ukip this time round.
"Overall, Ukip has not so much won new friends as polarised public opinion. Ukip did better this time at turning diminishing approval into votes, but it also alienated far more of the electorate."
The UKIP challenge to the major parties is just part of a more serious challenge - the alienation of a major part of the electorate from politics, many of whom have stopped voting.
We cannot deal with that problem by trying to out-UKIP the kippers. But we do need to address, hopefully in a more constructive way, the problems which are leading some people to stop voting and others to vote UKIP.
A link to Peter Kellner's article is here.
Comments
A party which openly had no policies well its a good protest vote winne
how can they get so many votes, well time for another of my fantastic analogies.
I really really really hate Peugeot cars, Citroen cars and Renault cars. I hate them with a passion. However lets say i start work in a new job and i have to have a company car, they offer me a peugeot, a citroen or a renault (just my luck) anyway I would choose the Renault, not because i have a positive view of renault cars its just my veiw of renault is the least negative of the three.