2015UKElectionMap by Italay90, recoloured by Cryptographic.2014, derived from: 2010UKElectionMap.svg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The shocks are still reverberating from the UK general election results, with party leaders falling on their swords within hours (and at least one comically resurrected three days later – I thought Easter was last month!). Questions abound as to the future direction of Labour, whether the Liberal Democrats can recover from a wholly unanticipated disaster, why the pollsters seemed so fixated on the prospect of a dead heat (and the commentariat, as a consequence, on the near-certainty of a post-election coalition), whether electoral reform might re-emerge as an issue, how the SNP will deploy their near clean sweep of Scottish seats, and the implications of UKIP winning 12.6% of votes cast.
Let’s start with the easiest: UKIP is a busted flush, successfully deflated by Cameron’s promise of an in/out referendum and warnings against a Labour government propped up by the SNP. As Nigel Farage (the briefly dislodged leader of UKIP) put it immediately after the results were announced, UKIP voters drifted away once the SNP edged towards the 50% mark in pre-election polling in Scotland. It was all very well voting for UKIP when it didn’t much matter (as in the European elections), but May 7th was much more serious.
More importantly, the actual 12.6% is a hollow achievement. Much of that was piled up some 120 constituencies where UKIP finished second. That sounds impressive, but in only a handful of these was the UKIP candidate within 10% of the winner. The average deficit was 34%! Even the one seat UKIP hung on to from last autumn’s two bye-election victories – Clacton – is now decidedly marginal. The chances are that UKIP will have no MPs by May 2020.
