The UKIP's Robert Kilroy-Silk gestures to reporters after voting
Posted on 06/12/2004 4:39:23 PM PDT by MadIvan
Tony Blair was last night braced for an even worse "kicking" than his party suffered in last week's local elections, as ministers predicted that Eurosceptic voters had abandoned Labour to support the UK Independence Party in the European poll.
Labour pollsters said that the results of the European parliamentary election, to be announced tonight, would give the party an even smaller share of the national vote than it achieved in Thursday's council polls when it came third, on 26 per cent, behind the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
The UKIP's Robert Kilroy-Silk gestures to reporters after voting |
A senior Labour figure admitted that the UKIP, which advocates withdrawal from the European Union, had taken votes from Labour as well as from the Tories. "I think UKIP will do rather well, particularly in the South of England," said the official. "Nobody's going to get a high vote."
Last night Peter Hain, the Leader of the Commons, said there was a chance that Labour could lose the next general election.
He said: "If this behaviour is reflected at the general election then it isn't teaching us a lesson or giving a message. What it's doing is bringing Michael Howard [the Tory leader] in by the back door."
Liam Fox, the Conservative Party co-chairman, claimed that Labour made a strategic mistake in tacitly encouraging voters to back the UKIP - hoping that this would damage the Tories. "It is clear from the London election results that Labour did not sufficiently understand that many of their voters were also Eurosceptics."
He said the UKIP's performance in London, where its candidate for mayor, the boxing promoter Frank Maloney, won six per cent of the total vote and the party achieved two assembly seats, was a likely pointer to further successes tonight.
As the Prime Minister came under further attack from his party, with some Labour rebels raising fresh doubts about his leadership, there was, however, little comfort for Mr Howard.
Conservative strategists predicted a Tory showing in Europe "quite significantly down" on the party's result in 1999, when it attracted 36 per cent of the vote and had a comfortable lead over Labour.
"Obviously we recognise that UKIP are going to do well," said one senior Tory aide.
Both main parties predicted that the Tories would beat Labour - but by quite a narrow margin and with neither party likely to manage 30 per cent of the total vote.
Anything less than 29 per cent would be the worst Conservative performance in a national election in the party's history. That would be a major embarrassment for Mr Howard, while a result below 25 per cent for Labour would see it drop to levels of support not seen since the First World War.
Lord Rennard, the Liberal Democrat chief strategist, said that his party would be happy with "any advance" on the modest showing of 12.7 per cent it achieved in 1999.
By contrast, Roger Knapman, the UKIP leader, said that he would be disappointed if his party did not win at least 10 seats, and held out the possibility that it could win more than 20.
At present it has three. Other UKIP figures claimed that they expected to gain at least 20 per cent of the vote and held out the hope of becoming the larg est British party in the European parliament.
Mr Knapman said that the UKIP strategy was to use its seats to make as much trouble as possible for the EU. "We want to bring home to the British people just how ghastly and corrupt the present organisations are and how much money it is costing us - money that could be spent on British pensioners, schools and hospitals.
The UKIP is confident that, whatever the results, it will win enough seats to embarrass Mr Blair before this week's summit in Brussels where he hopes to sign a deal on the proposed EU constitution.
In a further display of its growing confidence, the UKIP disclosed that it was planning to fight Labour in the Leicester South by-election - one of three this summer - and would field candidates in all 651 seats at the general election. There would be a high-profile candidate in Mr Howard's Folkestone constituency.
The most likely candidate to contest Leicester is Robert Kilroy Silk. The former Labour MP, who hopes to win election to the European parliament today from the east Midlands region, told The Sunday Telegraph: "I think it is very likely we would be standing at one of the by-elections."
Mr Blair, who will respond tomorrow with a rallying call to Labour MPs at Westminster, wins backing today from Gordon Brown, the Chancellor.
Asked in a recorded interview on GMTV's Sunday programme if Mr Blair has become an electoral liability for Labour, Mr Brown replies: "I don't accept that at all. We make these decisions as a team. This is a Government that works as a team and we take responsibility as a team."
Beyond withdrawal from the EU, the agenda of the party as seen in the manifesto is broadly Thatcherite. The leader of the UKIP is a former Conservative minister.
I would enjoy seeing a whole bunch of UKIP MEPs going to the European Parliament and calling them a bunch of corrupt bastards.
And a word about Kilroy-Silk...he was a presenter of a chat show on BBC, however he was yanked for anti-Muslim remarks.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
I was talking to a buddy last night. He voted UKIP and was quite happy about it.
I hope all of turns out to be good for conversatives In Briton.
We must get out of the EU. These people are not our friends.
Regards, Ivan
I think that's how my friend voted too. The EU is as much the friend of England as the Saudis are the friends of the USA.
I hope you join NAFTA.
I thought that name sounded familiar.
I've been waiting for GWB to give a press flack
that little gesture........come here I've got something for you.
It seems to me that some of the "leftie" and other papers have tried to frame Blair's losses as due to Iraq. Which seems to be a projection of their hopes.
But the voters are really reacting to EU and immigration issues (which cut across party lines) and historical declines we call here "mid-term downturn" - i.e, the party in power usually suffers losses in elections between the bigger ones.
Ideas?
Iraq, FYI, was only a big issue for 5% of voters according to the YouGov poll. Europe was 11% - however we can say Crime (32%) is intertwined with it in the sense that asylum seekers and immigration policy has a European dimension.
Regards, Ivan
Cannot believe that Britain ever considered joining the EU! Thanks for posting this and explaining everything.
Make that say "I hope all of this turns out to be good for conservatives in Britain!
Actually, I wish we had more guys and/or gals like him in this country.
Just look at how that putz George Ryan reacted to being pied in the face. If I were put in a similar situation, believe me, that filthy hippie would have a lost an index finger or two.
If I was a Brit, I'd be voting UKIP.
Their website is quite interesting.
I think a "USIP" could make a surprisingly good showing in the not too distant future - especially in the South of the US.
Euroskeptics should also keep an eye on the results from Poland. A party called Samoobrona (Self Defense) is not unlike the UKIP (i.e. would cause nothing but trouble in Brussels.) Samoobrona is expected to do very well in a generally light voter turn-out in Poland.
Thanks very much for your post and information.
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