Support for UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) hit a record high 25% following recent elections that gave UKIP its first ever seat in the British parliament. Still that's one seat out of 650. Is UKIP anything Cameron's Tory party or Labour need fear? In case you don't already know, the answer can be found in Poll: Support for UKIP Hits Record High.
Support for the anti-EU UK Independence Party hit a record high of 25%, an opinion poll showed yesterday (12 October), days after it won its first elected seat in Britain's parliament at the expense of Prime Minister David Cameron's party. The survey suggested that UKIP, which favours a British exit from the European Union and tighter immigration controls, could pick up more seats than previously thought in a national election next year. UKIP's rise threatens Cameron's re-election drive by splitting the right-wing vote, increases the likelihood of another coalition government, and poses a challenge to the left-leaning opposition Labour party in northern England too. UKIP won its first elected seat in parliament by a landslide in a by-election on Thursday, after a parliamentarian from Cameron's centre-right Conservatives defected and took almost 60 percent of the vote. Before Sunday, most polling experts had forecast it could win only a handful of the 650 seats in parliament in 2015. But based on the result of the Survation poll for The Mail on Sunday, the party could win more than 100 seats in 2015, the newspaper quoted a pollster as saying. Support for the Conservatives and Labour was tied at 31%, according to the poll, which was based on interviews with 1,003 people nationwide. Labour leader Ed Miliband, whose party came within a whisker of losing a seat in northern England to UKIP on Friday, wrote in The Observer newspaper that he recognised that UKIP was "tapping into a seam of discontent and despair that Labour cannot - and will not - ignore." Miliband signalled his party would not respond with a knee-jerk policy change, but would stick to its re-election plan to promise a higher minimum wage and more money for the country's health service.
Mr Cameron insisted that a vote for UKIP would only make a Labour government more likely. He told the Conservative conference: "Let's be clear. This is a straight fight. It doesn't matter whether Parliament is hung, drawn or quartered, there is only one real choice. The Conservatives or Labour. Me in Downing Street, or Ed Miliband in Downing Street. If you vote UKIP – that's really a vote for Labour."
