A naïve glance at the
overall changes in the share of the vote since 2010 in the table below suggests
that UKIP’s big gains came as the expense of the biggest losers, the Liberal
Democrats.
|
Change %
vote since 2010
|
Change %
vote since 2012
|
Con
|
-6
|
-0.2
|
Lab
|
+5
|
-8
|
LD
|
-14
|
-3
|
UKIP
|
+13
|
+10
|
Grn
|
+4
|
+2
|
BNP
|
-2
|
-0.2
|
Oth
|
+0
|
-0.6
|
(Overall changes in the
share of the vote across the BBC’s 1008 Keywards.)
This is clearly one of
those cases where the net changes in the share of the vote can be misleading. The opinion polls have commonly told us that
Labour have benefitted primarily from the collapse of the Liberal Democrats,
whereas the UKIP surge has come mostly from the Tories.
If all the Lib Dem
losses since 2010 were to Labour then they should be up 14 not just 5. The
Green 4 point gain is likely to have largely come from the LDs, but that would
still leave Labour 5 points short of where they would have been if they were
simply benefitting from the Lib Dem losses.
Conversely, on the
right of the political spectrum, if, apart from 2 points from the BNP, all of
UKIP’s 13 point rise since 2010 were from the Tories, then Conservative would have
been down by 11 points, not 6 they were actually down by. This discrepancy of 5
points corresponds to the 5 points Labour seem to have been short by in the
above paragraph.
On this rough reckoning
then, UKIP took 5 points from Labour, and 6 points from the Conservatives. So, by comparison with 2010, it looks like Farage
hurt both major parties roughly equally, not disproportionately from the
Tories.
The story about change
since 2012 also in the table is also revealing here. That shows much more clearly how Labour have
fallen and UKIP risen in local election vote shares over the last two
years. What seems to have happened is
that between 2010 and 2012 UKIP took votes mainly from the Conservatives, but
between 2012 and 2014 they have had more success in attracting Labour voters.
The net effect is that the UKIP rise from 2010 to 2014 has been at similar
expense to Labour and the Conservatives.
This is certainly a
story that fits the main pattern of change in the general election vote
intention opinion polls. The narrowing of the Labour lead over the past two
years has been mainly due to a Labour fall and UKIP rise.
Another way of looking
at this issue is to consider who suffered most in the wards where the UKIP vote
share went up most. In BBC Keywards fought
by all four parties, the correlation between the change in the UKIP share of
the vote since 2010 and that for the Conservatives was very similar to that between
UKIP and Labour: both close to -0.3.
This provides further evidence that UKIP hurt Labour by about the same
amount as they hurt the Conservatives.
This pattern is also
visible in the main source of regional variation. Across wards fought by all three main
Westminster parties, UKIP were up by just 6 points in London, but by 14 points
elsewhere in England: an 8 point difference.
The corresponding (partially) compensating London/elsewhere differences
in the performances of the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats were
2.0, 2.6 and 1.4 points respectively.
These figures not only reinforce the picture of Labour suffering
similarly if not more than the Tories from UKIP, but they also show an (albeit
smaller) impact on the Liberal Democrats.
So
much for votes. What about seats? Among the 53 UKIP gains in the BBC Keywards,
22 came from the Conservatives, 19 from Labour and 12 from the Lib Dems. So a similar pattern again.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to
the BBC, John Curtice, Rob Ford, Jon Mellon and Rosie Shorrocks for their help
with both data and analysis.
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