Poll shows voters believe Ukip is to the left of the Tories

Voters see Ukip as more left wing than the Conservative Party in a shock poll finding that will fuel concerns among Ed Miliband's allies that Nigel Farage is "parking his tanks on Labour's lawn".



A poll for The Independent on Sunday exposes what Labour strategists have been fearing for months – that voters do not regard Ukip as a party of the far right, but as one closer to the centre ground than the Tories. As such it could win Labour votes in the North. It suggests that attempts by Labour to portray Mr Farage's party as "more Thatcherite than Thatcher" have fallen flat.

The findings by ComRes will also be unsettling for the Conservatives, who must seize support from the centre-ground to win a majority at the next general election.

It is the first time that voters have put Ukip to the left of the Conservatives, in a format in which they are asked to place parties on the left-right political spectrum. The move creates greater uncertainty over the outcome of May's election.

On the traditional measure of voting intention, Labour's lead has slipped to only one point compared with four points last month. Ed Miliband's party is on 34 per cent, while the Conservative Party is up three points to 33 per cent – perhaps as a result of the Prime Minister's speech on immigration, or of giveaways on stamp duty in the Autumn Statement. Ukip is down 1 point to 18 per cent, while the Liberal Democrats are unchanged on 8 per cent. The Green Party, which experienced some uplift a few weeks ago, is down to 2 per cent.

Voters were asked to locate themselves, political parties and leaders on a spectrum ranging from 0, very left wing, to 10, very right wing, with 5 at the centre. The average voter puts themselves at 5.26.

Fascinatingly, the Conservative Party is considered more right-wing by Conservative voters (7.11) than Ukip is by Ukip voters (6.28). Ukip voters see themselves as less right-wing (5.86) than Conservative voters see themselves (6.44).

The poll caps an extraordinary year for Ukip, which was written off by some Westminster observers last May as having peaked at the European elections. The party went on to win two by-elections with Conservative defectors Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless, but the more surprising development was Mr Farage's party threat to Labour's vote in the Heywood and Middleton by-election – coming second, only 617 votes behind the Labour candidate. On Friday, Richard Desmond, the owner of Express Newspapers, reportedly pledged to donate £300,000 to Ukip.

Labour's lead has slipped to only one point compared with four points last month.

That's exactly what I expected to happen and as the election approaches Labour's share of the vote will fall even more.

UKIP and that survey bother me.

I am unsure of what UKIP really stand for, and I seriously worry about some of their candidates.

However, what I do see is a very close parallel to the current situation in the UK and early 30s Germany. People are being whipped up into a frenzy by a very charismatic leader. Of course we know what happened in 30s Germany, but we don't know what will happen here if Farage and UKIP become real mainstream players.

And talking of Labour doing anything to gain/hold on to power, they're on about giving kids the vote.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30384644