UKIP on the Ascendancy

The Guardian this morning reports that the Guardian/ICM survey shows UKIP gaining as support as that for three main parties falls.

For me, this is good news, with UKIP support rising to 7%. I know that this level of support is unlikely to win them any parliamentary seats, particularly as the poll shows the LibDems having support of about 13% of those polled. Various other polls gave UKIP somewhat greater support of between 8% and 10%. But with Labour on 40% and the Conservatives on 32%, the UKIP support could mean the difference between the Tories winning or losing the next general election although David Cameron seems happy to ignore this possibility.

I feel that the Corby by-election will give UKIP substantial momentum. People have seen that they can beat the LibDems by a significant margin and now are beginning to accept that a vote for UKIP is not just a protest vote but that UKIP is going somewhere worthwhile. Unlike John Redwood MP, I don't believe that UKIP's poor showing in the PCC elections is of any significance as probably people thought UKIP's main aim, that of getting out of the EU, was totally irrelevant when it came to the PCC elections.

Meanwhile, I believe that UKIP will pick up more support when the details of the changes to our planning system become more widely known. Also, next year there is likely to be a surge in immigrants from the eastern European countries following the end of the EU period of limited immigration, and this will obviously be blamed on the Tories as the party in power.

UKIP is now becoming seen as the protector of British values and its views on immigration appear to have the broad support of  large part of the electorate;  attempts by their left wing opponents to brand them as "racist" have generally failed. As the European crisis deepens, and the likelihood that Britain will somehow be dragged into the mess, more and more people will realise that being a member of the EU will not be our salvation but our downfall. With the next European elections in 2014 and a General Election in 2015 (if parliament runs the full term), UKIP is making the right sort of progress to ensure that they have a say in the future.  Cameron beware!