The Rochester and Strood by-election has thrown the British
establishment into a state of panic. The by-election was triggered when Mark
Reckless switched from the Tories to UKIP. In yesterday’s election UKIP won
42.1% of the vote whilst the three main parties all lost large percentages of
their vote. The Tories lost 14%, Labour 12% and the Lib Dems 16%, for the Lib
Dems it was their worst ever result as they lost their deposit, got less than
1% of the vote and finished in fifth, behind the Greens who got 4.2% of the
vote.
Obviously this does not bode well for the main parties’
prospects in May. The next General Election could be the most important
election in living memory as six parties vie for success. UKIP’s unique ability
to attract voters from the three main parties really makes it difficult to
understand what will happen at the next election. Although the result in
Rochester certainly seems like an earthquake, it doesn't necessitate that similar events
will happen in the General Election. Voters act differently in by-elections to
Generals, Labour didn’t win any by-elections from the Conservatives from 1997
to 2012, but they still won Generals in 2001 and 2005. A combination of factors
are the reason for by-elections looking different to General Elections.
Firstly, opposition voters tend to be more motivated to go out and show support
for their candidates. Since by-elections have no effect on who forms the government
(apart from very rare circumstances), the incumbent party supporters simply are
not motivated enough. Most importantly is that supporters of the incumbent
party can use by-elections as a way to protest vote. This is certainly part of
the reason for UKIP’s success in Rochester & Strood, many people are angry
with the Tories and so voted for UKIP to scare them into taking tougher
approaches to immigration and the European Union. However in the May election I
believe that Rochester will switch back to the Tories.
As a political junkie I am excited by what the
implications of May’s General Election will be for years to come. Take a look
at the graph and table I created below. As you can see the combined vote of
Labour and the Tories has declined over the past 70 years, albeit very slowly.
If you include the various incarnations of the Lib Dems, most of the decline
disappears. The combined vote of the three main parties has only dipped below
90% on two occasions (2005 and 2010). How this graph changes in 2015 will be
fascinating as the Greens, UKIP and the SNP erode support from the main
parties.
