Could UKIP be the new 3rd party of British politics?
As support for the 3 mainstream parties goes into decline someone needs take the baton. Step up UKIP
it is getting increasingly hard to brush off UKIP as an extremist party who cannot be taken seriously.
Both Cameron and Clegg have fallen dramatically in approval ratings while Miliband has stayed the same which shows that there is ample room for a new contender to enter the ring and scoop up these straying votes. This is backed up by the fact that a quarter of Conservative voters have said that they would be open to voting for UKIP. If you go by these statistics Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, might have a case to challenge or try and crawl into bed with the big guns.
However for Mr Farage and his friends there is still a long way to go: as of last election they have no seats in the house of commons, a feat that both the Green party and Respect have, both of whom are smaller in the overall opinion polls but seem to have havens where they are appreciated. They also need to tighten up their act in order to progress; Mr Farage and his deputy were both almost a year late in handing in their expense forms. These sorts of mistakes cannot be allowed to occur in a party that has visions of the limelight.
So for the moment all we can do is wait and see what happens but I wouldn’t rule out a surge towards the ideals that the UKIP stand for, especially in the current economic situation. The race for number 10 is far from over. Leader Nigel Farage had broken with normal practice and predicted the UK Independence Party would top the European elections in the UK. His confidence was not misplaced as they got 27.5% of the vote, ahead of Labour and the Conservatives. They also gained 161 councillors in the local elections. It all left the leader of the party which wants the UK to leave the European Union able to claim an "earthquake" had shaken the country's political establishment.
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