Ukip local poll breakthrough – but not quite an earthquake
The local election results produce Ukip successes in Tory Essex and Labour Rotherham, while Labour is the big winner in London. The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, lose control in Portsmouth.
Nigel Farage’s party and Labour picked up hundreds of council seats at the expense of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who are coalition parties at Westminster.
With most votes in, Labour had captured six councils and gained almost 300 seats, but it was Ukip that stole the limelight by taking seats from the major parties and gaining more than 150, while the Tories lost almost 200 seats and the Lib Dems just under 300.
David Cameron said: “The economy is growing, we are creating jobs, but we have got to work harder and we have got to really deliver on issues that are frustrating people and frustrating me, like welfare reform and immigration and making sure people really benefit from this recovery.
“We will be working flat out to demonstrate that we do have the answers to help hard-working people.”
‘The Ukip fox’
Nigel Farage said Ukip’s success showed his party, which did not win control of a single council, would be “serious players” at the 2015 general election. “The Ukip fox is in the Westminster hen house,” he said.
Tory backbencher and leading Eurosceptic, John Baron, said that while Ukip was “in part a protest vote… the political establishment has been too complacent over the EU”.
Although Labour benefited at the expense of the Conservatives and Lib Dems, winning Hammersmith and Fulham, Croydon and Cambridge, Ed Miliband is not making the sort of progress that suggests he is on course for victory in 2015.
In the Essex town of Thurrock, number two on Labour’s target list of parliamentary seats, a Ukip surge meant it lost control of the council. Labour’s vote was also squeezed in Rotherham in south Yorkshire.
But it performed strongly in London, where Ukip failed to keep up with its successes elsewhere in England.
Backbenchers Graham Stringer and David Lammy broke ranks to criticise the Labour leadership, following a campaign characterised by a number of perceived gaffes by Mr Miliband.
‘Expression of discontent’
But Mr Miliband said that in some parts of the country, discontent had been “building up for decades about the way the country has been run”, and people were ” turning to Ukip as an expression of that discontent”.
Nick Clegg blamed a “very strong anti-politics feeling” after his party was beaten in Kingston by the Tories and lost control of Portsmouth due to gains by Ukip.
“There is a very strong mood of restlessness and dissatisfaction with mainstream politics and that is reflected in the results for all mainstream parties, including the Lib Dems,” he said.
