Why the UK's east coast is ripe for a Ukip incursion

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/25/uk-east-coast-ukip-incursion

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One of the biggest myths in British politics is that the UK Independence party is winning support mainly from disgruntled middle-class Tories who care only about leaving the EU. As we chart in our book, Nigel Farage and his followers are drawing their strength from the "left behind" in modern Britain: old, financially disadvantaged, blue-collar, low qualified and angry voters marginalised by the country's post-1970s economic transformation and cut out of the political conversation by the new focus on middle-class swing votes. Ukip is not a second home for Eurosceptic Tories; it is becoming a first home for the angry left-behind electorate, many of who have been the hardest hit by the economic crisis and austerity.

This research has sparked debate about Ukip's appeal, especially on the left where concern is growing that Farage is winning his strongest support from the very groups who should be most attracted by Ed Miliband's focus on the "cost of living crisis". These struggling voters are instead switching en masse to a radical right party that has no governing experience, Thatcherite activists, and instinctive support for low taxes, deregulated markets and welfare cuts. This is what should especially concern social democrats.

Elsewhere in Europe the radical right is winning over working-class voters by offering them a combination of opposition to immigration and economic protectionism. But Ukip is offering only one of these: the left-behind are voting for them even though they would be further marginalised by the party's embrace of neo-liberal economics.

Since 2010, Ukip has won second place with at least 18% in three byelections in solid Labour seats (Rotherham, South Shields, and Wythenshawe and Sale East), and scored more than 10% in a further two (Barnsley Central and Middlesbrough). In some of these seats the party had hardly any previous presence.

At the 2013 local elections, Ukip's breakthroughs came in solidly Conservative county councils, but closer analysis suggests this surge hurt Labour as much as the Tories. Only now, however, is Labour's high command beginning to grasp the potential of a radical right insurgency into red territory, with Douglas Alexander confirming last week that Ukip's working-class appeal is being taken "very seriously".

All of this raises an intriguing question: which Labour MPs should be most worried? It is extremely difficult to predict as we have little track record to go on, but we can make use of the unusually clear Ukip demographic profile. To do this we first compiled measures of Ukip attraction using recent census data, and then looked for seats where there are large numbers of "Ukip-friendly" voters and low numbers of voters from groups that tend to reject Farage. Ideal Ukip territory would have large concentrations of pensioners, current and former blue-collar workers, and voters who left school at an early age. And there would be as few young voters, middle-class professionals, university graduates and minority ethnic voters as possible: these groups are "Ukip-resistant".

In seats where the MP has more than 45% of the vote, even a very strong Ukip surge is unlikely to change the local political landscape. This rules out a lot of the party's strongest potential targets, as the largest concentrations of left-behind voters are often found in very safe seats. For example, both Miliband's and Yvette Cooper's seats are in the country's top 20 most Ukip-friendly, but the party is unlikely to unseat these Labour heavyweights whose majorities at the last election were more than 10,000 votes.

Instead, Ukippers need seats with a competitive local politics. Our analysis suggests that many of these can be found in a large cluster along the east coast from Durham to Norfolk: Great Grimsby (Labour), Great Yarmouth (Conservative), Waveney (Conservative), Hartlepool (Labour) and Bishop Auckland (Labour).

These struggling former mining, fishing and port towns with lily white, ageing, working-class communities represent ideal Ukip territory. These are also areas where Ukip has strong local roots following a string of council election breakthroughs, and where central and eastern European migrant inflows – a hot-button issue for the party – are unusually large. More rural and heavily Conservative seats in the same region, such as Boston and Skegness, Gainsborough, and Louth and Horncastle (the seat held for nearly 50 years by Sir Peter Tapsell, who announced his retirement this week) also share this demographic profile, and could become attractive prospects for Ukip should the Tory vote fall back sharply in 2015.

The seat Labour should watch most closely, however, is Great Grimsby – a heartland seat that the party has held unbroken since 1945. Between 1997 and 2010 the Labour vote here slumped, from 26,000 to just 11,000. Many of these voters have already switched to anti-system parties, which won a combined 14% share of the vote in 2010 – though this was splintered across four candidates. Ukip also already have history here: they won 18% of the vote and one seat in the 2012 local elections, and in 2013 did even better in neighbouring Lincolnshire, winning 31% of the vote and 16 seats.

Since 1977 Great Grimsby has been in the hands of 79-year-old MP Austin Mitchell. If he were to step down, this would present Ukip with an ideal combination: an open seat with very favourable demographics, splintered local politics, an established anti-system vote, and a strong Ukip presence at the grassroots. In 2015 the docks of Grimsby may be the frontline in the new political battle between red and purple.