by Peter Barker
LONDON, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- The victory for the Eurosceptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the Rochester by-election represents the threat of a serious challenge to Britain's traditional political party structure in the run-up to the country's general election next May, British experts have said.
UKIP's victory in the former Conservative-held seat in the south of England was announced early on Friday morning after voting took place on Thursday.
UKIP took the seat after the sitting Conservative member of the Parliament (MP) Mark Reckless resigned from his party in protest at its immigration policy. He also resigned as an MP, triggering the by-election.
Reckless joined UKIP and stood for them in the by-election. He took 42 percent of the vote, 16,867 voters, with the Conservatives taking 35 percent of the vote with 13,947 voters. The main opposition party Labour won 6,713 votes and 17 percent of the vote.
UKIP has won increasing support over the past five years with anti-immigration policies and opposition to the European Union (EU). It wants Britain to quit the EU because it claims the EU has too much control over Britain.
UKIP began as a fringe right-wing party more than 20 years ago, established by academics. But it is in the past four years that it has seen support grow, to the point where it now eclipses the traditional third party in British politics, the Liberal Democrats, in terms of voting intentions.
Its right-wing stance attracts support from Conservatives, which has caused problems for Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, and earlier this autumn Conservative intellectual MP Douglas Carswell defected to UKIP to trigger a by-election in the poor southern town of Clacton.
Carswell won an enormous victory, taking 59.7 percent of the vote, and added to the growing momentum of UKIP's rising popularity and profile. Such a large victory for an MP defecting from one party to another is highly unusual.
UKIP VOTERS
UKIP has an increasing political momentum, drawing support from disaffected, disillusioned and pessimistic voters who are deeply cynical about the three main British political parties, who feel poorer than before the financial crisis, and who feel alienated from success.
Dr. Matthew Goodwin, associate professor in politics at the University of Nottingham, has co-authored the seminal book on UKIP, 'Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain.'
"The Rochester by-election victory underscores UKIP's growing challenge to the main parties -- both Conservatives and the Labour Party. UKIP polled stronger than usual across voters from all of the main parties and did so in a fairly typical seat. This was not ideal UKIP territory," Goodwin told Xinhua.
He added: "It highlights a possible broadening of support for UKIP beyond its more economically disadvantaged heartland."
Goodwin said that the core UKIP voters, who he labeled as 'the left behind in British society,' are older, working class, disillusioned and pessimistic voters who feel cut adrift from Westminster politics and are mainly anxious about immigration, the EU and the state of national politics.
"Its core voters are very disadvantaged, very struggling, very pessimistic and that is giving UKIP its strength in terms of geography because these voters tend to be very concentrated in particular areas which is important for the First Past the Post system (Britain's electoral system)".
Goodwin said it was "a very distinctive revolt in British politics" and said UKIP was now "the most working class party seen in British politics" for more than 30 years.
He added that UKIP had become more organized and focused and was now reaching voters it had previously not attracted.
"There is some evidence that UKIP may be widening that support, including this by-election, and beginning to make bigger inroads into the middle class, women, minorities and the young," said Goodwin.
Goodwin said that with less than six months to go before the May 7 general election next year, UKIP's success in Clacton and now in Rochester over both the political parties forming the coalition and the main opposition party raised "big questions about what UKIP's impact" would be in the general election.
GENERAL ELECTION PROSPECTS
Joe Twyman, head of political and social research at YouGov, said that UKIP's Rochester victory was significant because it was in an area where it had not expected to succeed.
The Clacton victory was in the number one UKIP target seat, Rochester was number 270 on that list (out of 650 British constituencies), said Twyman.
"Are there lots of places like Clacton? Yes, 10 or 12 which UKIP will identify as their core seats for the next election. Are there seats like Rochester? Yes, an awful lot," he said.
However, Twyman said UKIP was going to struggle to hold Rochester and win seats like it.
"That task at a by-election is much easier than it is at a general election, where people no longer use the ballot box as an opportunity to register a protest and instead focus on issues facing them and their families which in our polls in predominantly the economy, health, education and welfare," he said.
The 2015 general election will be held after decades of declining support for the two main political parties, and after the recent Scottish referendum which demonstrated a sizeable minority who wanted Scottish independence.
Experts said growing support for the nationalist UKIP is a threat to Conservatives and Labor in England.
Taken together, support for nationalist parties in Scotland and England is not going to see either forming the next government or even having a large number of MPs in the national parliament.
But with both main parties having roughly similar support, the possibility of two groups of nationalist MPs could have a noticeable impact on the general election campaign, the policies that parties campaign on, and even the formation of the next government. The two main parties have to "embrace" some of UKIP's ideas, according to Twyman.
