Protest Vote

                                                            Protest Vote

The coming general election in the UK has two aspects to it. Obviously the most important one is who will form the government and the result is such that it will be one of the two main parties.

The other sub text is what will happen to the parties of protest or the third party. Historically this role was filled by the Liberal Democratic Party. However the Libdems as they are usually referred to here are for the most part thoroughly discredited by being part of the governing coalition so their role in this election is likely to be a large amount of contraction with large numbers of their MPs being defeated.

This has opened up a vacuum in the electoral process and the most likely result will b e the opening up of spaces for new parties. Two parties are likely to be the beneficiaries though with the first past the post electoral system they will struggle to win a greatly increased number of seats.

The two parties most set to benefit will be UKIP and the Greens.

UKIP have performed impressively in some of the recent by-elections. This is not likely to happen too the same extent in  general election as by-elections are very commonly used for protest votes with many of these “protesters” going back to their normal allegiance at election time. Many papers are suggesting that UKIP’s bubble has finally burst. This is unlikely. It does retain a significant groundswell of support which is not likely to dissipate at a general election though they are likely to perform less well at the general election.

However they are likely to become a significant force. One factor in their rise was the main parties trying to talk tough on immigration which was a bad strategy for them as it enhanced UKIP’s importance by reminding people of the problem. The Conservatives particularly fell for this line and now they focus on other policies. At the next election UKIP is likely to remain a significant force though it is difficult to see them winning a large number of seats

The Green Party has also made inroads and has been particularly successful at picking up disillusioned Liberal Democrat voters. They already have one MP but for similar reasons to UKIP will find it difficult to increase their tally of seats.

One aspect that has not really been mentioned though is that the next parliament is likely to have a different flavour as previously the main competitor for votes with the main parties was the Liberal Democrats who define themselves as equidistant for both main parties. What will happen now is that both main parties are going to have to look over their shoulders at the competition. The Conservatives will be nervously look over their shoulders at UKIP as they have competition on the right and Labour will look over their shoulders at the Green Party on their left. This is likely to pull politics in a much more radical direction and will send a message to the main parties that they cannot take their core vote for granted.

Added to this will be the fact that Scotland is likely to vote differently from the rest of the UK and its third party the Scottish National Party is likely to do very well. Historically a Labour stronghold Scotland is likely to elect a large contingent of SNP MPs and it is Scotland which is likely to be the place where the third party does particularly well having built on and expanded its support during the 2014 referendum on Independence. One thing is certain politics will not be the same again!