Labour is failing to make up any ground on Ukip ahead of next week’s European elections. A new poll from Sky News and YouGov today says that Labour’s support has dropped to 25 per cent, while Ukip remain comfortably in first place with 31 per cent of the vote:
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Interestingly, Ukip has not pushed further ahead since the last YouGov poll I wrote up, but they are now clear of the margin of error — two/three per cent depending on the sample size. It appears that, combined with Ukip’s higher likeliness to vote, Labour is ever more certain to come second on 22 May.
The Tories, who have long accepted they will come third, will be pleased they are slowly eroding Labour’s vote share. But Labour HQ will be panicking about the state of their electoral strategy. While the last few weeks have been taken up by controversies over Ukip’s party political broadcast and VAT posters, little has been said about its European policy.
As Guido reported over the weekend, some at Labour HQ feel their strategy has focused too much on the Liberal Democrats and not enough on Ukip. Although today’s poll does suggest it’s the Tories who are eating into Labour’s vote, there is plenty more Miliband and co could have done to tackle the rise of Ukip.
As it stands now, Ed Miliband is facing the embarrassing prospect of being beaten by a party which has no MPs and is way behind Labour in the national vote share. If Labour are beaten into second place, there will be much soul searching about what it means for party’s election machine, its leader and ability to win in 2015.
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