Ukip surges to 25% in the polls

Ukip has surged to 25% in the polls and the soaring level of support would secure the party an astonishing 128 MPs in a general election, experts have claimed.

In a staggering study for the Mail on Sunday fresh off the back of the eurosceptic party's by-election victory in Clacton, Nigel Farage has won the support of one in four voters and is on course to send shockwaves through parliament.

The Survation poll put the party on an all-time high and analysis has found that a repeat in May next year would see the Conservatives lose 100 seats and Ed Miliband in No 10.

Newly elected Ukip MP Douglas Carswell, left, and party leader Nigel Farage are heading for Rochester and Strood to rally support for Mark Reckless

Labour and the Tories are both on 31% while the Liberal Democrats are on 8%, according to the research for the newspaper.

Experts suggest that the ratings would give Labour 253 MPs, Conservatives 187, Ukip 128, Lib Dems 11, and other parties, such as the SNP, 71.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, told the Mail on Sunday : "If Ukip are to turn votes into Commons seats in Britain's first-past-the-post system, they need to build up bastions of local strength. Today's poll suggests they may have begun to do that.

"T he 25% level represents a 22-point increase on the 3% the party won in 2010.

"If that increase were to occur evenly in every constituency, they could still fail to pick up a single seat.

"But today's poll suggests Ukip's support has increased much more in the south of England outside London than it has elsewhere in the UK - by a staggering 34 points.

"If that level was recorded throughout the South, Ukip could win as many as 128 seats, with no less than 102 of them coming from the Conservatives, whose vote in the region is down 14 points.

"In that event, Cameron would be left with just 187 seats, almost as weak a position as the Conservatives were in after their calamitous defeat in 1997.

"Mr Farage would achieve his ambition of holding the balance of power at Westminster. Any poll estimate of what is going on in an individual region is inevitably not as robust as that for the country as a whole.