UKIP ends 2012 still with zero MPs and holding two fewer council seats

How Farage’s party has done in the year’s local by-elections

On the face of it UKIP is riding high and finishing 2012 with, in some polls, shares of up to 16%.

Yet in real elections where real voters cast real votes the picture is very different. In the local elections in May Farage’s party ended with no net increase in the number of council seats held and in local by-elections they’ve suffered set-backs.

In past three weeks as the national polls shares for UKIP have surged the Tories have lost six council seats. You’d expect the party that’s moving forward so fast would benefit.

Yet not one of those seats was taken by UKIP. One went to Labour and the other five to by the Lib Dems.

UKIP has contested about 60% of the 190 or so by-elections in principal authorities that have been held and have made no gains whatsoever. The two seats that they were defending they lost.

Mike Smithson

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