HEYWOOD, United Kingdom – The Labour Party in Heywood and Middleton is “shocked” by the size and professionalism of the UKIP machine at today’s by-election according to a party spokesman. Nigel Farage’s party had been expected to struggle to run two major campaigns simultaneously but have instead taken the gamble of moving resources out of Clacton on the assumption that a win is certain.

The party boasts having 160 activists out in Heywood and Middleton today and say they have put a leaflet through every door in the constituency in the last 24 hours. A recent poll from Lord Ashcroft showed that 68 percent of the local population recall being sent UKIP literature, with Labour only narrowly beating them on 69 percent.

The party is expected to do well at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives. In the case of Labour, the public in Heywood are unhappy about the handling of the recent allegations of child sexual exploitation. Although the media described the victims as being from Rochdale, in fact most of them are from Heywood.

Conservatives are struggling to hold on to their vote because they are perceived as being incapable of beating Labour. They have traditionally polled well here but the feeling on the street is they can never do well enough to unseat Labour. This crisis of confidence is now expected to propel UKIP into second place, and perhaps even to a narrow victory.

A UKIP spokesman told Breitbart London: “Our information is that Labour are shocked by our campaign. We’ve thrown a lot more at the seat than they ever expected. We don’t know how many people they have out but we are sure we have matched them.

“It’s impossible to make predictions on who is going to win but at the very least we’ve shown that we are the oppoisiton to Labour in Northern England. The Conservatives are nowhere.”

Polling closes at 10pm with the result expected in the very early hours of the morning.