Lord Ashcroft's polling on UKIP
Lord Ashcroft has done another great big chunk of polling, this time focusing upon the rise of UKIP. Over on his site he has the results of a big poll of 20,000 people plus a series of focus groups with UKIP supporters and considerers.
Looking first at the demographics of who is supporting UKIP, amongst the 1000 people who said they would vote UKIP at the moment in Ashcroft's poll, 45% say they voted Tory in 2010, 27% UKIP, 15% Lib Dem, 6% Did not vote, 4% Labour and 4% other parties. The demographic breaks show UKIP supporters continue to be heavily skewed towards elderly men - 43% of their support is from over 65s, just 8% from under 35s. 66% is from men, 34% from women.
Lord Ashcroft headlines his article on one of the most persistent myths about UKIP, that people vote for them over the issue of Europe and, therefore, winning the support of those people is all about offering policies related to Europe.
Past polling has shown this to be nonsense - a huge YouGov poll of voters in the 2009 European election found that Europe was only the fourth most important issue for UKIP voters after the economy, immigration and crime; a 2010 YouGov poll of UKIP voters at the 2010 election found the issue of Europe trailing behind the economy and immigration
- and Lord Ashcroft finds the same now. Amongst people considering UKIP (he doesn't provide a crossbreak for people saying they actually would vote UKIP) 68% name the economy as one of the most important issues facing the country, followed by immigration on 52% and welfare dependency on 46%. Europe is fifth on 27%... meaning almost three quarters of UKIP considerers really don't see the issue of Europe as that important. Ashcroft found a similar pattern in his focus groups - Europe was mentioned comparatively little compared with immigration, welfare and general disatisfaction with modern Britain.
Asked which party people think has the best policy on particular issues, UKIP come nowhere at all on most issues. Even people considering voting UKIP don't think they have policies on the economy, health, crime or whatever. There are only two issues where even UKIP considers think they have good policies - Europe and immigration. Essentially, UKIP have managed to break out of the ghetto of being a single-issue party to become a two-issue party, or a three-issue party if you count being generally dissatisfied with modern life.
As I endlessly say here though, policies really aren't that important in determining voting intention. Ashcroft's UKIP considerers say that they think the economy is the most important issue and they overwhelmingly think the Conservatives are the best party on that, they think David Cameron would be the best PM, they would prefer a Conservative majority at the election... yet they say they would consider voting UKIP. Why?
Crunching the data Ashcroft found the strongest correllations with considering voting UKIP were statements associated with values and party image - people who thought UKIP reflected their values, or was prepared to say the sort of things other parties wouldn't. Lord Ashcroft also asked UKIP considerers whether they agreed with various reasons people might support UKIP. The most agreed with statement was to send a message about immigration and Europe (sadly lumped together in the same statement), followed by agreement with UKIP's immigration policy, wanting to "take Britain back in time when things were done more sensibly" and the "bigger parties seem more interested in trendy nonsense than listening to ordinary people".
Putting aside European elections (when much of UKIP support is from otherwise loyal Conservative voters sending a specific message over Europe), UKIP support is not particularly connected with Europe, it is an anti-immigration vote and protest vote against some aspects of modern Britain, a general reactionary vote in support of taking Britain back to a status quo ante.
Ashcroft also asked how some of the things that might stop people voting UKIP. The statements that UKIP considers agreed with least were the statements that UKIP seem "quite old fashioned", or "seem a bit racist" - hardly surprising given the elderly age profile of UKIP supporters, their support for things being as they used to be and opposition to immigration - such voters are highly unlikely to see being anti-immigration as racist or being a bit old fashioned as a bad thing. The most agreed with statements were tactical ones about voting UKIP letting a party they didn't like win their local seat or form the government.
So what of the future? The fact that UKIP support is not primarily driven by attitudes to Europe suggests that a referendum on EU membership is not the sort of elixir that some people seem to consider it to be. That's not to say it wouldn't shift votes, or appeal to people with the sort of values that lead them to support UKIP... just don't expect it to magically lure all those votes back to the Conservatives overnight.
More pertinent is the degree to which UKIP sympathisers who prefer Cameron and the Conservatives to Miliband and Labour will end up returning to the Conservatives once an actual election arrives, and the degree to which UKIP has replaced the Liberal Democrats as a vehicle for mid-term protest votes from people unhappy with both the government and the opposition. Right now there is no good way of measuring that.
