Research: UKIP Surge Won't Deliver Many Seats

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UKIP will struggle to convert its recent surge in support into a sizeable number of MPs at the General Election, new research suggests.

The Plymouth University analysis also says the Liberal Democrats could confound plummeting poll ratings and avoid the Parliamentary catastrophe some are predicting.

The research found that while Nigel Farage's party is winning a lot more votes, Nick Clegg's is much more effective at converting them into seats.

UKIP will get more support on May 7 but will end up finishing second behind the main parties in a large number of constituencies, it concluded.

Researchers examined the votes cast by over one and a half million electors in more than 1,000 local council by-elections since the 2010 general election.

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Gallery: UKIP Leader Nigel Farage: A Profile

Nigel Farage has been married twice and has four children, two sons from his first marriage and two daughters from his second. He continues to live in Kent and cites fishing, country sports, traditional English pubs and getting Britain out of the EU as his interests.

MP Farage was born on April 3, 1964, in Herne, Kent, to stockbroker Guy Oscar Justus Farage and Barbara Stevens. His father was, reportedly, an alcoholic and left the family home when Mr Farage was just five years old. (Pic: Wikimedia Commons)

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Despite professing himself the head of the "people's army" and enemy of the "establishment", the young Nigel Farage was actually educated at public school Dulwich College.

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He decided not to go to university but opted instead for a career in the City as a commodities trader where he worked for two decades.

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Mr Farage started out as a Conservative but left the party in 1992 in protest at John Major's signing of the Maastricht Treaty. In 1993 he became a founder member of UKIP with the sole aim of getting Britain out of the European Union. Since taking over as leader in 2006 he has tried to claim the party as the only "real voice of opposition". There is, he says, "a cigarette paper between" the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

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Since its impressive showing at the 2013 local elections, UKIP candidates have contested 346 council by-elections, winning just 21 and coming second 150 times.

By contrast, despite garnering far fewer votes than UKIP, the Lib Dems have won more than twice as many seats - 53 from 318 contests.

Latest polls put support for Mr Clegg's party in single figures and predict they could lose at least 34 of their 57 MPs.

However, the Plymouth University data shows the party's national vote share is estimated at 14%, about six points higher than the pollsters' average.

Professor Michael Thrasher, of Plymouth University, said: "Support for the Liberal Democrats is 10 points lower than its 2010 vote and indicates losses of 17 parliamentary seats.

"But that situation is a lot better than if the polls are right.

"The Liberal Democrats have proved more successful than a small party should be under Britain's first-past-the-post system precisely because its support is concentrated in some areas.

"Relatively speaking, UKIP's support is evenly spread.

"This evidence points to UKIP doing well enough to win at best a handful of seats in 2015, but at the same time garnering enough votes to finish as runner-up in scores of constituencies."

A UKIP spokesman said: "With these upcoming elections, one may as well look at runes or entrails as much as opinion polls.

"Due to the rise of UKIP nobody knows what is going to happen, except that these upcoming elections will be the most interesting in generations.

"This time, it really is true: your vote matters."

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