Major New Poll Puts UKIP on 24 Against Tories' 29 Percent

A major new poll to be published in the Independent newspaper tomorrow has placed Britain’s UK Independence Party (UKIP) on 24 percentage points, a whopping 21 percent rise since the General Election of 2010.

Following the unprecedented performances of the European Elections earlier this year, where UKIP topped the poll, alongside the party’s first House of Commons seat victory in Clacton earlier this month, the new poll puts Nigel Farage’s party within striking distance of the Conservative Party, who are on 29 percent.

John Rentoul in the Independent reports: 

Labour’s lead has been halved from six points to three in a ComRes opinion poll for The Independent on Sunday, shared with the Sunday Mirror.

Con 31% (+2)

Lab 34% (-1)

Lib Dem 7% (0)

UKIP 19% (0)

Green 4% (0)

Other 5% (-1)

(Change since last month in brackets.)

This month, ComRes experimented with including UKIP in its main question, instead of listing it under “Other” parties, by splitting the sample and asking half of respondents, “would you vote Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, UKIP or some other party?” The results of this this experiment were as follows:

Con 29%

Lab 31%

LD 7%

UKIP 24%

Green 5%

Other 5%

The poll also found a five-point increase since May 2012 in the proportion of Labour voters who would “seriously consider” voting for UKIP, up from 11 to 16 per cent.

The news comes after a major new attack by the BBC on UKIP, followed by further articles in the mainstream press demonising the party and its supporters as “Nazis” and “mentally ill”.