A new poll has revealed that Conservative voters would rather their party form a coalition with the Greens or Lib Dems than UKIP should they not achieve a majority in May next year.
Results from Lord Ashcroft polls show that should the party not win enough seats for an outright victory, only 39 per cent of Conservative supporters would have Farage’s party as the preferred coalition partner despite the party scrabbling to ape many of the party’s popular policies.
Surprisingly, more Conservative voters said they would be happy to see the Greens or the Lib Dems in a coalition than UKIP, which campaigns for controlled immigration and reintroducing grammar schools. In contrast the green party support energy policies which would legislate the country’s manufacturing base to nil and see fuel poverty rise as they insisted on wind turbines and solar panels instead of reliable energy sources.
Overall 36 per cent of Tories said they would be ‘very unhappy’ to see UKIP in government – the highest score on that measure for any party other than Sinn Fein who scored 48 per cent.
The survey is the first time in five weeks that the combined score for the Conservatives and Labour has gone above three fifths of the public support.
A previous survey found that voters were unsure of what result to expect in May 2015, with people neatly divided between four possible outcomes mooted: one quarter expected a Tory victory, one quarter a Labour win, and another quarter a coalition involving the Lib Dems – which divided evenly over whether it would be Conservative- or Labour-led. Only a quarter of people said they did not know what to expect.
Should there not be an outright majority, Cameron and Miliband would face a choice of leading a minority government or looking around for a coalition partner.
Alarmingly, the survey found the party that the voters would most like to see in a coalition is the Greens, with 52 per cent saying they would be happy and 42 per cent – possibly the ones who follow British politics – unhappy to see them in government.
This could be down to a lack of understanding about the policies of the left wing party which has escaped virtually any media scrutiny and instead relies on soft PR messages such as protecting wildlife and trees with the occasional scare story about fracking.
These results make them a more popular choice than the Lib Dems, over whom voters were exactly divided, who scored 48 per cent for both sides.
Least surprising is the 62 per cent of Labour voters who would prefer a watermelon coalition of red and green, compared to Tories, with 42 per cent saying they would vote blue to go green. And 51 per cent would be happy to put the country through another five years of a Cameron / Clegg partnership.
Perhaps surprisingly given their no-nonsense approach and recent electoral success, 55 per cent of people polled said they would be ‘unhappy’ at the idea of UKIP joining a coalition government. This suggestion was most popular with Conservatives than Labour, 39 per cent compared to 25.
But the ‘People’s Army’ is still scoring high in the double figures, looking to scoop a number of its target marginals and cause a headache for all the other parties.
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