Taking issue

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Sunday, 7 June 2009, 09:45

The BNP’s Martin Wingfield has been questioning my recent blogs about trends in these elections. He claims that the BNP County Council vote will transfer to the European Elections and none will slip to UKIP. He also asserts that the BNP need just 132,959 votes across the North West to win a seat. He bases this on the 32% turnout and a belief that the BNP will need just 8% to secure a seat.

Once again I must stress that I have no idea about the outcome of these elections and in questioning Wingfield’s claims I’m not predicting the result. I simply don't have a clue. However, I believe that both of Wingfield’s assertions are wrong.

To believe that none of their votes will slip to UKIP in the Euros is quite simply barmy. The BNP clearly benefited from being the only protest party in most of the County Council wards they contested. Where UKIP or even the English Democrats stood, the BNP vote suffered. Take, for example, the Chelmsford district in Essex. The BNP stood across the board and they received between 6% and 9% of the vote in every division bar one. In Great Baddow, the BNP vote slipped to 3.47%, almost half their vote in the next lowest division, and this was because UKIP stood and polled 12.6%.

Even in Pendle, the UKIP impact is evident. In Pendle Central the BNP polled 978 votes (23%), in West Craven 897 votes (15.4%), in Pendle East 579 (12.7%), Pendle West 574 (11.8%), Nelson South 507 (11.3%) and Brierfield & Nelson North 581 (10.1%). In the two divisions where the BNP got most votes there were no rival nationalist candidates, whereas in three of the bottom four there were.

The two County Council elections in Fleetwood are also of interest. The UKIP contested both and comfortably got more votes than the BNP. The same is true in Thornton Cleveleys Central, where the BNP polled 351 but UKIP polled 1051. In neighbouring Thornton Cleveleys North, the BNP polled 431 and UKIP polled 779.

Wingfield claims that UKIP will take votes off the Conservatives. I think the UKIP will take votes off everyone, including the BNP. He even suggests that UKIP won't do as well as in 2005. I think they will do better.

The second issue is the percentage needed to gain a seat. Wingfield puts the figure at 8%. While it is true that the BNP could get elected in the North West with this figure it is also possible that the figure will be higher. Indeed, if the Conservatives poll 27%, Labour 18% and UKIP and the Greens beat the BNP then Nick Griffin will need closer to 9%, which is another 16,600 votes to the total Wingfield suggested they needed.

Of course, there is one issue where I agree with Wingfield. It all comes down to the big conurbations in Greater Manchester, Merseyrside and East Cheshire, which together make up over 70% of the electorate in the North West. Turnout across the region was 32%, with Manchester at 27%, Oldham 29.8%, Bolton 30.6%, Bury 34.2%, Rochdale 28.5%, Salford 27.4%, Stockport 33.2%, Tameside 30.4%, Trafford 34.1% and Wigan 27.0%. And none of us have any idea how the electorate voted here.

I will end on one interesting point made by Wingfield: “We fought seven of 16 seats in Allerdale and our Euro vote in the nine we didn't contest was very hard to find.” Let’s HOPE!