Local elections: three main parties await extent of Ukip damage

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/22/local-european-elections-main-parties-ukip-damage

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Westminster's three main parties are bracing themselves for a weekend of inquests as they survey the magnitude of Ukip's long-promised political earthquake and any damage it inflicts to the foundations of three-party politics.

The established parties will have to endure a drawn-out agony as the trickle of overnight local elections results turns into a flood, while the European election results are not due until Sunday night.

David Cameron, once thought likely to face the most turbulent backbench response of the three party leaders, was last night increasingly confident that the Conservative party would not turn in on itself, but would instead focus on winning the Newark byelection on 5 June, caused by the resignation of former Tory MP Patrick Mercer, in an attempt to show that the Ukip bubble can be burst.

But the prime minister will have to endure the possibility that Nigel Farage's Ukip will achieve its main political objective of topping the poll in the European parliamentary elections.

Cameron has dispersed parliament for a further fortnight, to reduce the risk of plotting, and has the option of unveiling potentially populist measures in the Queen's speech on 4 June if the results are worse than expected.

A stronger commitment to a right for constituents to recall errant MPs would be one headline measure designed to address voters' anger with MPs over expenses. There may also be a crackdown on irresponsible company directors.

Cameron is expected to lose fewer than 200 local councillors, partly because many of the local election contests are not being held in Tory territory. If the Tories fail to win the European elections, it will be the first time they have done so in 20 years.

Labour insists that the local, not the European, elections will be the best guide to the outcome of the general election, and the best indicator of whether it is winning in the key marginals it is targeting. The party has been hoping to take control of at least eight key councils, but party organisers will also be drilling down into shares of the vote across all its 100 target areas.

Labour had an unprecedented "get out the vote" operation, and said its activists were outnumbering Tory, Lib Dem and Ukip activists two to one. The party machine said it was on course to knock on more than 2m doors Thursday.

Party officials have been struggling to keep expectations of local election success down, with independent experts claiming Labour should win 400 seats.

Labour says it will have performed well if wins 150-200 seats, and will be looking for progress in battleground London seats. It thinks it may also be on the verge of throwing out the controversial independent Lutfur Rahman, the directly elected mayor in Tower Hamlets.

Labour seems to have accepted that it is likely to trail Ukip in the European elections, with party officials briefing that "we are now in the era of four-party politics, but we are winning where it matters in the local elections – while the Tories and Lib Dems are disappearing from vast swaths of Britain".

The Miliband campaign team faces the threat of a wall of criticism for failing to do more to combat Ukip, as well as questions about the uneven performances of what seemed an exhausted party leader out on the road. There are also claims that too many shadow cabinet members in effect sat the elections out.

The Liberal Democrats, defending more than 700 seats, will be hoping that more than half survive the carnage, and that they retain three to five European seats in the south, east, London, north-west and possibly Scotland.

The party will be hoping it does not fall back to the dismal 6% it secured in the 1989 European elections, when it trailed the Green party.

That scale of rebuff would push the party back 25 years, and result in calls for the junior partner in the coalition government to consider a change of strategy.

If there is a move against Nick Clegg, it is likely to come from anxious backbench MPs looking at the local election results in seats such as Burnley, Manchester Withington, Birmingham Yardley, Cambridge, Kingston and Twickenham, to see if there is a road back for the party with Clegg in charge for the next 12 months.

But most senior Liberal Democrats were discounting a change of leadership, and expected the party president, Tim Farron, to lead calls for the party to hold its nerve.

On Tuesday, the prime minister will attend an informal heads of government meeting in Brussels, where he hopes to form an international cross-party alliance demanding that the EU commission respond to any voters' revolt against European centralisation with a new agenda that meets the demands of the electorate. The dinner will also see informal horsetrading about the key portfolios, including the new EU commission president.