Shock as poll predicts 128 seats for Ukip

UKIP has surged to 25% in the polls and the soaring level of support would secure the party an astonishing 128 MPs in a general election.

In a staggering study fresh off the back of the party’s by-election victory in Clacton, Nigel Farage has won the support of one in four voters and is on course to send shockwaves through parliament.

The Survation poll put the party on an all-time high and analysis has found that a repeat in May next year would see the Conservatives lose 100 seats and Ed Miliband in No 10.

Labour and the Tories are both on 31% while the Liberal Democrats are on just 8%, according to the research.

Experts suggest the ratings would give Labour 253 MPs, Conservatives 187, Ukip 128, Lib Dems 11, and other parties, such as the SNP, 71.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said: “If Ukip are to turn votes into Commons seats in Britain’s first-past-the-post system, they need to build up bastions of local strength. Today’s poll suggests they may have begun to do that.

“The 25% level represents a 22-point increase on the 3% the party won in 2010.

“If that increase were to occur evenly in every constituency, they could still fail to pick up a single seat.

“But today’s poll suggests Ukip’s support has increased much more in the south of England outside London than it has elsewhere in the UK by a staggering 34 points.

“If that level was recorded throughout the South, Ukip could win as many as 128 seats, with no fewer than 102 of them coming from the Conservatives, whose vote in the region is down 14 points.

“In that event, Cameron would be left with just 187 seats, almost as weak a position as the Conservatives were in after their calamitous defeat in 1997.”

Separate private polling data, leaked last night, suggested Ukip are on course for a more realistic 25 seats.

Prof Curtice said the results would enable Farage to “achieve his ambition” of holding the balance of power at Westminster.

He added: “Any poll estimate of what is going on in an individual region is inevitably not as robust as that for the country as a whole.

“However, if Ukip are advancing more strongly in some parts of the South, its chances of establishing itself as a significant force at Westminster may well be higher than has so far been appreciated.”

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll found voters think Ed Miliband is as bad a Labour leader as Michael Foot, who suffered a catastrophe at the polls in 1983.

Among the general population, nine in 10 think Labour would be better off with a different leader.

Labour voters agree by a margin of 46% to 13%. The party came within 617 votes of losing the Heywood and Middleton by-election last week.