John Curtice on Nigel Farage's Clacton By-Election Win: The Full Analysis

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: algorithms and arithmetic in uk politics it is sir john curtis always a privilege to have you on the show let's start off first of all with the clackton numbers does it paint a positive picture [00:00:11] Speaker 2: for nigel farage overall yes though it's a picture that only has validity uh within the constituency of clackton i mean i mean so far as that's concerned i would give nigel farage eight or nine out of ten so uh success number one is that as you've already alluded to just in terms of the number of votes uh cast uh nigel farage ended up with just over a thousand more people voting for him in this by-election than did two years ago uh in the constituency in the general election and given what he was keen to do was to try to demonstrate uh to not least other mps that the voters of clackton remain happy with having him as their mp or at least as happy as they were two years ago uh that perhaps therefore the it's time to drop uh the investigation into whether or not he should have declared the five million donation from mr harbourn to the parliamentary authorities now of course that investigation is going to continue um but uh at least uh in so far as one of the criticism of this by-election by uh some of mr farage's opponents is a bit of a farce some people may feel that it's also going to be a bit of a farce if we end up having yet another by-election in a few weeks time so anyway that that's certainly one thing to do i think the second thing that reform can take away uh and it's partly helps to explain why mr farage is telling his eyes it is is the turn up again if we if the uh the case that the by-election was a stunt and a farce then turn out ought to have been low because the voters of clarkton should say now why are you asking us to vote in this by-election it's new it's silly there's no real competition etc etc 44 percent not far short of the closely contested by-elections in runcorn and in gordon and denton better than in two by-elections in scotland recently and actually better than david davis in the halton price and howden by-election back in 2008 which is the one but previous by-election where mp has stood down for the by-election under the same colors as the one the last election uh their turn up was only around 34 35 percent one reason why it's not turned out to turn well again it goes back to what david davis achieved in that by-election from a fairly similar starting point at the previous election david davis got up to 72 percent in contrast nigel frage is at 63 so uh but yeah for the most part i think reform will be happy with resort but it frankly doesn't tell us anything beyond the borders of [00:02:57] Speaker 1: clarkton i mean if we were to cast this forward and i know that it's very hard to have a crystal ball because there's always environmental factors and narratives and so on and so forth that surround any future election if the election hadn't been boycotted by the legacy parties and all let's say the mainstream political parties or let's say if it is rerun in the future after uh wrongful findings by the standards watchdog are we likely to see those numbers drastically changed or do you think nigel farge actually pounding the pavements knocking on doors for this past month this summer when everyone was saying well you know you're wasting your time fighting with a bin has it potentially sort of inoculated him against what might be coming uh at him in the future well depending on what more if [00:03:41] Speaker 2: anything is revealed about allegations about both reforms finances in general and mr farage's in particular so if we assume that nothing much new emerges uh frankly even if the um principal opponents had stood in this by-election we would expect it to get mr farage to get over half the vote after all he got 46 in 2024 support for reform is still around nine ten points higher across the country as a whole higher as a whole as it was then and indeed a opinion poll conducted during the by-election indicated that was also likely to result i think the truth is why did mr farage precipitate the by-election because he knew he was going to win why might it not be such a good idea for uh mp some other parties to uh uh hold a second by-election because mr farage is likely to win [00:04:31] Speaker 1: let's talk now about uh macro politics rather than clackton politics and look at polling in general because there's a sort of i've been seeing a lot lately in the right right-wing press write-ups about kenny basiloc isn't she doing well there's a renaissance of the conservative party her personal vote seems to be going up you know the public like her they think she's competent they think she's decisive and yet the election results in gorton and denton and the manchester mayoral uh recent election but it tells a very different story where the conservative party itself seems to be losing deposits it's doing so badly so what are we actually looking at here john well i think the truth is [00:05:11] Speaker 2: yes the conservative party is certainly not strong enough to be spending a lot of effort in by-elections where it doesn't have a cat's chance in hell of winning and to that extent uh largely uh vacated uh the field so um i think that point number one is that reform peaked at 32 percent of the vote on average in september of last year that number has not dramatically but slowly going down until we get to july the 7th when nigel farage precipitated the clacton by-election and this is where the clacton by-election did matter it's not the result it's the precipitation and the events that led to its precipitation uh because you can show very clearly that whereas as of july the 7th reform are running at 26 27 percent in the national polls thereafter they fell to 24 and they're still only at 24 to 25 now now i'm not necessarily saying it's the calling of the by-election itself that led some voters to change their mind it may just simply be the publicity of the allegations because uh some of the more recent allegations about the financing of reform uh occurred just the weekend before mr farage made his decision but either way the calling of the by-election and the circumstances that led to it collectively clearly did do damage reform and i think frankly it's the first i mean it's been a sequence of uh various stories in the press about various aspects of mr farage's personal behavior in the past what was said in the playground in dulwich in the 1960s etc etc so far none of these seem to hit home but this story has to some degree so far done so now who is going to benefit if support for reform is going down well to some degree labor yes because labor were losing some ground to reform but above all the conservatives and it is the case although uh the improvement in cammy badenox ratings which you referred to and it's there in amongst all the pollsters uh that that um uh has occurred during the course of last 12 months and it outpaces the improvement in conservative support conservative support support at 20 percent yes i know it's only 20 percent but at 20 percent it's three points up above the nadir of the autumn of last year and you can show very clearly for the polls that whereas back in the autumn of last year more than one in three of those people who voted conservative in 2024 switched to reform then the figures now slipped to a little below uh one in four um and the conservatives have got themselves back together with reform's own difficulties the gap between them is only between four and five points and i think probably you know one of the reasons why what the position that mr farage faces now it's going to be much more difficult than winning the clapton by-election is the fact that the project uh that reform have and mr fries in particular had of trying to replace the conservatives as the principle party of the right in britain which seemed to be going extremely well for much of the last 12 months the gap between those two parties is now sufficiently narrow and the potential at least perhaps for the conservatives to advance further if kemi betty nox personality and popularity continues to improve then uh maybe maybe uh the conservatives might be able to begin to turn things around that said what is also very very clear kemi betty nox i think the message of the polling is she is respected but not necessarily yet like she's respected for her performances even among some people who don't necessarily like her and secondly while some of the doubts people had about her have been assuaged the doubts about the conservative party in the light of their records in the last parliament including not least on immigration but also economic competence those worries are still there with the electorate and that is still the big albatross around the tory's neck that they still have to try to get rid of [00:09:26] Speaker ?: Thank you.