Can UKIP Replace Labour?

I am writing this during the Labour Party conference, and there is not much specific Brexit news around so I am mulling over one possible unexpected side effect of the referendum result.  Could Labour be replaced as the primary opposition by UKIP?  It is something Nigel Farage has mused about.  It doesn't seem all that impossible at first sight.  About a third of Labour voters supported Brexit, and those third seem to be heavily represented in parts of the country like South Wales and Yorkshire which return a lot of Labour MPs.  So if UKIP could turn those leave voters into UKIP voters they could possibly start to build a base in parliament similar to that of the Labour Party.


This looks quite a promising strategy, especially as Labour is not scoring particularly well in national opinion polls at the moment.

So would it work?  It would mean that they would have to win over a lot of people who voted remain.  That isn't necessarily impossible because it is no longer a live issue.  It would also mean that they would have to come up with policies that would appeal to that demographic.  Again, this isn't impossible.  UKIP could differentiate itself from Labour on defence.  A lot of working class voters won't be comfortable with the current Labour Party's apparent lack of hawkishness on nuclear missiles.  And UKIP would be able to point out that the last Labour government were big spenders on the armed forces compared to the coalition and the Tories.   So UKIP are just going back to the old Labour position.  On the National Health service and the economy it would be harder for UKIP to say they are different.  But they would certainly be able to reassure potential converts that they aren't Tories and won't be cutting things.  This will be easier with Nigel Farage who was an ex-Tory and still looked and sounded like one no longer around.

So the politics look doable.  What about the practicalities?

This is where it all starts to look a lot less rosy.  For a start there is the fact that there just aren't that many UKIP activists to take on the job.  Labour's membership is 30 times that of UKIP at time of writing.  They are also likely to be younger and more active.  Add to that that the fact that UKIP activists include a lot of ex-Tories who are quite likely to be going home soon.  After all, from their perspective the job is done.  And if the picture of where UKIP support is coming from that I inferred from the petition signers is correct, then the activists are in the wrong parts of the country.  The big parties can bus their workers around.  It is much harder for a relatively small party to do so.

The other problem is that UKIP have now become the establishment party, although without all the trimmings that usually go with that position.  Brexit is happening.  It won't go smoothly.  Nothing ever does.  Every problem that can be attributed to Brexit will be attributable to UKIP.  Local elections and by elections are often used as an opportunity to protest.  UKIP will not remain a viable protest option for long.  I know this is unfair, but UKIP would have been doing well out of exactly the same situation in reverse had there been a narrow remain win.

But I think the biggest problem with adopting this strategy is the psychological problem of actually adopting this strategy.  Who would choose to become a new Labour Party when you look at where the old one finds itself?