Britannist

I don't think the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists won seats in the first few General Elections they contested. But they continued beavering away and eventually made a breakthrough (against Lab/Cons./Lib. Dims) by winning seats in the Commons. I think the Scottish Nationalists got a record 11 seats in the Commons in one of the 1974 General Elections and nearly pushed the Liberals out as the official 'third' party. If the europhile SNP can achieve that - I see no reason why UKIP or the English Democrats can't.

The chances of UKIP winning a seat at the next General Election are small - unless it targets its six best areas (in terms of votes it receives in local/General/EU elections in those constituencies).

It took Sir Menzies Campbell (the Liberal Dim party leader) four attempts to win the seat he now holds in the Commons. His party targets seats despite it deceitfully trying to give the impression that it is fighting to win in all constituencies. It can barely get together the money, resources and people to put up 'paper' candidates in at least 550 constituencies - and it (the pro-EU Liberal Dims) are severely 'stretched' in most of the other seats.

UKIP needs candidates for its half a dozen key target seats who are prepared to work as equally hard.

For a start, UKIP can forget winning a seat in the Commons unless it has a good, strong local organisation in a target constituency with active ward branches and councillors representing some of those wards on the local authority.

A possible alternative is for UKIP to target a constituency where they have been 'problems'. In last year's General Election campaign, Howard Flight, the Conservative eurosceptic MP, was blocked from standing as Conservative candidate at Arundel by the Conservative leader. This intervention in the internal affairs of Arundel Conservative Association angered many of the local Conservatives to the extent that had UKIP immediately intervened by putting up one of its best candidates in the Arundel seat to appeal to disgruntled Conservatives there is a chance that UKIP may have taken sufficient Conservative votes (and votes from others voting tactically) to win the seat on a three-way split (between official Conservative and Liberal Dim party candidate).

But nothing was done by UKIP as far as I can tell - even though Arundel is part of the traditionally strong UKIP area of south-east England (where UKIP won two seats in the last EU Election). UKIP did not think tactically by pouring in its volunteer workers and MEPs to canvass and to prioritise Arundel as its number one target in the country (at the last General Election).

It might be said that Arundel was an opportunity lost for UKIP. It could have secured massive publicity by pouring everything it had and all its campaigning efforts into Arundel (where the UKIP vote is already one of the largest the party gets anywhere in General Elections).

But instead there was silence from UKIP. The chance of turning Arundel into a two-way Cons.-UKIP seat was lost. Even if UKIP had come second - it would have put UKIP in a very strong position in the Arundel constituency at the next General Election.