Claim 726ab91bChecked 21 Jul 2026
TrueOn the truth scale
“UKIP picks up traditional Tories.”
Interpreted asidiom
“UKIP attracts traditional Tories.”
Reasoning & Evidence21 Jul 2026
Multiple independent sources confirm that UKIP drew significant support from traditional Conservative voters:
1. **Lord Ashcroft Polls (December 2012)**: Found that 12% of those who voted Conservative in 2010 now say they would vote UKIP, and half of all those who would consider voting UKIP supported the Conservatives at the last election.
2. **YouGov**: Reported that "UKIP attracts three ex-Tories for every ex-Labour voter," with 47% of UKIP voters having voted Conservative in 2010 (later updated to 60% in a subsequent analysis). Their analysis concluded that "Ukip's strongest support is in Conservative areas."
3. **Ipsos**: Noted that "much of their recent rise in the polls has come from ex-Tories," and that "UKIP supporters tend to come from Tory heartlands, especially in the midlands and the south."
4. **LSE academic research (Evans & Mellon)**: Found that "UKIP's voters are overwhelmingly taken from those who voted Conservative in 2010," and that 45% of current Conservative supporters had UKIP as a second preference.
5. **Academic research (Ford et al.)**: Identified "strategic defectors from the mainstream Conservative Party" as a key UKIP supporter group—more affluent, middle-class voters who defected from the Tories.
These sources, drawn from data around and shortly after the December 2011 interview date, consistently confirm that UKIP attracted a substantial bloc of voters who had previously voted Conservative, particularly older, right-leaning voters in Conservative heartlands. The claim is accurate.
Sources:
- Lord Ashcroft Polls, "The UKIP threat is not about Europe" (December 2012), https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2012/12/the-ukip-threat-is-not-about-europe/
- YouGov, "Do angry Ukip voters threaten Tory future?", https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/10721-do-angry-ukip-voters-threaten-tory-future
- YouGov, "How UKIP voters compare", https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/5453-analysis-ukip-voters
- Ipsos, "UKIP's threat to the Conservative Party", https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/ukips-threat-conservative-party
- LSE Politics and Policy, "Working class votes and Conservative losses: solving the UKIP puzzle", https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/working-class-votes-and-conservative-losses-solving-the-ukip-puzzle/
- Ford & Goodwin, "Strategic Eurosceptics and polite xenophobes" (European Journal of Political Research), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2011.01994.x
From article
It would be silly to say that – you could never, ever represent the whole country – and since I was elected to the European Parliament I’ve always said that I’m not going to represent the whole constituency (and remember it’s vast – six million voters), I’m there to represent the people who voted for me and to use that position to try to persuade others that we are actually right.
But the interesting thing about [the UK Independence Party] is that it attracts an incredibly diverse range of people. We pick up what I would call ‘patriotic Old Labour’, we pick up classical liberals who hate the big state and believe in individual freedom and we pick up traditional Tories who believe in the country. And don’t forget that when we started [in 1993], only about six of us in the country believed in this.
Sources opened
| [1] | lordashcroftpolls.com |
| [2] | doi.org |
| [3] | yougov.com |
| [4] | ipsos.com |
| [5] | blogs.lse.ac.uk |
| [6] | lordashcroftpolls.com |
| [7] | yougov.com |
| [8] | doi.org |