Thurrock: BNP Target Seat Number Four

Emma Colgate is standing as the BNP parliamentary candidate for Thurrock. She was elected as a BNP Councillor to the Tilbury Riverside and Thurrock Park ward in May 2008 and stood as the BNP parliamentary candidate for Basildon in 2005 where she polled 4.8% of  the vote securing fourth place ahead of UKIP, the Greens and the English Democrats.

In the 2005 General Election Labour candidate Andrew McKinlay was returned as the MP for Thurrock securing 47.2% of the vote. It has traditionally been a Labour seat although the Conservatives did take it in the 1987 election. Nick Geri, BNP candidate in 2005, came in fourth place winning 5.8% of the poll with 2,526 votes. Although there have been subsequent boundary changes calculations by the UK Polling Report blog suggest that these would not have had a significant impact upon the previous result.

If Emma Colgate were to take this seat it would be a remarkable achievement; a genuine political earthquake. So, what can we realistically expect by way of a good result for the BNP? The 2005 results were:

• Labour - 20,636 (47.2%)
• Conservative - 14,261 (32.6%)
• Liberal Democrat - 4,770 (10.9%)
• BNP - 2,526 (5.8%)
• UKIP - 1,499 (3.4%)

This time around, the following candidates are standing: Arinola Araba (Christian People's Party); Clive Broad (UKIP); Emma Colgate (BNP); Carys Davis (Liberal Democrat); Jackie Doyle-Price (Conservative) and Carl Morris (Labour). As with my previous post on the Morley and Outwood parliamentary constituency I am going to allow the most recent set of results from the May 2008 local elections to inform my projection of the BNP vote share in Thurrock. I do so in the belief that the actual number of votes received by the BNP in 2008 will represent the minimum baseline upon which they should be able to build. I have aggregated the results from Thurrock's constituent wards to arrive at the following actual totals for May 2008:

• Conservative - 8,168 (34.6%)
• Labour – 8,108 (34.4%)
• BNP – 5,500 (23.3%)
• Liberal Democrat (contested 9 wards) – 1,429 (6.1%)
• UKIP (contested 1 ward) – 207 (0.9%)
• Independent (contested 1 ward) – 192 (0.8%)

As can be seen, the actual number of votes taken by the BNP was more than double the number secured in the 2005 General Election. At an absolute minimum therefore, the BNP should take circa 12% of the vote in Thurrock. However, I think that both their vote share and the number of votes received will be higher than this owing to the fracturing of traditional party loyalties that we have witnessed in the past year or so. There should also be some positive fallout for the BNP from Gordon Brown's bigot gaffe in Rochdale last week.

As Thurrock is a high-profile BNP target seat, third-party anti-BNP campaign literature produced by Searchlight, Hope Not Hate, UAF, etc is likely to be deluging local homes, so Colgate will have a hard fight on her hands to overcome this negative propaganda as BNP resources are very modest in comparison. If the BNP secure 12%, this will be a disappointing result; 15-20% would be a respectable outcome, with anything beyond 20% a good result. Above 25% and a second or third place would be excellent. Could Colgate take the seat? I think that it merits better than the 20/1 odds being offered by Paddypower.com Still, their odds suggest that the BNP will come third ahead of the Liberal Democrats but behind the triumphant Tories and Labour.

The Christian People's Party is likely to shave a percentage point or two from the Labour vote by attracting black evangelicals. My projection (which will be wrong of course, but by how much?) for the likely result therefore is:

• Conservative - 32%
• Labour - 28%
• BNP - 20%
• Liberal Democrat - 16%
• UKIP - 3%
• Christian People's Party - 1%

I shall be eagerly awaiting the result from Thurrock, for it should be one of the most interesting of the night. I wish Emma and her team good luck. If you're an undecided Thurrock voter, why not watch the following video in which she discusses her experience as a councillor and see for yourself whether she really is the 'demon' that the opposition like to portray her as: