European election predictions
Burson-Marsteller have again commissioned Simon Hix and Michael Marsh (this time joined by Nick Vivyan) to carry out a prediction of the European Parliament election results. The whole prediction has a rather fancy website here.
Hix and Marsh produced a similar prediction for the 2004 elections, which predicted that the EPP-ED would manager 285 seats, the PES 217 seats and the ELDR 73 seats. UEN 28, Greens 40 and the then EDD would be eliminated. In the UK they predicted that the 2004 result would be CON 32, LAB 27, LD 12, SNP 2 and PC 2, with the Greens and UKIP loosing all their seats. Of course, that didn’t happen. In fact UKIP didn’t lose all their seats, they tripled them to 12 seats.
This time round they have a rather fancier model, which takes into account the latest opinion polls, the last national election, who is in government, how close the last national election was to the last european election. They also factor in whether the party is an “anti-European” party, who apparently tend to do better in EU elections and which they presumably hope will deal with the “UKIP effect”.
For the over predictions and the prediction in each of the other member states visit the website here. For the UK, Hix, Marsh and Vivyan predict that the number of seats for each party will be CON 27(nc), LAB 22(+3), LDEM 13(+1), UKIP 4(-8), SNP 2(nc), PC 1(nc), GRN 0(-2).
(UPDATE: There were problems moving the server over, so there may still be outages over the next few days until it’s finally all sorted out)
(UPDATE2: Another server change, this time to a new provider, so comments from the last day have sadly vanished. Fingers crossed this should be the last switch, so you can now leave comments without worrying they might vanish!)
Filed under: Europe
@Paul H-J
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the BNP get 3 euro seats… West Midlands, North West, and Yorkshire in order of likelihood.
I am not a statistician but have been involved in politics for the last 40 years. Speaking to people, reading the “runes” etc I feel that this prediction is as flawed as the one from the same source in 2004.
My own guess? ( won’t call it a prediction) is as follows, (adjusted for the reduction of 6 seats)
Cons 27 no net change
Lab 14 net loss 5
Lib 10 net loss 2
UKIP 8 net loss 4
SNP 3 net gain 1
PC 1 no change
Green 3 net gain 1
BNP 3 net gain 3
I would love to see the Greens totally eliminated in the UK but am realistic enough to realise that with all the publicity they are receiving they are likely to hold what they have and gain one more seat. UKIP will not be clobbered as much as some feel ( or even hope) but will lose 4 seats, the SNP will gain a seat from Labour and the BNP will gain from both Labour and the Tories. PC will maintain its seat in Wales. The Conservatives will lose 1 seat to the BNP but gain 3 from UKIP, but will “lose” 2 from the reduction of seats so nil net change for them. Labour will lose 2 seats to BNP, 1 to the SNP and “lose” a further 2 from the reduction. The Libs will lose 1 seat to the Greens and 2 from the reduction.
It will be interesting to see who is more accurate in the event.
This may be a silly question: has there been any opinion poll that has asked about (British) voting intentions in the European election since the January YouGov one? Has any organisation announce an intention to do one before the actual election? With polls being done on silly subjects like “would you vote for Sir Alan Sugar?”, it doesn’t seem all that unreasonable for at least one more to be done on the next election we have.