Ukip will not stand against pro-Brexit Tories in key marginal seats

[muriel_volestrangler]

"Ukip are not contesting hundreds of seats at the election in a move aimed at boosting the chances of pro-Brexit Conservatives at the expense of Labour in a string of marginals.
...
A Ukip spokesman said the party was aiming to field candidates in more than 400 seats but that leaves potentially more than 200 Conservative candidates without a Ukip opponent, boosting their chances of picking up pro-Brexit votes.

As the deadline passed at 4pm, Ukip was not even sure it would hit its target of 400, as officials attempted to find out whether all of their potential candidates had managed to submit their nomination papers in time.

Even if it managed to reach 400, that still represents a sharp reduction in the 624 Ukip candidates fielded in 2015, when the party picked up almost 4m votes."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/11/ukip-will-not-stand-against-pro-brexit-tories-in-key-marginal-seats

In fact, they appear to be only fielding 378 candidates - fewer than the Greens. Whether this is at all related to how pro-Brexit the Tory is, I've no idea; but I think it will help the Tories a lot, whatever the reasons.

[T_i_B]

1. With UKIP collapsing into the Tories....

...this becomes rather inevitable as they increasingly don't have the members right now.

And yes, a very major political trend right now is UKIP supporters moving over to the Tories en masse.

[Denzil_DC]

2. They don't have the money, either.

So it's making a virtue of necessity, really.

[T_i_B]

3. Can't speak for the SNP in Scotland.....

.....but in England the Tories are the only party with any money, which might be part of the reason for the snap general election.

[Denzil_DC]

4. Could well be. The SNP have been doing a lot of crowdfunding.

In the past, they've had a couple of generous rich donors (literally), but I think that well's run dry. They have "Short money," like any party with MPs, but I think this caught them on the hop.

[Denzil_DC]

5. Well, well ...

Tories' £5m donations boost before May called snap general election

The Conservatives received a huge boost in donations in the three months before Theresa May called a surprise general election, according to figures published by the Electoral Commission.

The party received £5.46m from January to March this year, more than twice the £2.65m given to Labour.

By the time the prime minister called the election on 18 April, the Tories had received £1.85m more in donations during the first quarter of the year than it had in the last three months of 2016.

The biggest individual donation came from the Conservative party treasurer, Michael Davis, who gave the party £317,000. The South African-born former mining executive is overseeing the party’s fundraising efforts, which have targeted wealthy businesspeople and city figures.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/23/tories-5m-donations-boost-before-may-called-snap-general-election