Pretty badly, as it turns out. A record 10% of the votes cast in the 2001 election were for minor parties. This time, according to Peter Kellner of YouGov, they'll probably pick up between 6% and 8% of the vote.
The Greens and Ukip have both been hovering around the 2% mark throughout the election campaign, although the former are expected to do slightly better in the south. The BNP occasionally registers enough support to climb to 1%, according to a Populus spokesman, but its most recent poll turned up only four BNP sympathisers in a survey of 1,400. Veritas and Respect are below the radar, and the nationalist parties rarely poll more than 3% between them (though, of course, these are national polls).
Robert Kilroy-Silk's defection from Ukip has killed off the party's hopes of winning a seat. But the evidence suggests that single-issue and protest voters are finding a home in the bigger parties - whether they care about Iraq and the environment (the Lib Dems) or immigration and Europe (the Tories).
