Ukip leader Nigel Farage has said “all bets are off” about the result of the general election if his party won its second MP in the Rochester and Strood byelection.
As the polls closed in the north Kent constituency, Ukip supporters were in a jubilant mood about the prospect of a triumph for Mark Reckless, the former Conservative MP whose defection triggered the contest.
As he was mobbed by cameras and well-wishers outside the Ukip headquarters in Rochester High Street, Farage said he believed his party would narrowly win against the might of the Tory party election machine, as hundreds of Ukip activists gathered for a pre-victory party.
In contrast, the Conservatives were braced for defeat and privately very downbeat, with only chief whip Michael Gove saying he was “quite confident” of a win in defiance of the polls.
Senior sources in the Tory party were talking in terms of their candidate, Kelly Tolhurst, potentially having halved Reckless’s 10,000 majority, rather than beating him. They also expressed hope that the seat could be won back in May after voters have had the chance to give the government a kicking.
All the polls conducted in the runup to the byelection have indicated a Ukip win but it is still possible that supporters of other parties could lend their vote to the Conservatives in order to keep out Nigel Farage’s party.
A senior Labour source at the heart of the Rochester campaign said he thought Ukip could be pushing towards 50% of the vote.
He said Labour – likely to trail in third place – had got indications of a lower turnout than other recent byelections, which he thought would benefit Ukip because its supporters are more “keen and determined”.
Farage said he was still nervous but joked at the Conservatives’ expense that the lights had already gone out in their campaign headquarters.
The Ukip leader said the predictions of a significant victory may have been “slightly over-egged” but he added: “I feel our vote is solid, I think we’re going to win but I think it might be a bit closer than people think.
“This matters because if Ukip win, this is our 271st target seat. If we win this, then looking forward to next year’s general election, all bets are off, the whole thing’s up in the air.”
Asked what it would mean to win, he said: “It would be massive. Massive. In terms of what I’ve spent quite a large chunk of my life doing, this is the biggest day of the lot.”
Rochester and Strood was regarded as much less natural Ukip territory than Clacton in Essex, where the first Tory defector, Douglas Carswell, won the seat back for Farage last month. The prime minister had pledged to throw the kitchen sink at winning the seat, making five visits and ordering his MPs to make at least three trips.
A victory for Reckless is therefore likely to prompt serious jitters within Downing Street about the haemorrhaging of the Tory vote six months before the general election and potentially a move on Cameron’s leadership.
There are serious worries at No 10 about the possibility of further defections after Reckless said he was in talks with two of his former colleagues about joining Farage’s party. On the campaign trail, Gove insisted he was “absolutely 100%” sure there would be no more defections regardless of the result.
He said: “No one’s going to defect … I’ve got a £50 bet on the Conservatives winning so I hope I will be able to wipe the smile off the bookmakers’ face later. I’m quite confident.”
However, Cameron has taken a different tone from Gove in recent days when the prospect of defections has been raised. Asked about his message to would-be switchers, he urged MPs to stay with him on the basis that moving to Ukip would be counter-productive when he has already promised a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Farage gave strong hints that he believes more MPs will join his insurgent party. Asked whether Adam Holloway, the Eurosceptic Tory MP for neighbouring Gravesham, would defect, the Ukip leader said: “If you know the answer to that, there’s a press crew here that would love to hear the answer. Who’s to say? Depending on the result tonight, let’s see what happens. There may well be a number of MPs who look at their own positions and think: do you know what, maybe this is the right place to be.”
Asked about Gove’s confidence of keeping all his MPs, Farage added: “I like Michael very much but since he went from being an excellent education secretary, his role as [chief whip] is not looking to be terribly good, is it? He’s getting most things wrong, and he’s probably going to be wrong about this too.”
The contest has been dominated by the issue of the NHS and local schools. However, it has also been marked by bitter battles over the issue of immigration, with Reckless criticised for having suggested some immigrants could be asked to leave the country in the event of the UK leaving the EU.
He subsequently flatly denied that this would be the case and infuriated his Tory opponent by accusing her of distributing “BNP-light” campaign material.
