Brexit Party would struggle to repeat EU success in a general election, and could open the door for Labour, experts say

Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party would find it difficult to repeat last night’s stunning victory in a general election, and could even open the door to a Labour administration, experts have said.

After the newly-formed party stormed to top slot with 32 per cent of the vote and 29 MEPs, Mr Farage said they had the ability to "stun everybody in a general election too".

But academics said that far from dominating the House of Commons after a general election, the Brexit Party would struggle to get more than a handful of MPs.

Accepting his re-election as MEP for the South-East in Southampton on Sunday night, Mr Farage said that the Conservatives and Labour should “learn a big lesson” from being overtaken by his stripling party.

And he warned: “If we don’t leave (the EU) on October 31, then the scores we have seen for the Brexit Party today will be repeated in a general election and we are getting ready for it.”

But Liverpool University’s professor of politics Andrew Russell told The Independent that a general election would be a much tougher task for the insurgent party.

“European elections are set up for Brexit Party success,” he said. “The system of voting and the large regions suit them, and they were able to capitalise on the lacklustre campaigns of the main parties. European elections are an opportunity for people to use their votes as a protest in a way that doesn’t necessarily translate into Westminster seats. A general ”

Prof Russell pointed to Mr Farage’s previous party Ukip, which topped the 2014 European polls with 27.5 per cent of the vote, only to slump to 12.6 per cent in the following year’s general election, winning just one seat.

Mr Farage himself fell short in South Thanet in the 2015 election, his seventh unsuccessful attempt to win a seat in Westminster.

“When you’re fighting a general election with 650 constituencies, you need an organisation with grassroots organisational zeal,” he said. “The Brexit Party just don’t have that. It is always going to be difficult for them to win from a standing start. It’s very difficult to see them getting more than one or two seats.”

Prof Russell said the Brexit Party would have to focus on winnable constituencies with vulnerable incumbent MPs in solidly Leave-backing areas like Stoke-on-Trent or Sunderland.

The danger for Tories would be Farage’s party splitting the right-of-centre Brexit vote, allowing Labour gains, he said. A future Tory leader may fight an election with a “Vote Farage, Get Corbyn” message.

Strathclyde University’s Professor Sir John Curtice agreed that the Brexit Party would struggle to win Westminster seats and that Tories are likely to deploy warnings of a Corbyn victory to scare off potential switchers.

But he said that the party’s true strength lies in the influence it can exert on the Conservatives’ stance on Brexit.

“They might pick up a few seats in places like Clacton,” he said. “But the lesson from Ukip is that it doesn’t matter how many MPs you have, it’s the leverage you have.”

Many Brexit Party voters switched from Tories to Ukip in the 2014 European elections, but returned for the general elections of 2015 and 2017 because they believed the Conservatives would deliver the referendum and then EU withdrawal, he said.

“People left Ukip for the Tories in 2017 because they were scared of letting Labour in,” Prof Curtice told The Independent. “The danger for Conservatives is that if they don’t think Tories will deliver Brexit, they might as well stick with their true faith.”

Prof Roger Awan-Scully, head of politics at Cardiff University said that, because their vote is fairly evenly spread in areas like Wales, the Brexit Party could find themselves achieving a lot of “good second places” in Westminster constituencies but picking up no MPs until they reach a “tipping point” several percentage points higher than they reached this week.

Any success on their part was likely to “hit the Conservatives considerably harder than it would hit Labour”, making the threat that they could let in a Corbyn government “fairly credible”, he said.