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You`ve got it in one of course Philip! I think that we can expect that the "Vote UKIP and get Labour" mantra will no doubt increase ten fold on the run up to the next general election. This just proves, however, that the conservatives are becoming more desperate and more worried than ever before about UKIP`s rise and rather than put forward any policies that will actually endear them to the electorate this is just about the limit of their imagination.
Make no mistake, the real reason that the conservatives will be unlikely to win the next general election will not be down to the UKIP "clowns and racists" having the temerity to pinch "their" votes, but simply because they have a leader in Cameron who is clearly not fit for purpose. It is also a party that is clearly out of touch with the electorate at all levels. Like the previous labour shambles of a government who failed to "listen to the people", the tories too, quite rightly, will pay the price for failing in their duty to represent and put in place the wishes of the electorate.
If in fact there is an element of a "protest" vote in UKIP`s recent success`s then it just proves that there are a lot of people unhappy with what we have at the moment as an excuse of a government. It should be fully understood that UKIP is not the party it was three or so years ago. If the conservatives were worried back then, they now have every right to be even more worried. Compared with the previous situation UKIP are now an established party, getting stronger every week with an increased membership. In addition to this they now have the support of national newspapers and are in the media on a daily basis. Those people who supposedly only voted for UKIP initially as a "protest" may well now become familiar and used to the idea and continue to vote in the future in the same manner.
On the grand scale of things, whilst the election result in Sandwich could be considered to be fairly insignificant, it does nevertheless actually prove that along with other previous by-election results, UKIP will be a prominent force at the next general election.
Cameron of course, in a stroke, could virtually nullify the UKIP threat to his party by giving us a referendum on our EU membership prior to the next election. He won`t do that however because he knows full well what the result would be and that is not the sort of result that is acceptable to a europhile. So rather than concede to the wishes of the majority in a democratic manner, he is quite willing to sacrifice his own party`s success through an act of misguided stubbornness. He also knows, without doubt, that any meaningful renegotiation of powers etc., from the EU is just not going to happen. We know that and he knows that, so why wait for the "promised" referendum? One can only conclude that he hopes the problem magically disappears or can fob us off with a pretence of something resembling a repatriation of powers that his masters in Brussels allow him to have, but which of course will actually be totally insignificant and meaningless!
So there you have it, please don`t blame UKIP for the demise of the conservative party as a functioning government, blame Cameron for his stupid intransigence!