Who benefits when Ukip doesn’t stand?

Tomorrow is the deadline for general election candidates to submit their nomination papers. One newspaper suggested that Ukip might field as few as 100 candidates. Where the party does not field candidates, who will win those votes which would otherwise have been won by it?

The answer to this question could affect the outcome in scores of seats. Although Ukip won only one seat in 2015, it won over 10 per cent of the vote in almost five hundred seats. It matters where that ten per cent goes. To answer…