General Election 2015: Nigel Farage is on course to lose in South Thanet and Ukip faces wipeout, experts predict

Election Forecast website predicts Ukip will win just one seat in the election

Ukip leader Nigel Farage waits to speak at a public meeting in Cliftonville, Kent, as he continues his campaign for the South Thanet seat at the General Election (Gareth Fuller/PA Wire )

Nigel Farage is on course to fail in his bid to become South Thanet’s first Ukip MP and the party is expected to lose half its seats in the upcoming general, experts have predicted.

The Election Forecast website, run by three university election experts, has predicted Ukip will win just one seat in the poll on 7 May, it has been revealed by the Sun on Sunday.

The website, has said not only will Farage fail to wrestle the Kent seat away from the Tories, Tory defector Mark Reckless will lose his seat in Rochester and Strood. That will only leave Douglas Carswell hanging on in Clacton-On-Sea.

In a extract from his memoir The Purple Revolution, published in the Daily Telegraph last month, Farage said if he did not win a seat in the commons he would resign as party leader as it was “frankly just not credible for [him] to continue to lead the party without a Westminster seat of [him] own.”

But he has come under fire in recent weeks, after it was alleged by the Mail on Sunday that he had suppressed an internal poll which showed him narrowly losing to Conservative candidate Craig Mackinlay.

This is a far cry of Farage’s boast at the end of last year that his party could scoop up to 40 Westminster seats.

But Ukip officials were quick to play down the claims, telling the Sun: “Forecasts like these don’t take into account a ‘shy Ukip’ factor. We are bullish but not complacent.”

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