I tweeted at around midnight last night:
These are the stories tonight.
1. Scottish and Welsh nationalists are gaining.
2. The Brexit Party's replaced UKIP.
3. Tories are being wiped out.
4. Labour is floundering.
5. Pro-Remain parties are flourishing, except Change UK.
6. The world has woken up to Greens.
This morning, having seen the main result then missing, and knowing pretty much what will happen in Scotland but acknowledging that it is not yet confirmed, my opinion still holds.
Stunning as the election result was last night it is, for once, not hard to interpret.
The Tories set out to deliver Brexit, which is not possible, at least in any of the ways that they tried. The result is that they have been treated as the failures that they are.
Labour have dithered, and the electorate have had more than enough of a party wholly unable to tell the truth about what it thinks, led by people who very clearly want something that its membership is opposed to. So people, including, I suspect, large numbers of its members, abandoned it last night. It is, quite simply, untrusted and I completely understand why.
In Wales and Scotland Labour's loss was nationalists' gain. And who can blame those making that choice?
Tory losses were by and large Brexit Party gains. There is little obvious sign Labour voters went that way, at all.
The LibDems and Greens both won heavily from Labour.
Change UK succeeded in losing LibDems a seat in the North East, which is annoying.
And let's be honest about the Brexit Party: it did not sweep in from nowhere. Farage changed his colours and carried on taking Tory votes as before. There is really nothing more to say there.
It was an extraordinary night for everyone but the Brexit Party then, in whose case remarkably little happened and the vote share was not as big as forecast.
The Tories cannot recover from this in a general election. The disaffection is far too great for that. Those aspiring to lead them reflect the utter incompetence the electorate have now sensed in them.
Labour had a dismal night. Again, the chance of doing well in a general election after this is very limited, unless the leadership cohort finally get off their Lexit fence and do what the membership and electorate wants, which is to see them opposing the government and Brexit.
And will the boost for the LibDems, Greens, SNP and Plaid last? Previous evidence suggests maybe not. But previous evidence is little guide in a situation like this. People will see the chance of really changing their MPs, even under first past the post now. That's a thought that is very hard to put away again. I do think things may change radically as a result.
I also expect that the fact that a new prime minister will so obviously lack a mandate means that their chance of survival in office is very limited indeed. A general election to test all this is likely sooner rather than later.
And if so? What then?
First it would greatly help if Change UK departed the scene.
Second the LibDems, Geeens and nationalists may need to do some serious talking, but most especially the first two.
Third, if I was a Labour or Tory I would consider alternative employment prospects.
And fourth, by then the Brexit Party will have had to say something about policy, and that is never going to help it.
But, the good news is actually rather simple. This is much less depressing than I expected. As has also been seen across Europe, the fight against the populists and right is happening, and succeeding. And maybe, just maybe, we have a chance of sense breaking out after all. I am cheered.
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I agree with this. If we ignore the labour and tory votes (what do they want?), the remain parties got a majority of the votes.
The destruction of the Tory party and it’s replacement by the Brexit Party offers some real opportunities. As you say the Brexit party will be rubbish once they start talking about what they want anything other than “We want Brexit”. But also, the Tory party has huge electoral assets. People have been voting for them for years, generations even. You can’t build that kind of loyalty overnight. The Brexit party will always be very fragile.
Also, whatever happens, BREXIT will be with us forever. Neither they nor us will surrender. If we Brexit, the campaign to rejoin starts the next day.
And yes it’s annoying that Labour got a seat in the North East.
Great night for SNP…. not so good for the Greens….
Although he’s Labour I regret the loss of David Martin…
Let us hope so.
I am afraid this was a very optimistic take on the EU elections that you made, Richard. Surely the number one point to make is the triumph of the Brexit “Party”. I take no pleasure in this – I abominate Mr Farage and all he stands for. He is a menace, a nasty piece of work, a threat to the wellbing of this country/these countries. But he has conducted a brilliant campaign and wiped the floor with the two traditional main parties, while the “remain” parties have been disunited and unco-operative. We have the situation where Mr Farage can proclaim victory, claim a place at the negotiating table, utter valid coments about the broken nature of our two party system, advocate the abolition ot the House of Lords, and claim that his is a victory for democracy, common sense, national independence and the voice of the “little people”.
As for Wales – other than the Welsh speaking heartlands, Brexit has wiped the floor clean. Wales is not a united nation like Scotland. There is the Cymraeg heartland of West and North West Wales – pro remain – but the Valleys and southern cities of Cardiff Swansea and Newport – traditionally Labour strongholds – have gone to Brexit. The borderlands with England have gone to Brexit. The North Wales coast – Rhyl, Prestatyn etc – effectively suburbs of Merseyside – have gone to Brexit. Thank God for the SNP – presenting an overwhelming Scottish unity in contrast to fragmented Wales.
Mr Farage, Mr Tice, Ms Widdecombe, Ms Rees-Mogg, Mr Longworth, have all been elected to the European Parliament where they can make trouble and confirm the UK as a nation of buffoons. The night has been a disaster. Labour needs to seriously consiser how it will respond to the message from northern and Welsh constituencies where its traditional working class vote has drained to Brexit, and the different message from the south where its vote has been siphoned off to pro-remain Green and Lib Dems. Like it or not, Mr Farage, with only one third of the vote, is nevertheless the clear winner of this election, and not acknowledging this fact is to bury one’s head in sand.
I do not agree
Of course I take no pleasure from this but if we see the Brexit Party as a continuum of UKIP – and it is – both being Farage vehicles – then they improved, a bit. That’s it. All the hyperbole counts for not much – and so far he has never sustained this. This time it may be different. But wait until he has a manifesto. Then see that support disappear, very quickly, I suggest.
One hope is that UKIP won 24 seats in 2014 and in 2019 only 5/6? remained.
Protest votes usually don’t put down roots.
That is my hope and assumption
I think the Brexit Party may kill Brexit when people realise what it is for
Further to my point about who “won”: with 80% of the UK results in, the vote is as follows:
Remain parties: 40.3%
Hard Brexit parties: 34.9%
Conservatives/Labour: 23.2%
And this is being presented as a victory for Farage and the pro-leave voters, not only by Farage, Tice, and Widdecombe, but also effectively by McCluskey, Francois, J Rees Mogg, Redwood et al.
The rape of logic.
It is worth remembering that Remain voters face the serious impediment of neither of the two prinicipal UK parties backing Remain. This has been a considerable, and debilitating challenge to Remain; especially as the mainstream media has either backed Brexit or the two principal parties; or all three.
How we arrived at ‘No Deal’, virtually as the default position also underscores the point I am making. Parliament has effectively, and in UK terms save at the ‘fringes’, totally abandoned 48% of the electorate; perhaps more now. It is extraordinary.
I’d be interested to see a breakdown of who switched to what, but I suspect that about half of the Labour losses were switches to Green, about half of the Conservative losses were switches to the Brexit Party, and the other half in each case were switches to the Lib Dems. Change UK seem to have taken some votes that might have otherwise gone to the Lib Dems in places, but don’t seem to have moved the needle very much. Most of the BP supporters came straight over from UKIP. Quite how a single-issue policy-free personality cult does in general election remains to be seen.
In the meantime, I expect a ramping up of the rhetoric of the main parties failing, of the will of the people and betrayal and traitors, of Brexit meaning Brexit and them needing us more than we need them, of Britain as an island taking back control of its destiny.
I think you are as close as anyone
Perhaps a look at turnout would also be helpful – it was slightly better than last time, but still abysmal. It went up from 35.5% to 37% (but still lower than the high of 2004).
Meanwhile the average EU turnout went up from 42.5% to nearly 51%.
As a comparision another country where there are equally great political changes – Spain, turnout went up from 44% to a staggering 64% – pretty much wiping the rightist nationalist hegemony.
https://election-results.eu/national-results-overview/
This seems to indicate that many tories as well as Labour stayed at home.
Some Tories switched to Brexit as did a portion of Labour.
Significant Labour switched to Green.
Many Tory and significant Labour numbers switched to LD.
Most ukip followed Nigel like last time (and a significant proportion of these are traditional Labour supporters at General Elections).
My opinion is that Labour voters from last time have made a protest vote and will revert back as they did at the last GE. As will some Tories but they are destroyed as a functional party and will have to reform – probably as a formal alliance with the LD and the peripatetic centrists.
In my opinion the Brexit/ukip vote is as previously, because Austerity is still in force and membership of EU is still the scapegoat. But ONLY amongst the minority of the voter base who were whipped into another frenzy.
If it all seems to lead to analysts believing that the Labour vote has collapsed than surely they would aim for a quick GE to get rid of the bogey ‘Lexiteers’.
There are a handful of LexiteerMP’s but they really aren’t the Corbynites…Bring it on.
The one thing I cannot see is another LD / Tory alliance
I would just add that in absolute numbers of voters – nothing like 17 million voted for the hard brexiteer.
Which probably shows better than any opinion poll that the country is not in the same mind as 2016.
Of course if the tory government refuses to admit that their primary reason for continued government is dead in the water and refuses to have a GE, than Labour would be justified to demand a conformatory referendum.
For what it’s worth (not much) some random off-the-cuff thoughts.
On balance I share your measured optimism. Domestically, and more so across the EU, it has been a positive result for the Greens. Good solid sustainable progress, albeit a slight set-back in Sweden (surprising considering the Greta Thunberg effect).
Taking a longer-term view, hopefully Farage has put PR back on the political agenda. Let’s give him some credit for that. The status quo needed a good shake-up and he had the chutzpah to do it.
Once we’ve left the EU then the Brexit Party has no raison d’être. Presumably most of its voters will revert to the Tories unless of course Nigel reinvents himself again and forms a new populist party with a ‘classic’ alt-right manifesto aligned with the Swiss Freedom Party or Estonia’s EKRE. Who knows? Even if he is able to make such a transition I don’t think it will attract a lot of support, despite his core constituency of ‘disaffected’. I suppose he might do a deal with the Tories though I can’t envisage the parliamentary Conservative party having much appetite for that. He’s not the DUP.
The Tories will likely haemorrhage some MPs and even more supporters to the renascent LibDems which would be a modest move in the right (i.e. left) direction. But I believe news of its death is greatly exaggerated.
Goodness knows where Labour go from here. Nor do I really care. Again, the LibDems will probably attract a bunch of Centrists. Such short memories!
Looking to the future I believe the holistic Green Manifesto will appeal increasingly to younger voters and will be seen for what it is – the only genuinely progressive political party / movement in the world. It’s take a while to get there but time is on our side. End of commercial.
So, yes, on balance not feeling too depressed. A celebratory Fair Trade organic coffee is in order. Barista!