There is a false narrative spreading about the European election result. It is that Britain has been swept away by the Brexit Party.
This is the actual result:
That result, though, represents England in the main. Scotland looked like this:
And Wales like this:
Standing back, the big story is not about Farage. He increased his vote nationally by 4.1% compared to UKIP last time. It was 4.3% in Scotland. And 3.7% in Wales. This was hardly spectacular given the massive increase in interest in Europe since 2014. I'd go so far to say that it was almost predictable. So that is not the story from last week.
Nor is the strong Remain vote the story, of itself. Clearly Remain won: the simple maths shows it. And there is no doubt that is the message many (me included) wanted to deliver.
And yet that's simplistic. The assumption is that those opposed to Brexit will go back to where they were in a general election. I now doubt that. I am not saying none would. I would be astonished to see this result in a general election. Some Brexiteers would return to the Tories when they have a new leader. I have no doubt about that. And some Labour voters might be persuaded that Corbyn now thinks a second referendum a good idea, but given how vague the commitment is I am not too sure how many that would be right now. And I fear the Green vote will collapse in first past the post, which I deeply resent and regret. I cannot say the same for the demise of Change UK. But allow for that shuffle and what do you get? Maybe four parties on around 20%. Locally people will vote tactically to keep out the Brexit Party, maybe, at least on the left. I would. And the answer is still that, outside Scotland, there is no clear leader in all this.
Leaving aside the sure-footedness of the SNP, and Plaid's growth, we have Farage, two parties failed by ideology and nascent alternatives hampered by first past the post, where anger will require electoral reform sooner rather than later. It's not a recipe for current stability. It suggests no chance of managing any consequence of Brexit, which is a very good reason to stay. And nor, right now, does it suggest much chance of delivering climate reform. But what it does clearly suggest is that any positive and big idea is now beyond the old mainstream and far-Right.
Put that together and maybe, just maybe, we are seeing the start of the re-birth Gramsci thought would always result from political chaos. Whether I am being optimistic is something for time to tell. But I cannot see a Tory recovery when the Tory ethos is dead. And right now those who have fled Labour have done so for a reason, or rather, reasons. They want radical politics. But not those of the old far-Left. This is the time for the new. Maybe it will happen.
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Err “those who fled Labour want radical politics”??…so they voted Lib/Dem??
I know you are desperate for politics to go in the direction you want but you are getting ahead of yourself..it is dangerous to over – analyse and be clever on the euro elections. Come a fairly imminent general election it will all look different, it may go in your direction but it probably won’t. The Tories will have a leaver like Johnson in control so the brexit party won’t stand, Labour will be pushing for a second referendum. Many middle class who voted Liberal or green in the euros will then be tested brexit v risk of a corbyn govt and many will not want the latter. The remain vote will be split between Labour & Lib/dems & greens. Probably a hung parliament with the Tories the largest party..naturally its all conjecture but with Parliament again paralysed re Brexit a second referendum may well happen which will have to be no deal v remain on the premise Parliament can’t agree a compromise (well not one that will be agreed by the EU)..like i say its all conjecture but i don’t see the a political earthquake & if there is any evidence of one it is a shift to centrist Lib/Dem as a statement against the polarisation of the two major parties.
Yes, radicals did vote Lib Dem, in despair, in some areas
Why not when Labour is so lacking ideas?
And of course your analysis is plausible if you dare not to hope. That has been the left’s problem. I suggest you’re suffering it
@james, I just have to take you up on the issue of the ‘middle classes’ shying away from a Labour gvmnt and plumping for Brexit as preference?! They of all people should know the dire implications of leaving without some sort of deal in place before we leave.
For a cool & thorough analysis, I can recommend The Brexit Blog by Chris Grey Professor of Organization Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.
The Northern Ireland result is also very worthy of comment. In that there has been 2 Unionist and one Nationalist MEPs in every European Parliament (since 1979). But this time there is 1DUP 1SF and 1 Alliance. Both SF and Alliance are pro EU and pro Backstop. There is clearly a remain majority in NI and the backstop is very popular.
The IE results are still not near being declared fully, but Hermann Kelley head of the Irish Freedom Party (sister party to the Brexit party and a close ally of Farage) got 0.67% of the vote. The big news is that the Greens have done very well.
It might also be worth reporting that at UCD on Thursday, I took the temperature re Brexit. The idea No-Deal threatening by some in the UK was considered infantile and had zero likelihood of success. Definitely a United Republic as opposed to a disunited Kingdom.
Sean
All very good news indeed
Richard
Dear Richard Murphy
Being guest on earth on time, confessed European and originated German I´m following the Brexit saga in turn of European´s dynamic additionally. From my point of view it happend by the edge rather by middle of a plate.
I appreciate your thoughts and comments to Brexit. It´s mind sharpening with hint to thoughtful assessment
17 million people did not vote for the Fararage’s Brexit party. Hard Brexit is dead.
Anecdote 1, from last nights charity do:-
A long term Labour supporting aquaintance from Corbyn’s constituency – he turned up at their door (there was no campaigning by the Blairite in my area -NONE) – told him to his face that they felt betrayed that he was trying to STOP brexit and would vote for Nigel (and so would the whole family). Stop Brexit!!??
Why did they think Brexit was a good idea i asked? Because of immigrants sleeping rough and taking all the jobs and overloading the NHS, our kids not being trained, etc
And my lot (types like me) are trying to perpetuate it by ignoring democracy, etc.
Now during that sustained rant, i realised they were repeating by rote something they and their family had learnt – from social media and direct targeting.
Anecdote 2 – Another long term friends, Labour voting, said they wanted to send a message and would vote Green this time because Labout were NOT stopping Brexit!!!
The system is broken because it has been increasingly gamed over the last 40 years to deliver the neocon/neolib project. NuLabour did not deliver any corrective to Thatcherism. This is the first Labour leadership to offer that in that 40 years. No wonder that the kitchen sink and any blunt instrument is being launched at them along with all the sophisticated weaponary.
Weapons such as the increasing Identity Politics, of more and more categories/varities, the main purpose of which is to split peoples by screwing with their minds. The chicken little bluster of facism/evil Russian/ Islamism/ Climate warriors/ Trans peoples eyc – the MSM happily spreads it daily like so much farm slurry, leaving an evil miasma, that we all stink of it …
As you and many thoughtful people know – the uber rich and powerful don’t care which party, coalition, PR setup is officially in charge – as long as they continue to deliver their wishes.
So in my opinion, nothing has changed, the choice is still between justice and fairness for all, not just the ‘ruling classes’.
George Eaton wrote ‘In an era of social media, viral videos and mass higher education, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony feels startlingly prescient.’
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/observations/2018/02/why-antonio-gramsci-marxist-thinker-our-times
The narrative I’m seeing most is that remain won. I must confess I don’t really see that ‘clearly remain won’ myself. This seems a generous interpretation of the results. I don’t know how people are splitting the labour/conservative vote. If I had to guess I’d say more of the labour and conservative voters are remain, but that’s just a guess.
All it seemed to prove to me is that the needle still hasn’t moved significantly, and that leavers can still be mobilised. Though given the importance put on these elections by the media and the parties themselves shouldn’t the turnout have been higher?
What happens if we have a second referendum and remain wins by 3-5 % but turnout is only 60%? What if remain wins the second one but with fewer overall votes than leave got in the first referendum?
One of my biggest problems at the moment is that currently the remain parties (LD/Green/CUK) are doing a terrible job of making their case to leave voters. They still frame their argument as leave voters are idiots/racists/dupes, or at least that’s how it seems. The SNP seems to be talking as if 100% of Scotland voted remain which I can’t understand at all. The Conservatives have been wooing that part of the population to some extent but still come off as if they just expect these useful idiots to vote for them so they can exploit them even more.
Obviously Farage has his own, incredibly successful, way of speaking to these people, but of the others only Labour seem to have any sort of strategy for trying to talk to them and win them over. This has worked in places like Preston and the NW but has failed in the NE. And is clearly hurting them in remain areas in the South and Scotland.
Even if we get a second referendum and the result goes the way we hope, I see little hope for the future. How on earth do we reform from within if a huge chunk of our MEP’s will forever be these obstructionist leeches. How does the left win back the leave vote? How does trust in democracy get rebuilt?
With apologies, Alex, but not a lot of this makes sense
The Remain vote was bigger than the Brexit vote
And the Remain vote was considerably more informed than the Brexit vote =- where there was no manifesto
And accepting we will have a Brexit opposition is just reality – bit does not stop reform. That’s how democracy works
There is a lot to be said for Richard’s interpretation and my household noted this too as well as other bloggers feeling the same:
http://blog.spicker.uk/the-public-mood-is-swinging-against-brexit/
The issue going forward for me is can the ‘Remain’ parties work together as some form of national Government? A putative coalition which needs to happen before the pro-BREXIT parties decide to have a go.
I still think that the BREXIT party will unravel when it starts to talk about its policies and the EU might even yet bar BREXIT MEPs from taking up their posts if the party (I use that word lightly) cannot show how it has been funded.
There is a lot to be hopeful about in this result even if it is just an EU election.
With a 37% turnout, it is surely impossible to give anywhere near a proper indication of the national mood re Brexit and Remain. We can only say that the remain parties combined had a higher proportion of the votes cast than the leave parties. Whether this is in any way indicative of how the people would vote in a feferendum or general election is impossible to say. Turnout in the latter two would probably be c65%, not quite twice the turnout for the EU elections. That “missing” c28% (who would vote in a GE but not in local or EU elections) may not be divided up in the same proiportions as those voting – in fact almost certainly not. Furthermore, there is a good chance that many voting for the Greens or Lib Dems might return to Labour (or less likely Tory). All that we can say is that in this EU election, the Brexit “party” gained the most seats and scared the shits out of the Tories, while remainers turned to the smaller definitely remain parties to express their fierce allegiance to the European partnership. Farage/Brexit enjoyed a spectacular success that has captured the attention of the media and the country. This has given them tremendous confidence, and may indeed make them over confident. They are hoping for a bandwagon effect that will draw other so far uncommitted voters to give them their vote; Mr Farage is talking of candidates standing in every constituency in the land in the next GE. But this could be their undoing. In the election they will surely have to have a manifesto. What will be their policies on education, health, defence, inequality, inter-racial harmony, social justice, the economy, LGBT rights, climate change? Would they subsidise a closing steel mill? Might their libertarian or socially conservative instincts lead them to propose a range of regressive policies that would very definitely be contrary to the ethos that has the support and allegiance of the younger or more liberal population, to cost them votes? Would they be proposing to return capital punishment, or the privatisation of the NHS? Mr Farge at a General Election should be faced with a range of questions that extends far beyond the matter of to Brexit or not to Brexit, and be revealed as a braying golf club bar room bore with bad teeth, enjoying the discipleship of the likes of Anne Widdecombe, Annunziata Rees-Mogg, John Longworth and Richard Tice, none of them surely possessing much in the way of electoral appeal or political savvy. The EU election just past could well prove to be the high point in the Brexit Jihad. It could be downhill from now on.
I accept all that
And retain my view
What assumptions have you made whether Labour or Conservative are Leave or Remain parties?
Given Labour has a leader who voted no as a citizen in the referendum in the 70s, and voted against both Maastricht and Lisbon as an MP, it is a big call to describe them as a Remain party.
The Conservatives don’t appear to be a Remain party, given none of their leadership candidates is operating on a Remain promise?
If you add the Brexit Party to Labour and the Conservatives and UKIP, that’s more than 50%.
I suspect in practice the Conservatives and Labour attracted voters from both sides of the argument – hard to draw any conclusions.
I have called then non-committed
And I think they are non-committed which is why we are in the mess we are in
So ‘non committed’ = Remain?
No
I left them out as likely to be split – and probably fairly equally
The assumption has been widely made
It’s not worth discussing further
I don’t think there is much that can be taken from this election. The ultimate truth will come down to trust. The LibDems will not shake off their time in government (they don’t deserve to frankly). The Torys will find UC and the problems caused by bad policies in government harder to sell. Labour had a good manifesto last time and I’d reserve judgement until the new one is launched.
My gut tells me that 2015 could repeat itself (new brexit not winning seats but securing several votes) but I know politics isn’t always predictable. JC will not be as accommodating as Ed was. He was fairly successful at keeping the election narrative on domestic policy in 2017.
Good to see the last few posts and some argument on why the IFS five me the creeps. Labour have finally lost me to any thought of voting for them again. I’m still scared more than a third of the third who voted could vote Brexit/UKIP. Got the chance to talk to a few while in hospital. It was tough talking with decent enough blokes suffering the great Brexit fantasy. Being out of it for a couple of months it looks like not much has changed now I’m functioning again. I want a progressive alliance standing on revoke and a new constitution. Still no news on this with most of the media focus on the Tory attempt to drop is into economic mire, get rid of the Scots who don’t vote for them whilst professing union, and leave the rest of us in their English Nationalist ‘paradise’. Parliament seems to have been in longer convalescence than mine in this moment of crisis. The practicality remains we need a solution from 650ish MPs on holiday in more than one sense of the word.
Glad you’re better
I voted Green in the Euro elections as under the D’Hondt system that was the only chance of getting a progressive MEP in my region (and it worked – congratulations to Katherine Rowett), but in a GE I would vote Labour as, given the way things stand in my constituency and the fact that for GEs we still use the appalling and outdated FPTP method that represents the only (outside) chance of shifting the incumbent Tory MP.
And totally fair enough
we voted the same person in!
I recommend reading Chakrabortty’s Guardian piece today. The swamp we’re struggling to rise above is well analysed. The way out of it is too.
Meanwhile, I can only hope you’re right about Remain having a chance Richard.
Yesterday evening reminded me again of how much good can come out when people work together at ground roots level. I was at an awards evening held by our Town Council where associations were receiving their grants to be used to help in various community projects. People there were giving up free time, day in day out, to make life easier and better for people of all ages and backgrounds in their area. Some of them were like me, ‘forinners coming over here’ to…join a community and help make it work for all. There must have been Leavers there too…and yet, they were trying to do something positive to help others in very immediate and practical ways, making their life easier, more bearable and more enjoyable. Most were from the very deprived parts of town which will see cuts to their associations’ funds because EU grants will dry out.
So this brings me back to this part of the article I mentioned:
“Instead, Unger wants a radical transfer of power and money to people and places far from Westminster, so they can try their own social and economic experiments that will inform and revivify national politics. The guerrilla localism of Preston, in Lancashire, fits that brief, as does the Welsh government’s new focus on the foundational economy. Only Westminster starves such places of money and reacts to any outbreak of political imagination with suspicion.”
Beyond Brexit, above it even, there is so much we can do. But we need to stop it first, the existential crisis can wait.
Agreed
Some analysis of voting patterns and speculation on voter flows: https://gapingsilence.wordpress.com/2019/05/29/something-happening-here/
The suggestion is that the Conservatives reacting to the Euro election by careening towards “no deal” might be surrendering a significant proportion of their electors (who defected this time, and might not come back if the Tories draw the wrong lessons). Time for Labour to come off the fence?
If only……