Let’s take a look at the centrist carnage starting with a comparison to 2017.
In the 2017 general election, the Conservatives and Labour took an 82% combined share of the vote. In the Euro elections they managed 24% in England and Wales. pic.twitter.com/sCsEwy0JEv
— David Hughes (@DavidHughesPA) May 27, 2019
UK Newspaper Headlines
Monday’s TIMES (2nd edition): “Farage surge sends main parties into meltdown” #bbcpapers #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/3C0EYFyGS0
— Allie Hodgkins-Brown (@AllieHBNews) May 26, 2019
The @guardian front page, Monday 27 May #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/rFFs0Bdf2z
— Bonnie Malkin (@bonniemalkin) May 27, 2019
DAILY MAIL: Farage plunges dagger….Knives out for Boris #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/2YUTzfB4C8
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) May 26, 2019
The front page of tomorrow’s Daily Telegraph: ‘#Farage humiliates Tories in EU poll’ #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/k5t451u7A5
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 26, 2019
EXPRESS: NOW give us the Brexit we voted for #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/zCCDSKGYaL
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) May 26, 2019
Remain Parities
UK: 21% counted.
Hard Brexit parties: 35.7%
Conservatives/Labour: 24.3%
Remain parties: 38.5%#EP2019 #Brexit #EuropeanElections2019 #EUelections2019 pic.twitter.com/WDlIqXqjAK— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) May 26, 2019
Those results show the extreme polarization.
Centrist Parties are the Biggest Losers
The Guardian Live Blog has pertinent comments.
The centre-left and centre-right blocks are the biggest losers. They will no longer hold a majority in parliament. The current projection from the European parliament is that, between them, those blocks will end up with a total of 329 seats out of 751.
The far right had modest gains overall, but did very well in Italy and France. In Italy, Matteo Salvini’s League romped home, with 28 seats. Second was the socialist PD on 19 seats. In France Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party took 22 seats, ahead of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance coalition with 21. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party took more than half the vote, winning 13 seats, more than three times that of the next party. Those who would group Nigel Farage’s Brexit party under the far-right banner point to his stunning 29-seat win in the UK.
The Greens have done well in Germany and in the UK. In Germany they took 21 seats, making them the second biggest party (after Angela Merkel’s CDU-CSU coalition, which took 29 seats). In Britain, the Green party won seven seats.
History Made
Never before in British politics has a party just 6 weeks old won a national election.
If Britain does not leave the EU on October 31st, these results will be repeated at a general election.
History has been made. This is just the beginning.pic.twitter.com/J7xqwdwZin
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) May 26, 2019
Farage Says No to Boris Johnson
When it came to walking the walk Boris strolled through the division lobby and voted for May’s vassalage deal. pic.twitter.com/1NypYnSRNW
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) May 26, 2019
Spain
With a 64% turnout, Puigdemont wins the #EuropeanElections2019 in Catalonia. Pro-independence parties on track to win an absolute majority of votes. Independentists also come on top in the municipal elections in Barcelona.
— Luka Lisjak (@llisjak) May 26, 2019
Results In
The results are in, pretty much as expected in this corner.
- The Brexit party came in first place but not as good as some polls predicted.
- Le Pen topped Macron by a slim margin.
- Salvini did well in Italy
Anti-Brexit Vote
For all the success of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, anti-Brexit parties collectively recorded the greater vote share #EuropeanElectionResults pic.twitter.com/tpRDqBxTn7
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) May 27, 2019
How about the fact that avidly pro-remain parties could only muster 40% of the vote.
Thus 60% want Brexit in one form or another.
This was a good night for Farage.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Elections in foreign countries seem strange to me. Probably because there are more than 2 parties. But in actuality, it’s the US that’s strange with only 2 parties.
The election is not a referendum on Brexit, so concluding there is 60% support for Brexit is a gratuitous conclusion. Farage’s party will not be able to repeat their success in a general election. This a free (no consequences) opportunity to thumb your nose at the current political culture, with no real policy ramifications for either the UK or the EU.
It is emblematic for the devolution of the UK political scene. No predictions, but don’t get your hopes up for UK renewal any time soon.
Across Europe, at the national government level, the center-right and center-left parties have been forming “grand coalitions” mostly to defy the tilt of the electorate to the right- that tilt being anti-EU. This is hollowing both kinds of parties, and those further right and further left will continue to grow until the electorate is represented by parties that no longer form grand coalitions.
It will be interesting to see what the Tories do in response to this election. I still think they will try to defy Brexit and appoint another Remain PM in Brexit clothing.
DOWN with the worthless EU institute invented to serve its legally corrupt freeloaders, like Verhofstadt, and the multinationals they lobby for, we ve enough of them on a national level, UNWIND the fckn EU in its present, far too ambitious form, we don t need it AT ALL ….EXITs like BREXIT that s what the european CONTINENT(and its islands) needs ….
One problem: the propaganda apparatus, in most places funded by taxpayers, keeps the sheep well fed with “news”. Unfortunately, the sheep will only wake up, when they wake up on an empty stomach.
Absolutely correct. At least if going by how things evolved in, similarly governed, Venezuela. Western electorates sure don’t show much hint of being any less pliant and well indoctrinated.
Increasing numbers of elderly people who are on pensions or whatever form of social security, who never had a way to get back at the younger people they both envy and want to shake into understanding, people who watch the news cycle all day long and get madder and madder, millions and millions of them, now have a powerful way of speaking (anonymously) and getting back at the world with no risk to themselves. Those are the results youre seeing these days all around the world. Trump comes to mind immediately. Europe as well.
So basically.
Anyone who doesn’t agree with you or the far left are “deplorables” and “bitter clingers?”
Every by-election or local election in the U.K. when I lived there several decades ago had the same outcome – the Liberals or the Lib/Dems would get a surge wrt their prior general election result and would announce that there was a great shift in British politics. Then the next General Election would come around and everybody would vote Labour or Conservative again.
The Brits, and I strongly suspect many other voters in Europe, don’t take these elections seriously. And if they do, it is to express dissatisfaction at the major parties.
If you want to know what the Brits think after three years of Brexit stupidity, the best, most democratic way is to ask them. No deal Brexit or Remain?
For sure the electorate isn’t going to fall for lies like the 350 Million Pounds/week for the NHS again, or that Brexit will be easy.
But the Brexit crowd are scared of an educated electorate and will block democracy to implement their wishful brand of “Spitfires Flying Over The White Cliffs of Dover (with the Dambusters theme playing in their heads)” national superiority drivel.
SCARED out of their wits as they are, like dogs, beaten and humiliated with the tail between their legs, the Brits are definitely going to vote for the worthless EU circus again….and if necessary there will be a third referendum…
My question with this argument is this. It would seem to me that if Britain ends up remaining, the EU becomes for Britain what the Federal Government is to the US, controlling the most important economic and social issues, while the MP and PM become like the state senate and governor. Thus, for a remainer, wasn’t this the “real” election that will affect Britain’s future, while the General Election would end up being about local issues only?
You are equating the U.S. Federal system with the E.U. system – they are not the same. National Governments have far more control over their countries, dictating over 99% of the spending and wide control of social and other policies. In fact the Tories could have pushed back on E.U. immigration but didn’t because the NHS depends on skilled E.U. labor, as do many other verticals in the U.K.
It is more akin to the U.N. over the U.S. than the Federal Government over States.
EU countries have control over their spending? I’ll tell that to the Greeks who are at the mercy of the ECB, EU and IMF. The joys of being in the euro. Italy’s growth rates since 2000 have been the lowest in the world (if you exclude Haiti and Zimbabwe).
Hi Robin:
The Greeks spent themselves into a mess, no help necessary from anybody else. The E.U. is helping bail them out because they are in the Euro zone (which is why they spent so much money in the first place). Italy, likewise, has been a perennial financial basket case since long before the E.U. and the Euro.
Both countries, in my opinion, would have been better following Britain’s reluctance to join the Euro, then they could have devalued their currency, taken short term pain (as the both did countless times in the 1970s and 1980s when me and my teenage buddies would flock to the beaches, lured by ludicrously low prices for hotels and restaurants.
Again, mandatory spending dictated by the E.U. is less than 1% of the U.K.’s government spending. Most of the social laws (e.g. gay marriage, etc.) were Britain’s decision.
Where the E.U. is upsetting the British elites is the attempt to increase transparency into the tax avoidance of the richest Brits. This is the source of a lot of the financing for upper class twits like Rees-Mogg and wanna-be elites like Farage.
Mish has done some excellent work looking at the Target 2 liabilities (now over a trillion) and non performing loan ratios at European banks. Deutsche Banks share price is currently singing like a canary.
As for tax avoidance I give you one Luxembourg, home to our dear friend Mr Juncker. As for upper class twits, Labour have had their fair share eg. Viscount Stansgate (although he was right about the EU and Iraq).
Your last paragraph hits the nail on the head. The odious Murdoch was asked why he wanted the UK to leave the EU. He replied that when he asked a British PM to jump they replied “How High? ” whereas the EU polls told him in terms to sod off.
Countries control 99% of their spending. So what are the ECB and EU doing in Greece, apart from converting it into a second world country?
“f you want to know what the Brits think after three years of Brexit stupidity, the best, most democratic way is to ask them. No deal Brexit or Remain?”
And then, after three more years of either Brexit or Bremain stupidity, ask them again. Then back to stupidity. Then ask them again. And again…….
Or, should they only be asked again and again and afin, until they learn to vote as told?
No, just one more time now that the whole deal/no deal situation is better understood. Is a better informed electorate a problem?
The only thing the electorate in another election over a settled matter is “better informed” about, is that their vote is being blatantly disregarded by those charged with executing on it.
Nothing wrong with voting over EU membership every three years or so, but before scheduling another vote, first execute on the decision made during the first. THEN, after three years, you may have a “better informed” electorate. Which it does seem like someone find more than just a little bit worrisome.
Hi Stuki:
Their vote was not “disregarded by those charged with executing on it”, because they only gave one instruction – leave the E.U. They didn’t say when, how or at what cost.
A sensible referendum would have been in two parts:
If the Brexiteers are so sure their cause is right, and that the deal they are offering the country is the best one for the country, why don’t they take a step back from their “I know best” approach, and present their plan?
So, would you favor a second referendum with two choices?:
1. Hard Brexit
2. Remain
“because they only gave one instruction – leave the E.U. ”
Which is why you leave the EU. Ideally by the end of the day. The see what, if anything breaks, so you can start to work on fixing it.
When a police officer tell you to stop, you don’t spend three years making up nonsensical excuses for why not to stop, and maybe after three years he may have changed his opinion. While doing all manners of non related things in the meantime. First, you just stop. Then you go from there.
Hi Stuki:
“When a police officer tell you to stop”
I think a better analogy is the voters giving a mandate to e.g. build a tunnel under the English Channel.
They don’t expect the Prime Minister to start handing out shovels and point in the general direction of Dover, they expect a feasible plan and to understand the cost. If the cost was completely out of proportion, and the French dictated that the Tunnel exit had to be in Lyon (it is their country after all), you probably want to negotiate.
Peterborough by-election coming up. Brexit Party are now 4/11 with Labour at 3/1. One can only dream that the UK is the first country to get rid of the “Extreme Centre”
Getting excited over by-elections is the preserve of the Lib-Dems and the Greens. This shows that the Brexit Party is just a semi-amusing British joke (laughing at Farage sporting his dairy themed look), like the Monster Raving Looney Party, or Corbyn.
You sound like a paid up member of the Extreme Centre.
I’ll take that compliment Robin 🙂
Dewey Wins!
Nigel Farage had a stunning victory. It is amazing that a Party only launched 6 weeks ago could achieve this. Well done.
Unfortunately Macron did well so no change likely in Brussells. LePen should have gained more than 1 seat over him.
I know people, more than a few, that were pro-Brexit but refused to vote this time. “The MEPs will probably only be there until Oct 31st so what’s the point”.
That might be a few extra % points nationall that just didn’t bother whereas Remain turn out would have been “all hands on deck.”
Think on.
It appears that a number of voters were confused by Farage’s change from UKIP to the Brexit Party, and voted UKIP thinking they were voting for Farage’s Brexit Party. One imagines that will resolve itself by the general election.
It will be and money is rolling into fund them. I’ve met people who would have voted for him but didn’t because they saw no point between now and end of October. It’s all very messy. A good shake-up of Labour and Tories is overdue. 4 party system is coming.