Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party has swept the EU elections in the UK, winning 29 of 73 British seats in the European Parliament. The Lib Dems came a strong second, going from 1 seat to 16. As in the recent local council elections, voters basically used the election as a proxy for their views on Brexit, voting either for the party promising a hard Brexit quickly or the one promising a second referendum. Ironically, of course, the EU Parliament can’t deliver Brexit, nor can the local councils, but it’s an outlet.
Farage’s decision to leave UKIP now seems vindicated – his former party has been wiped out. Labour has dropped from 20 seats to 10 and the Conservatives from 15 seats to 4, presumably punished by the voters for the chaos in Parliament. Greens are up to 7 from 3.
The new EU Parliament will be significantly more fractured than the old one, with the mainstream centre-left and centre-right groupings both losing votes. The results across Europe look fairly similar to the UK – with significant gains for the new liberal-centrist group (of which the British Lib Dems are a member) and the Eurosceptic Europeans for Freedom and Democracy (of which Nigel Farage is the leader).
The other bit of news dominating the headlines is the steady march of Europe of Nations and Freedom, the right-wing populist grouping. Their most significant gains have been in France, where National Rally (formerly the National Front) is emerging as the major opponent to President Macron’s centrism and internationalism. National Rally has won more votes than any other party. Likewise in Italy, where Matteo Salvini’s League has cleaned up (fun fact – Benito Mussolini’s great-grandson is a League candidate). I’m not sure how ENF will hold together given the traditional rivalries between the groups, but it’s going to be a major component of the new Parliament. Full results here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Euro ... t_election
Some news on the Conservative leadership race shortly.