The European elections of 2019, part 1: A clearly not United Kingdom

The European elections of 2019 were a sensation in Britain. It was the first time neither of the two largest parties of Labour and Conservative finished in the top two, with Labour finishing third and the Conservatives finishing fifth, worse even than the 2014 European elections.

The Green Wave continued in Britain with 7 Green MEPs elected, the highest in British history. The Green Party won a seat in every region of England except the East Midlands and North East, and were only 25,000 votes short of winning a second seat in the South East. Six new Green MEPs joined Molly Scott-Cato last night, who were Scott Ainslie (London), Ellie Chowns (West Midlands), Gina Dowding (North West), Magid Magid (Yorkshire & the Humber), Alex Phillips (South East), and Catherine Rowett (East of England). Their strongest Green surge and best vote share was once again in South West England where they polled 18%; in local authorities they topped the poll in Brighton & Hove, Bristol and Norwich, and nearly did so in Exeter and Stroud, both of which are routinely in the top 10 Green vote shares in European elections by local authority, and once again they rank in the top 10.

The top 10 Green results by local authority in 2019 were:

Brighton & Hove (35.7%)
Bristol (35.1%)
Stroud (28.1%)
Exeter (27.2%)
Norwich (26.1%)
Sheffield (24.8%)
Cambridge (23.6%)
Hackney (23.1%)
Mendip (22.8%)
Oxford (22.7%)

It was the more than doubling of Green vote shares in former industrial towns such as Burnley, Rotherham and West Bromwich (the largest part of the borough of Sandwell), however, that proved vital in electing Green MEPs north of the Wash, even when their traditional heartlands recorded the highest Green vote shares in those regions. However, anticipated Green gains in the East Midlands and Scotland did not materialise, with the Scottish Greens' advance mainly stymied by another SNP surge (the SNP won 3 European seats out of 6 in Scotland). The Greens also did not win any European seats in Wales, partly due Plaid Cymru absorbing a lot of the "soft Remain" vote even amongst voters with English as their first language instead of Welsh.

Remain/Leave faultlines were the order of the day for this year's European elections, even though this election was not a second referendum on Brexit. As a result, despite not publishing a manifesto, claiming that manifestos are ignored by both parties and voters, the Brexit Party won the most MEPs with 29, although nationwide their vote share was in fact only 31.6%. They won the majority of MEPs in the East Midlands and North East despite not polling even 40% in either region, due to the flawed regional d'Hondt system Britain uses for electing MEPs. Only in Scotland and London did the Brexit Party not top the poll; within London the only three boroughs where they came first were also the only London boroughs to elect any UKIP councillors in 2014: Bexley, Bromley and Havering. Had Britain used just one national list for England as was the case in France, still with separate lists for Scotland and Wales, the breakdown of MEPs by party would have instead looked like this (NB: Northern Ireland uses STV so it is excluded from this particular list):

Brexit 23
Liberal Democrats 14
Labour 10
Green 8
Conservative 7
SNP 3
UKIP 2
Change UK 2
Plaid Cymru 1

Most of the Brexit Party's extra votes came from UKIP, which collapsed in spectacular fashion and even managed to lose 3 deposits, including the London list where its leader Gerard Batten was defending his European seat. UKIP also lost their £5000 deposit in the South East, having finished first there in 2014 with 4 MEPs; they dropped from 32.1% to a derisory 2.2% and seventh place. UKIP lost the majority of its support when the second candidate on its South West list, Carl Benjamin, using the YouTube alias Sargon of Akkad, was exposed as having made sickening rape comments to Jess Phillips, Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley. At this time of writing Carl Benjamin is still under police investigation for those comments. It is nevertheless also clear that Nigel Farage's formation of the Brexit Party has ensured his new party has usurped UKIP's position as the "hard Leave" party in British politics (a similar situation happened in the Netherlands, as I will explain later on) UKIP finished in seventh place nationally with just 3.4%, behind Change UK's otherwise poor total of 3.5%. It must also be noted that UKIP had largely collapsed as an organisation by the 2019 elections, and the creation of the Brexit Party will be the final nail in its coffin.  The Conservatives, punished by hard Brexiteers for a failure to deliver Brexit or agree on a deal by 29th March with Brexit currently delayed to 31st October, endured their worst ever result in a national election of any type, dropping to 9.1% and only 4 MEPs. The only English regions they returned an MEP in were the South East, East of England, the West Midlands, and their best result was in Scotland with 11.6% and one MEP, mainly due to the comparatively strong popularity of Scottish Conservative & Unionist leader Ruth Davidson, although even there the Brexit Party won over many rural Scottish Conservatives. Their best English result was in the East Midlands but even then they lost both of their European seats to the Brexit Party. London was unsurprisingly where they received their worst drubbing; I predicted their vote share would halve to 11% in London and in fact they fell to 7.94% in London. The Conservatives failed to finish higher than fourth in any region or come close to topping the poll in even the wealthiest local authorities. For example, in Hertfordshire where I grew up, which in 2014 was the only county in the East of England not won by UKIP, the Conservatives finished third or fourth in every district in that county. Although the Conservatives did not lose quite as many votes north of the Wash, they had fewer votes to lose there to begin with.

Labour's late promise of a second referendum on Brexit was perceived by many of its voters to be sitting on the fence and going round in circles, and Remain voters turned against Labour the most. This was profoundly felt in London, where Labour conceded first place to the Liberal Democrats and lost 2 MEPs out of 4 in London; what is more the majority of Inner London, except for Hackney, saw the Liberal Democrats displace Labour for pole position this election. The Green Party benefitted from this backlash against Labour as well in London, particularly in Hackney. Labour lost 10 MEPs out of 20 overall and lost all European representation in the South West and the East of England, although in all fairness the South West consistently has the lowest support for Labour in all British elections. They finished a poor third in Wales behind the Brexit Party and Plaid Cymru and nearly lost their MEP there, and they also finished fifth in Scotland losing both MEPs.

The Liberal Democrats experienced a spectacular resurgence, winning European seats everywhere in Britain except the North East and Wales, which only have 3 and 4 seats respectively. Topping the poll in London with 27.15% of the vote and 3 MEPs was their crowning achievement, and in most regions of Britain they finished second. It is clear that well-educated middle-class Remain voters turning out much more than Leave voters were primarily responsible for this resurgence, even with Greta Thunberg and her climate change protests and speeches inspiring a Green wave in Britain as well as in most of Europe.

Change UK's first foray into British elections was a spectacular failure. They failed to finish higher than sixth place, even in London, and in Scotland and Yorkshire & The Humber they in fact lost their deposit by failing to poll 2.5% of the vote. Even in Remain areas they failed to make any impact, and in most regions they finished last or next to last. A lot of its would be voters voted Liberal Democrat to express their Remain voice, and in fact just before the election Heidi Allen, Change UK for South Cambridgeshire (originally elected as a Conservative) publicly discussed a merger of Change UK with the Liberal Democrats; she has again called for such a merger today: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/change-uk-liberal-democrats-heidi-allen-merger-chuka-umunna-independent-group-sdp-a8931001.html

Of the parties which did not field a list in every region, only the Yorkshire Party had their deposit returned, polling 3.94% in Yorkshire & The Humber. The English Democrats lost what little support they had, and the Animal Welfare Party and Women's Equality Party cost the Greens a few voters in London but otherwise made no difference to the overall outcome. Of the Independents, the infamous founder of the English Defence League, Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) polled 2.24% in the North West, losing his deposit to much laughter at the North West declaration, where he skulked out before the result was declared. All the Extinction Rebellion independents, who should have been supporting the Green Party from the start, achieved derisory votes.

Over in Northern Ireland, the Alliance Party winning its first ever European seat is the most important development there; the UUP finished fifth behind the SDLP and lost its seat, partly due to long-standing MEP and former MP Jim Nicholson retiring this year. With the Alliance soaking up soft unionist transfers, the UUP is struggling to find its feet in a more polarised political field in Northern Ireland.

It is clear that "hard Remain" parties have in terms of vote share beaten the "hard Leave" parties, with "hard Remain" managing a combined total of 41.7% and "hard Leave"'s combined total being 35.1%, with the Conservatives and Labour only managing a historic two-party low of 23.2%. This happened due to turnout sharply increasing in strong Remain areas and turnout decreasing in many strong Leave areas, with Basildon's turnout being the lowest at 25.8%.