Monday 26 May 2014

EU elections - UK results


Final voting shares for the UK -Euro area elections

UKIP -  27.5%
Labour - 25.4%
Conservatives - 23.9%
Green 7.8%
Liberal democrat - 6.8%

What can we say?

The fascist party of fruit-cakes and loons turns out to just represent the views of the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom with regard to Europe. The newspapers calling it an earthquake may be being  rather hypocritical, but they are correct. It is an earthquake.

Labour did pretty poorly for a party that needs to be bounding ahead if it wants to be in power next year. If London is removed from the results then Labour did very badly.

Tories. Better than expected. Kept some seats that they might have lost. If their actual polling in UK elections had been better then they might even have been feeling optimistic.

Greens - The new protest party for people who really have no idea about politics but just like trees.
7.8% sounds quite good. But in the 1970s the National Front, an openly racist and violent party, used to manage 10%

Which really does put the Liberal Democrats 6.8% to shame. The party of in, is out.

The real messages of the night.
 - UK wants a referendum on membership of the EU
- UK does not want to continue on exactly as we are, with no changes, to our membership of the EU.

Couldn't be clearer.

Malcolm Tucker was closeest and so winds a point for the QT leaderboard.
UKIP - 28%
Labour - 26%
Conservatives - 24%
Libs - 6%
Greenies - 5%

BQ was way off - having labour 1st and UKIP on 25%

12 comments:

Ossian said...

"UK wants a referendum on membership of the EU" ...err no

A small geographical part of the UK - which just happens to have over 50% of the population crowded into it - wants a referendum.

The dictatorship of the Home Counties strikes again.

Anonymous said...

The EU referendum vote is a bit like the Scottish one. People like the sound of getting out and independence always sounds good. But on what terms? It's like opting to leave your house but without knowing what the weather's like outside.

It's one thing to leave but we don't know what comes next. Look at the Swiss who have become very frustrated by the EU, in order to have partial access to the single market they've had to sign up to a lot of the EU rules.

Plus I suspect the EU wouldn't just let Britain go out easily. The populist answer within the EU is that if the UK leaves, to hell with the Rosbifs/Johnny Englanders and set them tough terms of trade to teach them a lesson and ensure others don't follow.

Bill Quango MP said...

Ossian - UKIP vote is strong almost everywhere. If there was AV there would probably be a UKIP government.

Its not Home counties alone.

Anon: I don't think people really care anymore. They think 'it can't be much worse.' Which, is poor thinking. It could be a hell of a lot worse.

But leaving the EU allows UKIP to say 15% VAT and ZERO VAT on energy and on fuel and on beer as of tomorrow."

No other party could promise that . Only UKIP could pay for it.

And as for harsh trade terms..well, we have the same option..The price of a BMW goes up £20,000. The Price of a Toyota stays the same. Or maybe even falls with some agreement about factories and corporation taxes.
You really want to have a trade war, Mr EU. Really ? Because we can do it?

I expect an exit would be like us and the Scots. Smooth the ending and set agreements so they don't suddenly start becoming a tax haven on our doorstep.

Timbo614 said...

Ossian - wrong London in particular voted pretty much the other way.

Anon - So you don't think we can play with the big boys anymore? Why not? We would have to play differently of course from when we were the biggest boy. But we can do it I'm sure. We are over the stupid 70's and 80's. Britsh goods, engineering and expertise are still very much in demand!

Well done Nigel! Now kick 'em harder (they are not down yet!)

Dick the Prick said...

What is the point of being a Lib Dem if they're not going to kill Clegg then what, what are they up to? It's like waiting on death row. I'm sure a few will squeek through due to personal rep and incumbancy but annihilation beckons.

I do feel sorry for them - sure, they'd have got abuse as the submissive partner in a coalition anyway but over tuition fees - I mean, yeah it was bad but it ain't Iraq or anything yet everyone's piling everything they can think of on them. I guess it's something to do with core vote strength or something but quite harsh, grand scheme of things. Ho hum.

Electro-Kevin said...

UKIP would have done even better were it not for the UKIP-a-like parties no-one had ever heard of taking around 20,000 votes.

This ought to be added to the Eurosceptic assessment. Possibly to the UKIP tally.

And what of the media/political onslaught that UKIP had to endure ?

The establishment knew that the public didn't want BNP but instead of praising them for seeking a moderate alternative called them rude names instead.

"The Tories cannot just cater for the core Tory voter these days."

(So say many Tory politicians)

So they must appeal to the new socio/racial demographic and some of their more... unusual versions of democracy ? (UN observers in Tower Hamlets please !)

The only party to be openly Europhilic got stuffed into 5th place. And it was a joy to see bug-eyed Nick Robinson in a barely concealed tiz as news of UKIP victories were coming out. (Is he not supposed to be impartial ?)

Ossian said...

Support for UKIP will evaporate as soon as everyone sees how useless they are. Look at their grouping at Brussels. 28 EDP MEPs made up of 24 UKIP, a few Italians, Greeks, Lithuanians and Danes. They are too small to make any difference.

Could they get into Westminster? Possibly but like the single Green MP more noise that action - with the local support base eroding.

IF they get sensible policies, backed by competent people, and actually achieved something then they may just survive a second time. Meanwhile life will go on, the media will love all the punch and judy stuff, and we'll all get bored with adolescent UKIppers trashing the place and not achieving anything.

MyPostElectionName said...

Amazing result for UKIP but I too wonder how much of this will last to the general election.....

Seeing Clegeroniband making soothing hand gestures and saying 'we get it' will not do for this voter. Straight away they come out with 'I have a job to do' -type statements indicating they intend staying on the present course. If they do, then I intend voting UKIP in the general election too. May God forgive me.

In case any of you westminister/city types dont get why I voted UKIP heres the message -
You price me and my kids out of housing, as a deliberte act of policy, then I vote to get you out of power.

And I dont give a fuck if I have to thrash the country by voting UKIP to get it done.

Bill Quango MP said...

Timbo- agreed. We hold all the aces. If the UK walked how many other states would be tempted yo follow?
It would be a nightmare for the EU. Far far better to keep us in and not risk unkown territory.

FTP. Lib Dems lost support the moment they agreed to tuition fees. No surprise really. They spent their election campaign on campuses and in student cafeterias drumming up the youth vote and saying only they stand up for da yoof. And then their first act was to increase fees 50o%.
Liar liar liars!
The naked vote grabbing based on a lying manifesto did for the students and the bed-Tory thing annoyed their super red supporters who had been expecting labour lite not Tory lite.

But , you are right. Iraq and immigration was a far more damaging set of lies that labour have got away with at least amongst their usual supporters.

dearieme said...

I'd like to see the Labour Party wiped out so that politics could revert to the altogether healthier Whigs vs Tories. Alas, I'm not going to get it; but then I knew that.

Bill Quango MP said...

Ek. You are on to an important point here. The rejection of the B&P is only because of the availability of UKIP as an alternative .

When the national front were polling 10% in 1978 it was Maggie who made a speech about being "swamped" in some areas. The liberal media went berserk and she faced a very similar time to Farages last few weeks.
But she said the same things a few times and in a TV interview said "if telling the truth is wrong, then I want to be wrong..and if using the word swamped is the worst I'm ever accused of then I shall be happy."

Tory support rose almost overnight and the national front pretty much ceased to exist.

I think this is why Ossian has it wrong. It's too widespread and too deep to be a flash in the pan.
Only the main parties adopting the policies will stop the Kipper march.

Ossian. In normal times I'd agree. But the Nazis, as an example though overused, could only be voted in in their extraordinary times of the early 1930s.
We are not in normal times. The Grillo party which stands for exiting the euro and buggering up politics is still attracting 16.8% of the vote.
Some say that's poor seeing as they had 20%.

If Nigel retained 80% he'd be very happy.

And mypostelectionname sums up why UKIP will hang on to a fair bit of that vote.

Unless the other parties pander to the UKIP tendency. Which is very likely but may just be storing up their own liberal democrat meltdown for the future if they are lying.

Kynon said...

Hmm. "the views of the vast majority of people in the United Kingdom"

Circa 65% of the UK electorate didn't bother their arse to vote. 27.5% of 35% is 9.6% of the electorate. Not exactly a vast majority in my book! (I also appreciate that no general election in my lifetime has had a decent voter turnout - insert stock comments about most politicians either being lying, cheating untrustworthy sacks of shit, or being tarred with the brush that says they are here).