has clearly come out on top in terms of votes cast, but the party’s effective anti-establishment campaign was still not quite as good as the some of the polls were suggesting....[but]... its margin of victory over the second-placed Lib Dems remained considerable.
But says:
The LibDems were the emotional winners with the final results handing the party a healthy second-place finish as almost all pro-remain parties enjoyed a buoyant night.
As for the also-rans:
Labour fared poorly, coming third behind the Lib Dems and losing votes to the pro-second referendum parties and the dominant Brexit party...the party’s constructive ambiguity left it a weak third, only a couple of points ahead of the Greens. A few days before the election, Labour was still polling just above 20% on average, underlining how far it had fallen in the immediate run-up to election day....The Conservatives performed even more poorly than predicted, coming behind the Greens in fifth after early results, with about 9.1% of the vote. That is the worst national election result for the party in its history.
Overall:
The other pro-second referendum parties did well, with the exception of Change UK....Most significantly, the share of the two unambiguously pro-Brexit parties – the Brexit party and Ukip – was 34.9%, markedly lower than the aggregate total of the pro-second referendum parties (the Lib Dems, Greens, Change UK, the Scottish National party and Plaid) at 40.3%.So back to seeing the Euros as a proxy referendum after all? Except vote share in different constituencies is not the same as national vote in a referendum ( there was still quite a low turnout of about 37% for the Euros), and the Graun declines to assess pro-Brexit or anti PVCV votes in Labour and Conservative.
Z Williams is in early with the spin.Hilariously, she announces that the poltical stances in these unexpected elections (' bizarre – they were never meant to have happened, and as such, were conducted on the hoof.') were enirely negative:
The Conservative campaign launched to a near-empty room, with nothing to deliver but an abject apology. The Labour campaign, described in a withering email sent to supporters before the results by their MEP John Howarth, was “implausible rot” – defined by a single-minded determination to fight a European election without mentioning Europe...Nigel Farage’s Brexit party did not have a message either, that was in any recognisable way political: they had stopped talking about immigration, on the basis that it was no longer very salient. They had no concrete agenda for Brexit itself. [no deal surely?] For sure they had no wider political aim that you could glean from their speeches. Their agenda was pure anti-politics, anti-Westminster, anti-elites, anti-this-lot....The Lib Dems, who have also done well, spectacularly so in some areas, at least matched the Brexit party in certainty: Bollocks to Brexit. But they skirted as carefully away from domestic politics as Labour cleaved to them, and had nothing much to say on their dreams for the future of Europe, either...Change UK, it feels kinder to ignore in these terms. The Greens were alone in having an immediate aim – stay in the EU – that married to a longer-term objective – fight climate change.
So spin will ensue:
it is hard to draw wider conclusions about what people were voting for; and so begins the mad scramble to take control of the narrative. The Conservatives kicked off before the results were even in, with most of the myriad leadership candidates taking this as an invitation to head off the Brexit party by becoming more like it. The Labour leadership is essaying an absurd stance – these elections were bound to be difficult, because the country is so divided; ergo, only a party that can ignore those divisions, and appeal equally to both sides, will ever bring it back together. But the furious counter-reactions, not only from MEPs like Howarth, Seb Dance and Jude Kirton-Darling, but also from frontbenchers like Emily Thornberry, indicate that even without its logical flaws, that position is pretty fragile. The Lib Dems are cherishing their resurrection, understandably, and the Greens can congratulate themselves not just on their clarity, but also on their competent and energetic campaigning.
However, Williams feels it is all slipping away from self-styled left 'reasonable' and 'compromising' Giuardianistas like her (but not like Toynbee, Behr, Kettle and Harris for the class hate tendency):
What died, with these elections, was any realistic notion of a silent majority who just wanted a soft Brexit and be done with it. If that majority ever existed, it was so silent as to be functionally irrelevant. In its place, a surge of no-dealers and a hard-core of remainers.
However, good old S Jenkins wants to plug on regardless
The European elections were meaningless. [silly idea to give votes to people who can't think rationally] They can be read any way we want
So:
crashing out [still calling it that?] is now the legal default position. Even as a life-long Eurosceptic, I have seen nothing suggesting this would be remotely in the nation’s interest. The idea that crashing out “on WTO terms” will somehow win centrists or moderate Tories back to the fold is absurd...On the other hand a revocation referendum would be near impossible to get through parliament against a Tory government veto – short of some sort of Commons putsch. [El Gurand and the others got close to advocating this recently]. It would probably require a no-confidence vote and an election, which was hardly takes matters forward...Renegotiation is impossible, as there is no Brussels to negotiate with until the autumn, let alone one with the will to budge.
This leaves May’s agreement. It is still on the table. It was never a final, only a transitional deal, but it was composed from the most rare and febrile Westminster substance, cross-party compromise.... May’s sole legacy to them was her deal. It offered the country a perfectly honourable way forward out of the EU and into a new relationship with Europe. Any fool could pick holes in it, but it was a compromise agreed by Brussels, and would see us out before the 31 October deadline....There is no alternative [even for you insensitive proles who are not persuaded by Jenkin's assertion of what is in the national interest, or the virtues of compromise and honour]
Finally, the Graun seems to support the call in some quarters for a strong man to cut through all the uncertainty and speak for Destiny:
Wanted: a modern Thomas Cromwell to mend Brexit Britain
Where, though, to find a contemporary Cromwell, the man who Mantel [latest book to signal] portrays as finding Machiavelli’s work a little too trite for his tastes? Certainly not, on recent evidence, in the corridors of Westminster....[who] ... resemble the characters in a Feydeau farce
Then a revealing bit of true Guerdiana:
“And indeed,” thinks Cromwell, “who can doubt that everything would be different and better, if only England were ruled by village idiots and their drunken friends?” [but then some hasty backpedalling -- too late if anyone fancied raising a Twitter storm on class prejudice, which luckily, no-one in this readership will -- Guardina writer says voters are 'village idiots' and drunks?] ...Idiots and their drunken friends is not a way that any sensible person would or should characterise the electorate; and even so, the most intemperate or partisan observer ought to concede that each faction boasts its fair share of ne’er-do-wells.
It's rather like what Foster said about the need to 'educate our masters' after the 1832(?) electoral reforms:
Now, the puppet-masters must take into account a much broader political cast, one that encompasses everyone with a keyboard, a mobile device and a willingness to harangue members of parliament on College Green. In truth, we are all now subjected to infinite information and able to – indeed, keen to – broadcast our immediate responses to it. What we are, essentially, is a herd of ravenous political cats almost too numerous and various to corral.... So where is the man or woman who can discreetly manoeuvre the politicians into a space where they are able to put aside personal ambition, rivalry, vengefulness and the fear of losing face in order to find a way forward?
Let's abandon (or rather repress) politics for a final knowing jest (he 'writes on culture' for the Graun and Observer. The light humour also helps stave off any complaints of prejudice):
A few months ago, one might have suggested the England football manager, Gareth Southgate; now we’re just as likely to plump for Jodie Comer in Villanelle mode. But whoever finds themselves lapping at the poisoned chalice can comfort themselves with the fact that, unlike Cromwell, their head won’t end up on a spike on London Bridge. These days, we just [!] splash our enemies with a salted caramel drink or photograph them gently sobbing in the back of a Daimler [mixed up Mrs Thatcher and Mrs May?].
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