European election analysis: party by party
Is Britain drifting to the right?
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Monday, 08, Jun 2009 01:55
Labour performed appallingly. The BNP claimed victory. The Tories failed to impress. What happened last night, and what does it mean?
By Ian Dunt
Two big political conclusions which can be drawn from last night's vote. Firstly, voters are deeply upset about the expenses scandal and secondly, Britain is drifting towards the right. The first point is close to a truism, but the second gives some indication of the country's tendencies during a recession.
The Conservatives took the battering of the expenses scandal but managed to maintain their vote, even increasing their share of MEPs by one. Ukip, a eurosceptic party whose non-EU policies are firmly on the right, came in second. On the left, the Lib Dems trod water, at best, while Labour were damaged, possibly beyond repair.
The rightward drift is reflected across the continent. The centre-right European Peoples' party (EEP) cleaned up, winning 265 seats, while the centre-left Socialist group was decimated. Far-right parties also did perilously well across Europe. The financial crisis appears to have had the opposite effect on political support to that which historians would have predicted, with voters looking to the right, rather than the left, as economic times become more difficult. But how did British parties perform individually?
Labour
A disaster of unprecedented proportions. Before the results, analysts had stressed that any result below the 20 per cent mark would trigger fresh action against the prime minister. It came in at 15.3 per cent.
The scale of the humiliation was epic. Coming second to the Conservatives in Wales is flabbergasting, something which hasn't happened in the country since 1918. It's by far the worst election result for the party in the post-war period.
In a sense, the pre-emptive nature of the strikes against Gordon Brown last week may have saved him today. Having managed by the skin of teeth to secure a defensive Cabinet reshuffle on Friday, the prime minister will have blocked off a Cabinet revolt. He may not have been able to make Ed Balls chancellor, and he may have made it clear to the political village quite how dilapidated his authority is, but Brown has managed to create a firewall around his leadership.
The letter doing the rounds of Labour MPs still presents the wildcard factor. On the one hand, backbenchers are unlikely to want to launch an attack with the sure knowledge none of the Cabinet will be fighting alongside them. But having seen the extent of Labour's decimation, no Labour MP will feel safe today, regardless of their majority. That sense of self-preservation, and the seeming inevitability of a landslide against the party at the next general election, could still prompt backbenchers into action. The first sign of the party's future will come tonight, when Brown meets the parliamentary party.
British National party (BNP)
Accomplished their aim of sending members to the European parliament. Nick Griffin, party leader, was elected by north-west voters while Andrew Brons won in Yorkshire and Humber.
The party has benefited from voter anger at the expenses scandal, and many voters clearly share their concern at immigration levels. But it would be unwise to read too much into last night's results. The number of people voting for the party actually fell since five years ago, but the lack of votes for other parties meant the far-right party were given a clear run. In the north-west, for instance, the Greens only needed a further 5,000 votes to deny Griffin victory.
Will the results translate into gains at the general election? Almost certainly not. The European proportional representation system benefits smaller, more extreme parties, but it will not be in place during the general election. We can also assume the anger over MPs expenses will have died down by then, and general elections prompt a high turnout than the European election. Nevertheless, Griffin has managed what none of his predecessors could accomplish: making Britons elect a fascist.
Ukip
An impressive result for the eurosceptic party, which had to prove this year that its results last time round were not a flash in the pan. Denied the higher media profile provided to them by former leader Robert Kilroy Silk and suffering under a rash of expenses scandals in the European parliament, the party have still managed to deliver a robust set of results, coming above Labour in the national share of the vote and securing 17.4 per cent of the vote.
Nigel Farage has cemented his position as party leader, and will now carry out the plan he regrets not having accomplished earlier: turning a protest vote against the EU into a fully-fledged British parliamentary party with a host of policies outside of their euroscepticism.
Conservatives
An unimpressive showing for the Conservatives, who only managed to increase their vote by 1.2 per cent. The party were unable to capitalise on Labour's haemorrhaging of support, and appear to have been hit by the same anti-Westminster mood as Labour. Hardly a ringing endorsement for David Cameron's decision to split from the parliament's centre-right grouping on to the margins of European politics, although he will put a brave face on it today. On a more positive note for the party leader, there's nothing to suggest anyone else will be winning the next general election from last night's result.
Liberal Democrats
Nick Clegg will be unhappy with his set of results. The party came in fourth place below Labour, despite its destruction at the polls. In a sense, party officials could see it coming. Launching an unapologetic pro-European campaign is never popular in Britain, and the party deserve credit for forging ahead with these arguments, despite the obvious pitfalls. But Clegg will be upset to find his party being tarred with the same brush as Labour and Conservatives despite the relative lack of scandals on the Lib Dem benches, and his vigorous, tough-talking approach on the expenses issue.
Greens
Excellent results, and very little to show for it. The Greens increased their share of the vote the first time since they elected Caroline Lucas as leader by 8.7 per cent, but were undone by the parliamentary system. While the national result was well up, none of the regional results were sufficient to actually increase their number of MEPs. They have every right to feel somewhat sore about this, but the party's nature is now laid bare: it is an emphatically national party, without any obvious locations (industrial north, the shires etc) which are more prone to vote for them than others.
Nevertheless, the party appears to have benefited from protest votes against Westminster and outperformed the BNP, winning 1,223,303 votes to their 916,424.