There are rumours sweeping the parliament - and I stress only rumours at this stage - that eurosceptic UKIP has done stunningly well. One suggestion is that they have come second, with 18 seats. If true, Mr Farage will have a very big smile on his face tonight.
Another politician who should be grinning is Italy's PM Silvio Berlusconi, whose new right-wing People of Freedom (PdL) party appears to have won almost 57% of the vote. A dramatic result for a party in government.
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I’m Mark Mardell, the BBC's North America editor. These are my reflections on American politics, some thoughts on being a Brit living in the USA, and who knows what else? My previous blog, as the BBC’s man in Europe, taught me one thing at least: your comments are key. I read them all, so please have your say.
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Comments
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Phew! Talk about letting the foxes loose in the hen house...
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UKIP type parties have been wiped out in Sweden and Poland.
No mention on the live coverage of this? Why so?
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Congratulations, UK! (From Norway.) We should have had a party like UKIP in our country.
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I am becoming increasingly annoyed at the tendency of politicians and commentators to present the UKIP vote simply as a protest against the scandal of MPs' expenses or the 'big' parties. Most of us who voted UKIP did so because we wanted to make a positive statement; we're not xenophobic,we just reject the undemocratic, bureaucratic and arguably corrupt European Union. Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems have denied the electorate a voice over the Lisbon Treaty; combined with the incredibly low turnout, the UKIP vote is a powerful statement of opposition to membership of the EU.
To present it as anything else is an insult to our intelligence and dangerous for democracy.
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Who cares ? We in the UK don't care, Brussels doesn't care because whatever the result, they will carry on regardless every bit as smug and stupid as you, Mr Mardell - have another Belgium chocolate mate !
Just why don't we have the UK results yet ? They should have been released 2 minutes past 10:00 PM so what went wrong, Gordon Mugabwe needed more time to doctor the results ?
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As you are apparently a journalist, I suggest that you investigate why, when the elections were held last Thursday, the results are not yet available. The Labour Party may not (yet) go so far as to fiddle the result, but this extreme form of news management is surely confirmation that we are living in a totalitarian state.
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I read a twitter comment just now on BBC site. The writer said quite correctly that those promising a British withdrawal were selling empty promises.
Fact: The Lisbon Treaty has been fully ratified by the UK
House of Commons voted in favour of the Lisbon Treaty (with some opt outs for UK and Poland) on 11th March 2008 (346 ayes 206 noes)
The House of Lords voted for the Treaty of Lisbon on 18th June 2008.
The formal ratification procedure was completed as the Queen gave her 'Royal Assent' on the 19th June 2008.
The last constitutional opportunity for the sceptics was the last general election.
If the Irish vote 'Yes' in October, the Lisbon Treaty automatically comes into EU wide force as soon as the result is formally communicated.
That is a fact and UKIP and co should admit that to their voters.
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Very disappointing to see Andrew Duff, one of the most odious federalist toads ever to crawl the Earth, returned.
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The BNP are disgusting but it is wonderful fantastic news that Richard Corbet, one of the worst federalists ever to live, is no longer an MEP.
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Blaming the EU for the economic mess the UK is in is laughable. This is Thatcherism's dead end, and it is all the result of pursuing a set of economic recipes way past the point they made sense.
The deification of consumption and a society addicted to credit is no way to run an economy and that is not a fault of europe.
UKIP is probably making many brits feel good about themselves but it has no answer to the challenges the UK faces, because it is hollow it is not a party at all, it is an escape from reality.
Personally i was so disturbed by UKIP's rise and Murdoch's dominance that I moved our sizeable business interests out of the UK and i am now based in Bratislava, as the quality of debate in the UK is becoming disturbing. We think that the direction things are taking is a pretty extreme one and the UK will end up with far right politics as its mainstream. What is the next step. The views of the BNP do not sound unreasonable anymore to the average UK voter.
I think the UK should leave the EU and try to consumate its special relationship with the US (i think most people in the UK already suspect that it is far far more special to the UK than it is to the USA).
In the long run societies that will prevail are the ones that tend to have civilised values. Trade is not a substitute for moral purpose, and britain's current economic soulsearching will eventually reach that conclusion.
Its depressing how low a country can fall when it touched excellence in the past by setting up institutions such as the BBC in its past.
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Interesting to see that in the UKIP heartlands of Eastern England they mustered all of 313,921 votes out of 1,603,340 votes cast in a constituency of 4,252,669.
Doesn't this rather give the lie to the claim that "most people want the UK to leave the EU"? If that claim were true surely UKIP would sweep the board across the nation?
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#10 I did as you did. Moved out some three years ago for business reasons. Now based in Europe and employing three. Uncertainty and a sense that UK was not committed to Europe informed my decision. I do business by internet and could do so from UK. I am closer to my customers and the accounting is therefore easier across the massive Eurozone market. The argument with Europe is referred pain. The real problem is the lack of justice, inequality and, dare I say it, lack of democracy in UK which is driving the citizens up the wall and leads them th thrash about looking for a scapegoat ie Europe. I mean UKIP and BNP and a gaggle of others.
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The UK is already independent so any vote for UKIP is an absurd waste of time! Any vote to leave the EU would happen through Westminster. UKIP are merely Tories under another name.
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I hope Mark Mardell will be reflecting on all the free publicity he has given to the BNP in recent weeks, and that his attacks on other parties (e.g. repeatedly calling UKIP the BNP in blazers) comes at the expense of enhancing the electoral credibility of the BNP.
I also hope the Labour party will learn a lesson from Yorkshire and Humberside tonight, which is that running with federalist zealots like Richard Corbett lets the BNP in. Richard Corbett has been one of the most unrepresentative MEPs ever and it is deeply to be wished that tonight marks the end of his political career.
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what a EU farce election this was?
Less democracy, more hypocrisy
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according to EU 43% voted, but they don\t tell how much spoiled their votes..
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near 60% didnt vote.
so,people dont care about EU
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total EU turn out minus total EU spoiled votes = real people voting.
therefore not 43%, but maybe 36%
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Please Mark, can we do a little bit of maths and look at the proportion of anti-EU and pro-EU parties? UK and Europe-wide?
I am so sick of hearing commentators assert that the shift to the right away from Labour towards UKIP and not the Liberals, is just an anti-Government or anti-Labour 'expenses' issue.It is simply insulting for commentators to assert that voters 'don't care' or 'don't understand' about Euro elections, as if they alone understand the inner workings of the minds of the British voter. We are not thick. We can choose where to put our crosses. It is clear to even the most intellectually challenged observer that Britain has become much more anti-EU in recent years. The proliferation of 'pro-sovereignty parties, and the rise of UKIP, clearly shows, as comments and polls have shown for a long time, that the British electorate have genuine fears over the implications of Lisbon, and the increased power of Europe, which have not been listened to be our Lords and Masters, fiddling their expenses in Whitehall and Brussels. The Europe issue is yet another illustration of the gulf between the people and their supposed representatives.
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In my opinion the UKIP vote is a protest againtst the EU ; two fingers up to a federal Europe and the main British political parties , who give more allegiance to the EU , than the British People , whom they knowingly and deliberately misrepresent .
All the main British Political Parties know well the degree of Euroscepticism in Britain ; that most people do not want further integration to a massive federal European State .
Whatever the pressure put on the British government by Sarkozy and the European commission ; as promised by all the main parties , a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty should have been held .
The British Labour Party is justly paying the high price as traitors to the British People , for refusing to honour their promise and to represent the wishes of British voters .
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@ 10 and 12 - greetings from the Czech Republic. I moved too, for much the same reasons. Although the silly winds of shallow political correctness and government by opinion poll reflex blow here, too, they do so as a mild, intermittent breeze, rather than the UK's permanent gale. Czechs have too much plain common sense to take them seriously.
When I was a kid, we used to ask our parents: 'Why didn't anyone do anything about Hitler'. If the thought police allow them, our kids are going to ask the same about Murdoch, and perhaps worse. I've lived out from under the Murdoch umbrella for 18 years now and am simply struck dumb with horror at the tone, quality, and subject matter of the political debate in the UK whenever I come 'home'. And, with all due respect, the BBC is not helping, reacting predictably to every wee shift in perceived opinion rather than doing its objective job and letting folks make up their minds.
One can only hope that UKIP grows into the job - they're just sound and fury at the moment, to put it politely.
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UKIP has had a very good EP Election no matter how the 'pro-EU' lobby tries to deny it.
Apparently, UKIP only getting 1 in 5 of votes cast in the South east (greypolyglot #11) is seen as evidence of a "..lie to the claim.." that UK/England Citizens may want out of the EU, but remarkably, the less than 1 in 6 votes cast for New Lab, a Party that promotes EU membership is seen as only a response to the Expenses scandal!?
Thus, the 'pro-EU lobbyist' turns their own argument on its head again!
A 1 in 5 vote for UKIP is about the EP and EU Membership whereas a 1 in 6 vote for New Lab is about another matter entirely even though the votes were all cast in the same region in the same Ballot boxes on the same day for the same European Parliament!
It is exactly like the EIRE Referendum result: According to the 'pro-EU' lobby the Majority 'No' votes on Lisbon were all cast for the wrong reasons and for the wrong treaty, whereas, all the Minority 'Yes' votes were all cast by people who understood the Lisbon treaty!
Of course, we should not be surprised by the 'pro-EU' duplicity in twisting the election results to suit whichever positive slant they need according to a particular EU situation. Afterall, they are led by Commission President Barroso who even before all the EU results were in last night was proclaiming on the strength of a 43.5% Citizen Voter Turnout that, ".. this is a clear success for those who support the European Union project..".
I mean, if 64% in the UK and 56% of the mainland European Electorate NOT voting at all is counted as evidence of success then of course, it must "..give the lie to the claim.." about any sort of DEMOCRACY still existing within the EU! Well, that is probably correct, but then, as on these Blog Articles and in Polls/Surveys "..most.." UK/England Citizens have asked for a REFERENDUM on Membership, or even on the Constitution or the Lisbon Treaty, and not simply to "..leave.." the 'pro-EU' lobby is hoist by its own weak logic and statistics yet again!
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22. ikamaskeip:
You don't seem to be very good at maths. A UKIP vote of one in five is not "all" or "most" or even "many". One in five is, I'll agree, a bit more than "a few" but it's hardly a resounding call for the UK to get out of the EU. That would have been the remaining four out of five that they didn't get.
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greypolyglot and #23.
If my Maths is poor then the fact you believe the European Union Members of Parliament have a Mandate to pass legislation with less than a 1 in 7 Vote makes your ability an extraordinary Malthusian calculation!
You know the one: The World was going to be over-populated by 19th Century!
Yes, that sort of statistic is very fitting for the 'pro-EU'.
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The Elector and #19.
Hear, Hear!
Well written.
Remarkable the number of Comments on this Article and the others around the EU Elections from disgruntled UK/England voices complaining that the BBC has, deliberately or not, avoided/ducked the clear collapse of the EU support in the British Isles.
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I'd like to broaden out this discussion a bit. I guess people vote UKIP as a protest, because I can't think why else anyone would vote for a single-issue Eurosceptic party in the European elections. Surely their aim is simply to be disruptive, to make the European Parliament even more shambolic, in order to improve their case for leaving the EU?
Maybe I'm being simple, but I don't understand why UKIP is a good option for a protest vote. Why do so many British people want out of Europe? We have seen in the past few months just how incompetent (as well as corrupt) many UK politicians are at governing their country. One solution to this is to give the European politicians and bureaucrats a chance to do better, by becoming more involved with European politics. Isn't this better than pulling out of the EU and giving discredited British MPs more power than they have already?
Instead, perhaps we should be constructive, and try to solve the constitutional problems in the Eurozone system and the European Parliament rather than favouring the fundamentally negative politics of UKIP. UKIP claim they would not undermine decades of international collaboration, but why take the risk?
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It would be interesting to discuss (without the gory maths
details) the effect of the "d'Hondt system of apportionment" on this
year's Euro elections, that is, the mechanism for deciding whether a
"fractional" seat (as determined by the ideal vote share of a party)
translates into an actual seat or not.
D'Hondt has long been known to systematically disadvantage small
parties, and this was particularly apparent for the Green party who
got as many seats as the SNP for over four times the number of votes
nationally. This is because the Greens are small in each region, and
thus lost out everywhere from the bias of d'Hondt against small
parties, while the SNP was very strong in just one region and absent
elsewhere, but thereby escaped the problem.
A rough recalculation suggests that the Greens might have received 7
seats instead of 2 under the apportionment method of Sainte-Lague, or
6 with Hare-Niemeyer.
The constitution of electoral regions (their number and size) in the
UK is so that the problems of d'Hondt are maximised. With typically
fewer seats than competing parties in each region, most of the seats
are not directly allocated to parties (as the integral part of the
quota) but are assigned by the d'Hondt apportionment, and because
there are many regions, the disadvantage against a small party may be
multiplied. This is how a 4:1 ratio of votes still results in an equal
number of seats.
The methods of apportionment broadly fall into two categories: Quota
methods (like Hare-Niemeyer) and divisor methods (of which d'Hondt and
also Sainte-Lague are examples). The former satisfy the "quota
criterion" (each party must get the integral number of seats just
below or just above its ideal fractional share), while most divisor
methods are "consistent" (i.e., increasing the number of seats
available does not lead to any party losing a seat, plus some similar
properties). It can be proven mathematically that no system can
satisfy both of these (evidently reasonable) requirements, so every
proportional system has to live with some systemic weakness, but
d'Hondt, arguably, is the system whose failings are the most severe in
the given context.
For example, Hare-Niemeyer (allocation by biggest remainders) would be
"inconsistent" in that an increase in the number of seats (with no
change in the numbers of votes cast) could cause a party to lose a
seat, but this is a rather abstract failure since the number of seats
in EU elections is fixed. Hence inconsistency does not really matter
as long as the number of seats cannot change as a result of the
election. Sainte-Lague violates the quota requirement in that it may
give a party more than one extra seat for its "fractional" quota, but
it does so to a much lesser degree than d'Hondt, and without bias
against small parties. Both of these methods are almost
"scientifically provably" better than d'Hondt in the UK Euro setting.
Since the PM has inititiated a debate on electoral reform, Europe may
be a much less controversial, but arguably more needy place to start.
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