These are the results from the UK of the elections to the European Parliament: European Election 2019: UK results in maps and charts. This was a bit of a weird election because it wasn’t supposed to have taken place as the UK should have departed from the EU by now.

We haven’t departed and that pretty much informed how people voted, with many seeing it as the chance to send out a clear signal that they do not trust a hopelessly divided, minority Tory government to deliver Brexit. Which is why the Tories suffered one of the worst ever defeats in their history. Also, a fence sitting Labour Party didn’t fare well at the hands of the proportion of the electorate who want a clear indication of how the UK will exit the EU.

Which is why the Brexit ‘Party’ was set up in order to capitalise on the sense of frustration felt by many Leavers and to disrupt the political status quo in such a way it will never recover. Farage has stated that if Brexit is not delivered by October 31st, the Brexit ‘Party’ will stand in any subsequent general election. It’s a reasonable observation to make that the Brexit ‘Party’ is a work in progress that will need a membership base and some coherent policies to put in front of the voters.

Given the likes of James Heartfield and Claire Fox stood as candidates in the EU Parliament elections, it’s not entirely inconceivable that would stay on board to offer some ‘direction’ on policy development. This would offer the Spiked / Institute of Ideas nexus that arose from the ashes of the Revolutionary Communist Party / Living Marxism (shortened to LM in the mid 90’s) project the kind of influence they’ve been having wet dreams about since the early 1980s. As we’ve written before, things are so fluid at the moment, nothing would really surprise us!

Both Remain and Leave are trying to claim victory from the election results. Given that the Brexit ‘Party’ has emerged as a new force and is totally upfront with its demands, it could be argued that they have more reason than anyone else to be optimistic. For some reason, the Lib Dems had a bit of a boost, obviously fuelled by those voters with short enough memories to discard the horrendous damage they did when they were in coalition with the Tories and totally complicit in a brutal austerity drive. It’s safe to assume the the Lib Dems weren’t winning votes from working class areas devastated by austerity. We’d like to suggest that the middle class Lib Dem voters take a long, hard look at themselves.

Then there’s Change UK, supposedly the shining white light of centrist, pro-Remain politics who would re-draw the political map. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…pauses for breath…, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…collapses in an exhausted heap… Well that really worked out well…NOT! They’ll go down in the record books as the shortest political flash in the pan.

Right, let’s get onto the real story…the turnout averaged 36.7%. It was up a bit and a fair chunk of that was most likely down to Leavers wanting to make a point about the failure to deliver Brexit. Some of the increase may possibly be down to the Green Party picking up supporters on the back of people wanting to make a statement about remaining in the EU while reflecting wider concerns raised by the Extinction Rebellion actions and the school climate strikes.

We’re well aware of the large number of EU citizens living in the UK whose applications to cast a vote somehow weren’t processed in time and when they got to the polling stations, they found their names crossed off the electoral rolls. That is pretty bloody alarming, and we’ll be following this one with interest. If anyone across the south of Essex had any experience of this and wants to share it (anonymously if needed) with the world at large.

The important stand out fact is that well over half the electorate chose not to participate in the vote. Whether that’s because they’re really pissed off Leavers who wanted to register their disgust with the Brexit impasse by refusing to participate or they’re people who’ve utterly lost faith in the political process as it stands, even though it’s in a state of total flux, we’ll never know.

For a political establishment that’s in the process of meltdown, not knowing what over 60% of the electorate thinks because they refused to vote must be a pretty scary prospect. A fair few people have predicted that the Brexit ‘Party’ would disrupt politics as we’ve known it. What’s also disruptive is over 60% of the electorate not voting. Neither Labour or the Tories are going to recover from this. Politics will never be the same again. We are entering very interesting and challenging times…buckle up for the ride…