Tories totally wiped out in London. Liberal Democrats win London. Islington also voted Lib Dem... which is a bit embarrassing.
The big winners: being either very much for or very much against Brexit. The big losers: being wishy-washy on Brexit.
I mean... this should have been fairly obvious much sooner than now. The problem they'll have now is that when they declare a stance (if they ever do) all of their opposition will pillory them for playing politics and waiting to see which horse to back.
There's one way they can pivot without it looking too bad: if they dump Corbyn, and he's replaced by someone who has some anti-Brexit cred.
Yep, yep, yep. This. They'd probably also win a GE (or have an improved chance) if they did this too, should one emerge on us.
Likely. An election would be an utter clusterfuck at the moment; polling has Labour receiving the largest share, but it's all but assured to end in a hung Parliament. Either the Conservatives or Labour having to rely on the Lib Dems for votes while pushing through Brexit would be messy, to say the least.
Also, the irony of the surge of nationalists is that it could push EUP governance further left. Current projections suggest that a left/centrist coalition (S&D, ALDE, Greens and Nordic Left, plus assorted others on the left) is awfully close to a majority.
Not long finished counting votes today. Some jerk posted broken glass in one of the ballot boxes. Scary that people like this have a vote.
Depressing that Brexit got 4 Mep's to Lib Dems 2 there given the share of the vote in the south west. I have no idea how the seats are assigned but it could have only been a 0.2% swing from Brexit to lib Dems for both to have 3 seats ( for Lib Dems to be closer to 30% than Brexit was to 40%)
So story of the night, Brexit supporters claim victory as they have the largest party, Remainers claim victory because their parties have the highest vote share. Ruling parties crying in a corner. Right, I'm off to bed.
Yep, that's about it. And turnout was, expectedly, down on the GE anyway. So there's even additional people unaccounted for.
A 1/3 of a 1/3 (6m of 18m who voted) went for Brexit. Turnout is of course low(despite 20 year high for eu elections). I don’t think it’s too much of a leap to suggest that the 6m want a no deal Brexit. There remains(pardon the pun) a hardcore support for Brexit, despite the carry on from the last 2 1/2 years and many forecasts of economic hardship to come. The remain argument needs to be refined if it’s to breakthrough and gain enough support for a change in course.
If Labour would only stop trying to please both sides and firmly state they are a Remain party, as Emily Thornberry was saying last night, they might just get back to a winning position whenever the General Election happens. Brexit might have a hardcore support, but these elections show the majority who voted don’t want it, which Labour have to take as a signal to fully support a second referendum.
