EU referendum are you in or out

[Absolute_Zero]

Labour being hit so hard they'll probably get knocked off the fence.

[zip accident]

Labour being hit so hard they'll probably get knocked off the fence.

So long as the Tories are being hit harder, which they are I can live with that.

I have to say that the Brexit party totally eliminating UKIP is not so bad either, I'd rather they both faded away, but the implication that there's only room for one, and even then they can't get 50% is good..

[PFVA]

Well, here the conservatives didn't do well with the Popular Party falling to 4th after the Left Block and the Communists. Actually the communist lost 1 or 2 reps too. The other conservative party took 2nd 10 ponts behind the Socialist who the government right now. The Left Block is up and in 3rd place.

Abstention was a all time high with around 70% not voting.

Salvino's ally here didn't get elected the nationalists getting less than 2% of the votes.

And the Animals, People, and Nature associated to the European Greens got its first rep elected for the European Parliament. They had just gotten their first rep for the National Assembly in the last election 4 years ago.

[zip accident]

Still some counts to come, but:

Brexit party 5,244,893

Lib Dems 3,366,673

Green 2,010,328

I'm very tempted to call that a Remain win. Of course, the Tories and Labour got some votes, but I don't really see them as Brexit parties, or am I mistaken?

[Baggypants]

I'm going to tentatively suggest there wont be a general election after the result of the European election voting.

I'd like to thank all these people



For not giving a toss.

[KlaxonCow]

Indeed, all the more for the fact that, in aggregate, Remain parties won the majority.

Just that it was a split vote across the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru. While, on the Brexit side, all votes went into the Brexit party, wiping out UKIP - the Brexit vote didn't split.

And, as these were European elections that wouldn't even have happened if Brexit had occurred at the scheduled date, then the Brexit protest party was bound to get all its voters out in numbers.

Whereas, as I mentioned a few days ago, I asked around those who're Remainers that I know and it was just waves of "it's pointless" / "can't be bothered". Which you know wasn't how the Leavers felt, rushing out to vote for the Brexit party to make their message loud and clear.

Yet, in aggregate, Remain still had the majority anyway.

This backs up the recent local English and Northern Irish elections, where the pro-Brexit parties lost seats and the pro-Remain parties surged (particularly significant when the biggest surge winner in both of these polls - the Lib Dems - were previously electorally non-existent).

Basically, we've become trapped by a fleeting anomaly.

The polling before the referendum showed Remain ought to have won - and that's what everyone, including Farage, was actually expecting. But then it hit just as the EU immigration crisis was at its height, so Leave got a last minute surge that, even then, only just barely took it over 50% to win. And, afterwards, the polling still has Remain holding the majority position.

But all because, on that one day, it didn't, we're now become stuck in a moment and we can't get out of it.



A Parliament compelled to implement a Brexit that it doesn't believe in, for an electorate that, in majority, doesn't really want it but has become resigned to a "fuck it, just rip off the plaster quickly" attitude that, even then, it's perfectly ambivalent about voting for. While racism runs riot in the streets, and we'll very possibly leave with a catastrophically hard Brexit, that pretty much no-one but Jacob Rees-Mogg wants, at Halloween - and even the folks what ask for that will certainly change their minds rapidly when they see what it actually entails, as it was never actually in their interests, even if Farage wearing a "Del boy" coat and holding a pint deluded them into thinking that this rich ex-banker ever gave a flying fuck about them or any interests but turning the UK into a "tax haven" for his rich friends - oh, and his own out-of-control ego at being the centre of all attention, of course.

What a fucking mess.

[gilesgoat]

So .. help to me understand .. what's going to happen now ?

"Collectively" if we sum al the non-brexiteers votes that should go quite well beyond the brexiteers vote by about 40 something % vs 35% something.

However 'the mostly voted party' seems to be the one of Farage.

Tories anyway seem got 'a severe kick in the nuts'

Sadly even in Italy we saw somethinig similar, Lega is still pretty strong/mayority but basically M5S got 'the kick in the nuts' and all people that voted non-Lega "reverted" to PD however Lega is still the mayority party.

So it's really like "right wings parties are winning all over"

What's going to be of this "New Europe"

[KlaxonCow]

So .. help to me understand .. what's going to happen now ?

The UK is a "first past the post" system - even on the European elections, where other countries use PR instead - so the most votes wins. As simple as that.

This means that the UK will be sending a lot of Brexit Party "rabble rousers" to be MEPs, doing what Nigel Farage has been doing for a long time - collecting a handsome paycheque from the taxpayer to stand up in the European Parliament and repeatedly call them cunts. Without really doing anything else at all useful, on the excuse that they don't believe in the institution that they're part of, so actually refuse to do their jobs and represent the people who voted for them. But they still expect to get paid, of course.

Otherwise, at Westminster, the stalemate continues.

[zip accident]

The problem for the government is that if they go for Brexit and it's shit they get the blame, and if it's not (fat chance, but in theory) Farage gets the credit.

[Mayhem]

Brexit Party, single issue, voting for them overall was less than the total drops that UKIP and the Tories suffered, so evidently everyone not voting for those two this time didn’t transfer to Brexit.

The UK is a "first past the post" system - even on the European elections, where other countries use PR instead - so the most votes wins. As simple as that.

Not here, same system as the rest of Europe for the distribution of MEPs.

[Orava]

Yes the EU elections even in the UK use the proportional system.

Too bad I was not allowed to vote, name was crossed off the list as apparently they did not bother to send the UC1 form to me (on which you declare that you vote in your country of residency, not in your country of birth). I did vote in the last EU election and don't remember that filling up that form and returning it was a requirement, no-one told about it.

[Harlequin]

Yep. All countries must use some form of PR for EU parliamentary elections. I think we use a D'Hondt method in Wales, Scotland and England while Northern Ireland uses Single Transferable Vote. Some countries use other party list systems.

[gilesgoat]

Erm ... I still don't understand a shit ..

.. so ... what's going to happen next ?

Farage goes to EU blabbling how much he dislikes EU and he gets paid for doing so with taxpayer money ?

Meanwhile the Brexit-NON Brexit is still "totally undefined" despite now as a global sum there are more people that did vote for no Brexit than a Brexit ?

Or that does not count for anything.

So it's still "total destruction" at 31th October or you think they'll get "another extension" into 2020 and so on ?

[gilesgoat]

Yes the EU elections even in the UK use the proportional system.

Too bad I was not allowed to vote, name was crossed off the list as apparently they did not bother to send the UC1 form to me (on which you declare that you vote in your country of residency, not in your country of birth). I did vote in the last EU election and don't remember that filling up that form and returning it was a requirement, no-one told about it.

Got the same problem and I'd swear I have NOT SEEN ANYWHERE mention of such UC1 form.

But they did sort it out with a phone call and let me vote.

If I'd be even more "conspiracy theorist" I'd say they done all this on purpose !

[tufty]

Farage goes to EU blabbling how much he dislikes EU and he gets paid for doing so with taxpayer money ?

Plus ça change…

as a global sum there are more people that did vote for no Brexit than a Brexit ? Or that does not count for anything.

That counts for nothing. For starters, it's an EU election, which the UK shouldn't have been having anyway, anyone can twist the result any way that they are able. The only thing that could possibly be taken as a non-ambiguous statement by the voting public on Brexit would be a second referendum, enumerating specific, concrete, options, and with all the unicorns removed. But a second vote would be undemocratic.

So it's still "total destruction" at 31th October or you think they'll get "another extension" into 2020 and so on ?

Depends on which way the Tories swing, I'd say. Lurching further to the right and aiming squarely at a no deal exit on 31 October in a vain attempt to pull back some of Farage's vote seems likely, and ultimately a bad thing for everyone.