Alternative takeaways from the European Election results

The headlines from last night’s results are clear - big win for the Brexit Party, big surges for the Libdems and Greens, disaster for both the Tories and Labour. The fallout will rumble on next week with much discussion of the implications; but here are three reflections that perhaps won’t be top of the news agenda.

Change UK jumped the gun

Things are easy in hindsight, but these results could not be clearer on the failure of Change UK to make an impact with only 3% of the vote. It seems clear now that Independent Group MPs should not have rushed to form a new party ahead these elections. They would have been much better off calling for the formation of a ‘Remain Party’ with a chance to outperform the Brexit Party and deny Farage the headlines today. If they had chosen to bide their time there may have been a better moment later on for them to enter the fray. The 11 now have some major thinking to do - should they join or collaborate with the Libdems as Heidi Allen has suggested. Or can they articulate why voters should listen to them now the anti-Brexit mantra is so firmly owned else where.

Brexit moderates are a homeless minority

As expected votes in this election have polarised between no-deal and remain positions. Around 35% opted for the two no-deal parties, around 40% for those calling for a second referendum. Labour and the Tories, who have hardly been strong advocates of a compromise, now look highly likely to pull towards the extremes - Tories for no-deal Labour for a People's Vote. As at @beardysocialist wrote for us last week, that leaves those who want compromise with nowhere to go, and as I wrote a while back there remains absolutely no centre of gravity on Brexit.

A second referendum is still a coin toss

They’ll be a lot of talk this week about who is backing a Peoples Vote, but less about who would win one. When I ran into a prominent pollster some months ago I asked him what his prediction was for a second referendum, his response was “toss a coin”. There was no evidence last night that anything has changed. If you tally up the votes based on leave vs remain stances you end up at pretty much 50/50, depending on how you allocate the Labour vote. A People’s Vote may well be the only way to resolve this mess, but Remainers should not pretend there’s only one way that contest could go.