The results of the UK’s European elections (for European Parliament MEPs) are announced.
The UK Independence Party made significant gains in the European elections last night and achieved the biggest breakthrough by a minor party for 25 years. After 10 of the 12 regions had declared early today, the party had more than doubled its share of the vote and increased its number of Euro-MPs from three to 12, establishing itself as a force in British political life for the first time. Although it fell short of the spectacular advances predicted in some opinion polls, UKIP candidates - who fought on a platform of withdrawal from the European Union - took large numbers of votes away from the Conservatives also Labour and the Lib Dems.
In the East Midlands, Robert Kilroy-Silk, the former television presenter who has become the figurehead of UKIP, helped the party run the Conservatives a close second. Mr Kilroy-Silk will take one of his party’s two seats in the European Parliament for the region. The Tories won another two, while Labour and the Liberal Democrats won one each. After being elected, Mr Kilroy-Silk said: "As poll after poll has demonstrated, voters want our country back from Brussels. They want it back from a corrupt, dictatorial regime and we are going to get it back for them. "The British people have sent a very clear message to the Prime Minister: you have not been listening, you have not been taking our views into account." In the South-West and South-East regions, UKIP also came second behind the Tories. Its new Euro-MPs include the party’s leader, Roger Knapman. Labour was pushed into fourth place in both regions behind the Lib Dems. Last night’s results showed UKIP recording about 17 per cent of the vote, two points ahead of the Liberal Democrats, and more than double the 6.9 per cent share they achieved the last time the European elections were fought in 1999.
Turnout was about 39 per cent, a record, with postal voting in four regions.
Interestingly, turnout across the rest of Europe was a record low.
Liam Fox, the Conservative Party co-chairman, said Labour had polled the lowest share of the vote for any governing party in history. He said the clear message was that the public did not want further integration in Europe. Together, the Conservatives and Labour were scoring well under half the total vote - an unprecedented situation for the two main parties.
The Conservative leadership has summoned all the party’s MPs to a "council of war" at Westminster tonight in an attempt to head off an outbreak of damaging in-fighting over Europe. During the campaign, Mr Howard sought to present the Conservatives as representing the moderate mainstream of Europe - between UKIP on one extreme who wanted to quit the EU and Labour and the Liberal Democrats who wanted to cede further powers to Brussels. The Tory leader is under pressure from Eurosceptics in his party to promise a fundamental review of Britain’s relationship with the EU to prevent a further haemorrhaging of support to UKIP, which is threatening to put up candidates against pro-European candidates at the next election. Lord Tebbit, the strongly Eurosceptic former Tory party chairman, said voting UKIP for a lot of Tory voters was "a way of firing a shot across the bows" of the Conservative Party. "The trouble is that if they are not careful they could fire it a bit close to the waterline," he told Breakfast with Frost.
Kenneth Clarke, the pro-European former Conservative Chancellor, cautioned Mr Howard against taking a more Eurosceptic line in response to the UKIP vote. "The great thing I would say is for heaven’s sake don’t panic in the face of a protest vote in the European elections at a time when a lot of the population are in a mood to protest against the state of politics anyway," he told Sky News.
After a weekend of recriminations over Labour’s dismal performance in the local elections - coming third behind the Liberal Democrats - the prospect of Tory in-fighting over Europe provided some relief for Mr Blair. The strength of the UKIP vote creates a longer-term headache for Mr Blair and his referendum plans. Although Mr Blair has promised to defend Britain’s control over defence, foreign policy, tax and social security, he is under pressure to make concessions. But a strong showing by UKIP may well strengthen Mr Blair’s hand in the negotiations, because he will be able to argue that giving ground would make it even more difficult to win a referendum. |