No One Happy About the European Elections

I sat up to watch the European Election results last night, which thanks to Tower Hamlets, took far longer than they should have done.  It strikes me that none of the parties should feel happy about them.

UKIP
That may seem a strange thing to say about UKIP, which has just sprung from minor party to winning an England & Wales poll (as I write the Scottish results have yet to be declared).  Although that is a triumph today, I can't help thinking that UKIP are just a vehicle to express unhappiness for many of their voters.  I suspect that if there were a "none of the above" category in our elections, a lot of UKIP supporters would tick that instead.  I can't really believe that Nigel Farage's Thatcherism Ultra philosophy really appeals to many of his supporters.  If I am right then he is riding a tiger, and his support could collapse just as fast as it has arrived.

Labour
Labour can point to various reasons not to be too unhappy.  It is the best Labour performance in a European election since 1999.  Labour now has MEPs in every region.  The vote is concentrated in areas that are disproportionately important to winning a General Election.  The party has increased vote share by 10%, and has many more MEPs (including the excellent Lucy Anderson in London).  The London result was very strong, and the rise of four party politics makes historical comparisons very difficult.

Nonetheless, Labour were only slightly ahead of the Tories with a year to go before the General Election.  Whereas Labour Londoners can feel cheerful, the party is not getting across to a lot of our potential supporters around England.  That needs to be addressed if Labour are to win in 2015.

Tories
One other consolation that Labour can take is that the Tories have had a historic disaster.  I thought the BBC coverage underplayed this, but last night was the first time the Conservative Party has ever come third in a nation wide poll.It got less than a quarter of the vote, and there are polling indications that a larger number of those voters will stick with UKIP than in previous general elections, which is likely to damage the Tories.

Greens
The Greens will be happy that they are now in fourth place ahead of the Liberal Democrats, but that is in spite of their vote falling.  Their relative position went up because the Liberal Democrats collapsed.  Nathalie Bennet came across well in her interview (By the way, why did the BBC devote so much air time to Tories and so little to Labour candidates?), but there is no sign that she is making headway with the voters.  That is a shame as what she says tends to be very sensible.

Liberal Democrats
This election makes me wonder whether the Liberal Democrats will still exist in a few years.  As I argued before, their awful results stem from the decision to jump into bed with the Tories after spending many years attacking Labour from the Left.  The loss of all their MEPs bar one will reduce their campaign resources (I suspect that some of the Liberal Democrat literature through the door is funded through the European Parliament's notoriously lax expenses regime).  Their local government wipeouts last Thursday leave them even shorter of footsoldiers. 

Whereas Labour and the Tories have survived such periods, the Liberal Democrats are a party overwhelmingly dependent on momentum.  Repeated defeats demoralise them more than Labour or the Tories, and I don't think simply ditching Nick Clegg will substantially change their predicament.