2019 European Parliament Elections in the United Kingdom

Overview

The 2019 European Parliament Elections in the United Kingdom refers to an election held on May 23rd, 2019 which saw the public of the United Kingdom vote for candidates to be elected to the European Parliament. The election was branded as a "second referendum" on Brexit – a proxy vote, some parties have claimed.

Background

On June 23rd, 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. On March 29th, 2017, the UK Government triggered Article 50 which began a two year negotiation period between the United Kingdom and the European Union to reach a withdrawal agreement. With the United Kingdom due to leave the European Union originally on March 29th, 2019, two years later, it was implied that the United Kingdom would not take part in the European Parliament elections in May 2019. The withdrawal agreement that Prime Minister Theresa May came back with was voted down on three occasions and due to this, Brexit was delayed to April 12th, 2019 and it was delayed again to October 31st, 2019, which triggered the United Kingdom having to take part in the elections.^[1]

Developments

Launch of Change UK and the Brexit Party

On February 18th, 2019, Chuka Umunna, Luciana Berger, Chris Leslie, Angela Smith, Mike Gapes, Gavin Shuker and Ann Coffey resigned from the Labour Party during a press conference held in Westminster. There, they announced that they would all be sitting as independent MPs under a group name entitled: "The Independent Group." This was known as the 2019 British Party Splits.

The Independent Group applied to be a political party in April 2019 and was officially accepted only a few weeks afterwards.

Nigel Farage, a UKIP MEP sitting in the European Parliament resigned from his party due to the direction it was heading in under the leadership of Gerrard Batton. Nigel Farage launched his own party called "The Brexit Party" which aims to campaign to get Brexit implemented as the government continues to delay Brexit.

Labour NEC Meeting

On April 30th, 2019, the Labour Party held an NEC meeting with the aim to change policy on the party's stance on Brexit and a second referendum on EU membership. After the meeting, it was confirmed that Labour would only back a public vote on the final Brexit in a last resort attempt if the government co-operated deal failed to get through the House of Commons and/if a general election was triggered.

Milkshake Brawls

During the election campaign in the United Kingdom, several notable right to far-right politicians were targeted at by members of the public where milkshakes were thrown on them. The act came to be known as Milkshaking.

Parties Contesting

The Conservative Party, the Labour Party, the Scottish National Party (SNP), the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party, Plaid Cymru and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) are just some of the main parties that are contesting in the election. The Brexit Party and Change UK are two new parties which will be contesting candidates in the election for the first time.

Polling

As of May 23rd, 2019, The Brexit Party is leading in polls with the Labour Party at second. After the establishment of the Brexit Party, they along with Labour have been neck and neck in polls with the Conservative Party being being pushed down to fourth behind them. Due to Labour and Conservative's positions on Brexit, the Liberal Democrats saw an increase in support, something that was foreshadowed at the 2019 England and Wales local council elections earlier at the beginning of May.

Results

The Brexit Party won the most votes and the most seats – winning 29, the Liberal Democrats increased their votes and seats – winning 16 – overall resulting in their best ever European election.

Labour lost votes due to their ambiguous stance on Brexit, resulting in the party winning only 10 seats. The Conservatives lost 15 seats from the last election, winning only 4, mainly due to the party's failure on delivering Brexit.

In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won the majority of votes and seats – winning 3, gaining one from the last election and won 29 out of the 31 Scottish council areas so far with all areas across the Scottish mainland voting SNP – this overall resulted in the SNP's best ever European election.

The Green Party gained 4 seats at the election, winning 7 overall and UKIP lost all of their MEPs at the election. Tommy Robinson, who stood as an Independent candidate failed to gain a seat as well. Change UK also failed to win any seats

Reaction

England and Wales

Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party said that it was very clear that they had won the election. He said that due to this, he wanted to see the Brexit Party take part in the Brexit negotiations in the aftermath of the election result.

New MEPs for the Brexit Party such as Ann Widecome said that their vote was a vote for Brexit and that is must be respected and delivered.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party called for a "people's vote" to be heard on either a general election or a second referendum, continuing the party's ambiguous stance on Brexit.

Liberal Democrat MEPs celebrated gains with one new MEP calling the party, 'the comeback kids'.

Scotland

The SNP won the election in Scotland with the party winning their best ever result in a European election and becoming the first party in Scotland to win in all local authorities in mainland Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland and SNP leader stated that she was very pleased with the results.

John Curtice, a polling expert from the United Kingdom stated that the Scottish Conservatives case against another independence referendum 'was dead'.

Tommy Robinson's Reaction

Tommy Robinson failed to win a seat he was contesting for. He later blamed his banning on social media for the failure when he stated that social media was the reason Donald Trump was elected as president of the United States and Leave winning the EU referendum in 2016.

People's Vote

The People's Vote campaign strengthened their argument on holding a second referendum on Brexit due to pro-Remain parties such as the Liberal Democrats and the SNP winning the majority of votes in the election.

Related Memes

Alexandria Phillips

Alexandria Phillips were the names of two candidates who contested seats in the South East England Region, one for the Brexit Party and one for the Green Party. Due to the pair of them having the same name, it led to people making and sharing memes, mainly on Twitter as well as Facebook.

Remainer Maths

Remainer Maths refers to posts that were made on Facebook and Twitter by Leave supporting party voters who criticised People's Vote and their supporters for using the combined election results from all Remain parties to show support for a second referendum on Brexit.

Various examples included Tony Blair's 1997 election victory and stated that he did not win the election as more parties got more votes, ABBA's victory at the Eurovision Song Contest where they got the majority of the percentage vote and Andy Murray not winning Wimbledon in 2016 as Federer got more points and Nadal and Djokovic won more games.

#RemainerMaths was also trending on Twitter for a short period of time.

Ruth's Clear Message

Ruth's Clear Message is a nickname referring to the Scottish Conservative's European Parliament election campaign where the Scottish Conservative Party centered it around Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish National Party.

Search Interest

External References