Well, you can read the news as well as I can. Just 3 MEPs for the Conservatives, but including Dan Hannan. I must say 9% of the vote was better than I was expecting - if May hadn't announced her resignation, I'm convinced we would have got no more than 6% and no seats. More good news in PTSD Adonis having been disappointed, but that's thin cheer.
For most people of course TBP's success is the single story. Nothing can detract from 28 seats - possibly 29 when the last two areas declare. If the party had been around a month or two longer I suspect they would have taken even more votes from both Labour and the Conservatives.
And of course the LibDems, the Remain party, with some 2/3rds of the Brexit Party votes, will also now move to consolidate their status as the Brexit opposition party with an eye to the next GE, with the advantage of an established party structure and existing parliamentary incumbency. They can sell themselves as "We're not Corbyn" and also take more voters from Labour and Conservative parties. The CUKs are nothing - forget their grandiose delusions of a 'pact' with the LibDems. Cable can tell them to join-up or FO.
All over Europe the victor has been .... democracy. Turnout up, apple carts overturned, politicians in tears, some dreams shattered, others come to fruition. Nothing earth shattering, but a clear message. The Conservative Party, like Labour, may have no future, the corpses of both parties picked over by the Teal and Orange insurgents, but for now will remain in government . Our MPs will be shitting themselves and will avoid a GE like a vampire eschews garlic.
Have a good day all - Today is a good day.
Predicted % Actual %
Brexit 34 32
LibDem 17 20
Lab 15 14
Green 11 12
Con 9 9
CUK 4 3
UKIP 3 3
17 comments:
The pollsters again called it fairly well.
It's much the same as in 2014, with a very disappointing turnout except maybe for the TBP, who probably got their last frother out. At a GE with double the vote, that fact alone would halve them.
Utter rubbish.
Turnout was actually higher in Remain areas. Exactly the opposite of your spurious distortion.
And still Verhofstadt is in denial - "great news for the LibDems and I look forward to working with them and other pro-EU parties".
So no, they still haven't got it.
The only froth that I can see is flecking cameras nationwide as we speak as remainers moan on about populism and why doesn't anyone accept that remain is the grown-up position to take.
This is the difference betwen a "million person march" and a well organised and concentrated campaign for VOTES.
Politicians find that their spin/deflect/smear skills are not up to the task of affecting reality. Shock horror!
But how will that play out among current Conservative MPs? Despite many wanting any soft Brexit, they have no champion with May gone, and her WA is tainted with failure. Even those wanting a softer Brexit may be persuaded or compelled to exit first (almost certainly no deal) and then negotiate trade and other deals afterwards.
I await the excuses with genuine interest.
A lot of Remainer MPs in leave-voting seats are going to be looking at their majorities and gulping - with their partners giving them an uncomfortable lecture about the mortgage and the kids school fees. Either they deliver a real Brexit, or their political careers will be curtailed at the first opportunity we get.
Nigel Farage has a message for them, borrowed from Clint Eastwood:
"Do ya feel lucky, punks? Well do ya?"
You might perhaps get your "no deal" EU exit.
But make no mistake. There is no more such a thing as a "clean" Brexit than there is a "clean" disembowelment.
Patrick Minford, the ERG's favourite, nay, only, economist, says so too.
Like him, I'll be all right whatever, Jack, however.
My suspicious nature leads me to look at the predicted-results versus the actual-results in much the same way as I look upon global temperature measurements.
Where it is advantageous to 'adjust' the numbers to support a cause, said adjustments are made to amplify/attenuate accordingly and the Brexit versus Remain (in terms of TBP and LibDem results) show EXACTLY the same sort of 'adjustment' used to fiddle the global warming trend.
TBP predicted higher - but ends up lower, LibDem predicted lower but ends up higher. Everyone else seems to be 'more or less accurate'.
There was ADJUSTMENT in these results - even though the result was such that adjustment to make TBP 'lose' outright was not a viable option.
Still, the net result, even though bad for the EU, is enough to give the Lib Dems the moral high ground to claim support for "Remain is valid and a second referendum is therefore warranted". You just wait and see....
Bollox Cheerful. A 'No Deal' Brexit is, as you know (or should) is only a bargaining position to agree terms of Brexit that are better than what May could do - and, let's be honest, you couldn't do any worse.
There will be no 'No Deal' - ultimately. We might leave (fingers crossed) on WTO and go our own way but the EU would be absolute fucking morons to allow this to happen and NOT negotiate a deal, even if it is biased towards the UK's benefit than theirs.
There is hubris and there is arrogance but the weight of BUSINESS is bigger than the EU and a DEAL of some sort is a guarantee regardless of the EU's intransigence and/or dictatorship intentions.
It's only the fact that 'No Deal' was removed as a negotiating lever that has brought about this debacle in the first place.
The UK has just confirmed its position as international laughing-stock, and no longer a serious player on the international stage.
The bigger story is what is happening on the Mainland, where the dominant coalition will now need to include parties further to the left.
The populists made few gains, and will be hit very hard, when Farage's thirty wastes-of-space get their helpful boots up the rear.
In France, pro-EU MEPs outnumber Le Pen about three-to-one. In Germany AfD failed to make progress. In Italy, the Lega-Cinque Stelle coalition did well, but that is not for leaving the EU, or even anti-euro now.
In Austria, the reactionaries got three of the eighteen seats.
The new Parliament will be no easier on this offshore eccentricity.
You don't seem so cheerful, Edward
Shame the EP doesn't have any, erm, actual power, then
With everything being stitched up in advance by the unelected commission. And even the outcome of EP votes known in advance before they are called
Still, good to let our Brit lads and lasses rip-off what they can, drink their fill on EU expenses and employ the most expensive research assistants in Europe for three months before we bugger off without paying the €39bn bill ;)
This powerless EU Parliament, which kicked the bullying US TTIP into the long grass, Raedwald? And which is a reason that the UK has to leave, because it doesn't always vote the same way as Tory-ukip UK MEPs?
Oh, that one.
Farage's hoped-for domino effect has failed. Instead, a ton's worth tombstone has fallen, on his and the UK Right's big toe.
Who will he be when he gets the shove?
Nigel Farage will have a place in history as a patriot. Tracy and Jezza will be, ere long, forgotten. As for "Cheerful". Another plonker gifted with the delusion of spin and devoid of anything near being cheerful.
I voted to send Farage's team back to Brussels partly to shake some sense into Westminster but also because it's funny. I just want to see Jean-Claude Juncker's face today, it must be a picture...
Tell me Cheerful. Would this be the very same parliament that can invoke legislation and repeal legislation just like normal parliaments?
Oh, they can't can they? Quelle Surprise. So just a very expensive talking shop then. The only power is has is to rubber stamp whatever the Commission put in front of it, and will keep putting in front of it until it comes up with the right answer.
Bit like you really, all mouth and no trousers.
Cheerful Ed, 08:22
"But make no mistake. There is no more such a thing as a "clean" Brexit than there is a "clean" disembowelment."
But make no mistake. There is no more such a thing as a "just keep us in" than there is a "just keep that gangrenous limb".
That was easy.
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