Third Party Spending at the Euro elections

Inspired by Phil's post on minor parties election spending I thought I'd geek it up and take a dip into the third party election spending for the European elections earlier this year.

Third Parties are organisations or individuals who incur spending during the election but are not running candidates that can back or oppose specific candidates but usually raise specific issues. The summary of the spending is as follows;

Name of Third Party	England (£)	Wales (£)	Scotland (£)	N. Ireland (£)	Total Expenditure
Board of Deputies of British Jews	30,656.27	2,066.72	1,722.26		34,445.25
ANIMALS
League Against Cruel Sports	865.8	144.45	288.8	144.45	1,443.50
Vote Cruelty Free	1,629.20	181.02	181.02	181.02	2,712.26
ANTI-FASCIST
Searchlight	134,469	1,720	1,220		137,409
Unite Against Fascism	77,176	3,303	6,508		86,987
UNIONS
USDAW	3,028	187	389		3,604
National Union of Teachers	25,194		-	-	25,194
Public and Commercial Services Union	57,357	5,308	7,364	4,765	74,794

So if we look at the breakdown a bit the teachers union made £ 6,450 of donations to UAF plus a token £ 65 to Searchlight for their anti-fascist campaigns whilst the PCS union declared £ 16,400 expenditure on Love Music Hate Racism and a more modest £ 346 donation to its parent organisation, UAF.

Another point of note on the anti-fascist spending is that the Mirror, who helped fund a vast number of anti-fascist leaflets, chipped in to the tune of £ 24,122 and 50 pence. Kudos.

Yorkshire and the Humber results: Dweebshire edition

Yorkshire and the Humber next where the BNP had their first MEP of the night elected. Let's see if we can find any positives from the 21 polling districts?

I didn't think to do the overall results for the other regions but it's probably useful, so here we see the distribution of votes. Confusingly I've put the right on the left and the left on the right - it's all so confusing these days isn't it! For clarity I've put the others (Christians, Libertas and Jury team) in the middle rather than get in a debate about where they are on the political spectrum;

The raw data for those parties who got their deposit back is as follows;

	Votes		MEPs
Party	Total	%	Total	+/-
Conservative	299,802	24.5 (-0.2)	2	0
Labour	230,009	18.8 (-7.5)	1	-1
UKIP	213,750	17.4 (+2.9)	1	0
Liberal Democrats	161,552	13.2 (-2.4)	1	0
BNP	120,139	9.8 (+1.8)	1	+1
Green Party	104,456	8.5 (+2.8)	0	0
English Democrat	31,287	2.6 (+1.0)	0	0

Or to put it another way all the mainstream parties declined and all the main minor parties gained.

York: you lovely people

In York we have the highest Green vote with 13.71%. This contrasts with the second lowest BNP vote of the region (4.85%) and the lowest UKIP vote (13.65%) and the lowest English Democrat vote (1.31%). You can tell something about a region when the best Green vote only just manages to beat the worst UKIP one!

People who've been following this section for the different regions will be picking up on a theme. Where the progressive vote is highest the reactionary vote is lowest. Every time. This doesn't have to be true. For instance, in 2004 Peterborough had one of the highest BNP and Respect votes indicating a real polarisation. Instead we're seeing a tendency towards, putting it crudely, areas leaning either to the left or the right rather than extreme 'hot spots' of conflicting views.

Labour: losing swathes of voters

Labour's vote varied quite widely. From 5.17% in Harrogate to 24.71% in Rotherham. The caveat to my progressive / reactionary thesis is, of course, how you see the Labour Party. All nine areas where Labour polled more than 20% also provided the strongest results for the BNP and include the now infamous Donacaster where the English Democrats polled 9.38% of the euro vote and won the Mayoralty.

It's important though to remember that whilst some Labour supporters certainly do defect to the hard right the fact that most fascist support comes from Labour areas does not necessarily mean these are Labour voters.

Imagine for a moment you are a racist Tory. I apologise for making you do that. You've lived in a Labour stronghold over twelve years of a very disappointing Labour government. Does this situation make you vote Tory more firmly, or does it drive you further to the right in frustration living as you do in an area where the Tories are either weak or non-existent.

So the three areas where Labour was weakest (Richmondshire, Ryedale, Harrogate) were not just areas that the BNP also polled the most poorly - they are down the line Tory strongholds. In other words where the Tories are organised and pose a respectable alternative the need for a more frustrated, belligerent right wing alternative seems, perhaps, less great.

It might be worth noting that if you substitute the Tories with Lib Dems, and even the Greens, the same principles apply just not so much. In other words the key to undermining the BNP vote is provide a strong alternative to Labour. Alternatively, the lesson that Labour supporters might want to draw is that your failures translate directly into BNP support - so fail less.

The Greens: moving forwards

The Greens saw their biggest regional increase in Yorkshire and Humber but we were some way off denying the BNP their seat (1.3% off in fact). Those areas where we attained over 9% of the vote were as follows;

York	13.71
Sheffield	11.40
Craven	10.33
Calderdale	9.79
Kirklees	9.57
Leeds	9.41
Richmondshire	9.04

There seems to be little to connect these areas apart from, perhaps, these are above average turnout areas. Some are strong for the Tories, some for the Lib Dems and some for Labour. We do have established Green presences on councils in most of these areas and this could well be a factor.

What the percentages hide is that there is a large disparity between the population sizes of these areas. Who would have thought looking at the 'league table' of districts that Sheffield and Leeds on their own provided 29.5% of the total regional Green vote (of 21 districts).

The left and the rest

The Socialist Labour Party's vote (0.58-2.92%) was again strongly correlated to Labour's vote whilst No2EU's seems much more scattered (0.82-2.01%). If we look at the following graph that compares votes with the BNP areas. As you move to the right the stronger the BNP vote. To make the graph less confusing I've used a rolling average only.

You can see from this that whilst Greens have tended to perform the best where the BNP vote is the lowest the SLP has the reverse trend - although I'd put this down to their correlation to Labour rather than some sort of a direct relationship. No2EU's vote was far more stable across the region although there is an ever so slight increase in Labour/BNP areas.

Finally what is it about Hambleton that led them to give Libertas their largest vote in the country, a mighty 1.34%? It's a very Tory area, I wonder if that has anything to do with it - or does their UK leader come from there?

Scottish results: geek town blues

Last one for the night. This was the best ever result for the Greens in a Euro-election in Scotland but sadly the bar is set quite high to return an MEP here so once again we go home with the organic wooden spoon.

There are 32 regions in Scotland and the turn out varied from 22% to 36%. North Lanarkshire gets the booby prize and East Renfrewshire gets the prize for civic pride. Overall turnout was 28.63%.

See my accurate graph (all those who lost their deposits have been lumped into others).

Edinburgh: ah the memories

I've been to Edinburgh twice. Once as a child and all I remember was an ice cream I had whilst looking at a river. Ooo it was nice. The second time was during the G8 and much of my experiences involved large police constables who'd failed their etiquette examinations a number of times. The city itself was charming, and I have very fond memories of it.

It was probably my visit that led to the city achieving the highest Green vote in Scotland (13.61%). Wouldn't you know it we find Edinburgh has the second lowest BNP vote (1.56%), second lowest Christian vote (1.03%), and the lowest UKIP vote (3.58%). My kind of town.

The SNP topped the poll here despite the fact that this was one of their worst results in the country, which is an indicator of just how well they did.

The Scottish National Party: storming performance

I've got no idea what I think about the SNP. Sort like the Labour Party but without the nuclear weapons and that? Correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, they had a very good night.

Their lowest result was more than decent in itself at 17.87% in the Shetland Islands. They topped the poll time and again through Scotland and their top ten results range from 34% to 43%.

The three London parties: struggling to keep up

Unlike Labour the Tories did at least manage to top the poll in a few areas; Dunfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, Scottish Borders and South Ayeshire. All of them high turnout areas. Even the Lib Dems topped the polls in the Orkney Islands and Highland regions.

Of Labour's top ten results seven are from below average turnout areas which implies, to me at least, that Labour performs best (comparatively) where hostile voters don't positively choose alternatives but rather stay at home. Not a great thought to be honest.

Never the less the three main London based parties found themselves steamrollered by a very strong SNP machine.

What about the right?

The BNP only just scraped over 3% in four areas (Falkirk, North Lanarkshire, West Lothian and Glasgow) but these best results would be among their worst in other UK regions.

UKIP didn't do too badly in some parts polling their best results in Dumfries and Galloway (8.97%) and the Orkney Islands (8.46%). Their worst results were from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee which does rather imply that the further from civilisation you get the UKIP votes begin to surface.

It looks like if you can build a big enough alternative to take on the mainstream parties the right find it far harder to gain purchase with the electorate.

Green shoots

The Greens got their best five results in the following areas.

CITY OF EDINBURGH	13.61%
SHETLAND ISLANDS	10.23%
CITY OF GLASGOW	9.94%
STIRLING	9.39%
ORKNEY ISLANDS	9.15%

I realise I shouldn't have been mean about the Orkneys now. I expect the UKIP people have their own islands. The lowest result was 4.3% in North Lanarkshire.

I'm finding discerning any common thread pretty difficult here. Whether an area is urban, Labour, Tory or a set of islands - it doesn't seem to be a significant influence on the vote. It might be that the main influence over how many people vote for us is how many activists we have on the ground - but unless I had a map of the members I've no way of telling. Fascinating.

We were some way off gaining an MEP but it can't be bad getting their highest ever vote in Scotland so well done up there.

And the left?

Like most of the country the left organisations did not poll well with Arthur Scargill's SLP out polling the SSP and No2EU put together (2%, 0.94%, 0.84% respectively). That's slightly galling as the SLP doesn't actually exist in any meaningful sense and the SSP and No2EU both have active socialists who actually do things and improve the world (in a modest way of course).

Curious to see whether there was any correspondence between the parties I've plotted all three left parties' results.

You can see that where the SLP polls well the other two parties do ever so slightly better but most interestingly the Scottish Socialist Party and No2EU votes map onto each other *almost* exactly with the only real difference coming in the SSP's top three polling areas (Glasgow, North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire).

I have no local knowledge so I can't tell you whether the SSP have strong branches in those areas that were able to mount half decent campaigns.

Best Green results

Thought you might like to know the top ten Green results in the country;

Brighton & Hove	31.43%
Oxford	26.12%
Norwich	24.86%
Hackney	22.78%
Islington	20.02%
Lambeth	18.05%
Cambridge	17.94%
Lewisham	17.79%
Haringey	17.42%
Camden	17.15%

Remember, these districts are actually bigger than Parliamentary constituencies so they bode well for those areas where we have our targets tightly focused. Bode factor one you might say.

The worst Green area? Well, despite the fact this is verging very close to naming and shaming I declare Gibralter (3.13%) to be the poorest performer. Is anyone else thinking that the absolutely lowest result being 3.13% is rather good? No, just me. Give it back to Spain I say.

London election stats: dork-topia

And now we come to London - much happier than the previous two near misses in that Jean Lambert didn't just get in she was elected far higher up the list than previously (although we were a fair way off having the excellent Ute Michel elected). You might also like to check out political animals - who has maps!

There are over thirty polling districts in London in which more than 1.7 million people voted. Over 190,000 of them voted Green, which is nice.

Hackney: the pearl of the capital

Hackney was the best polling area for the Greens with 22.78% (up a massive 6.19%) followed by Islington (20.02%, up 3.41%), Lambeth (18.05%, up 4.1%) then Lewisham (17.79%, up 5.18%). Of course all these areas are far bigger than the Parliamentary constituencies so who knows what hidden delights even these strong figures conceal!

Hackney also has the third highest vote for the Labour Party as well as the highest result in the whole of London for the Socialist Labour Party and fourth highest for No2EU. As one might expect for such a right-on constituency the voters gave short shrift to the BNP, English Democrats and the rest.

It was also the worst result in London for Libertas. What did they ever do to Hackney, eh?

Tories and Lib Dems: nothing mind blowing

The Tories won over 40% in two areas; Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster. Both were particularly poor areas for the far right. In fact the only people who seemed to get above average results in these areas were Libertas and the Socialist Party of Great Britain - glad to see someone is working those hard to reach areas! (NB: we're talking less than one percent of the total so we are still months away from the final abolition of money, etc.).

The lowest Tory (and Lib Dem) result came in BNP stronghold Barking and Dagenham.

The poor old Lib Dems have some very good results in some areas but didn't manage to top the poll in any polling district. Even in Richmond Upon Thames where they achieved an excellent 30.79% they were pipped at post by the Tories. It's a postcode lottery this first past the post business I say.

Labour's night of traditional misery

The top five areas for Labour were Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Barking and Dagenham and Islington. Of those only Barking and Dagenham is a BNP stronghold, which means the pattern we've seen in other parts of the country where the BNP has fed off Labour does not seem to be repeated in London.

Where Labour are weak it tends to be in areas where one of the other two main parties are strong which, possibly unusually at this election, the London Labour results are following a far more traditional pattern of either beating or getting beaten by the two of main parties (Green strongpoints excepted).

BNP: pockets of hate

The top three areas for the BNP were Barking and Dagenham (19.4%), Bexley (14.8%) and Havering (12.4%).

There is a massive gap between these strongholds and the rest of London, where the BNP has very little support. This really comes home to you when you realise that these three areas on their own provide over 26% of the entire BNP vote in the 32 polling districts.

Smash these areas and the BNP is over in London without even 4% of the vote.

There was only one area where the Green vote slipped back. Can you guess where? Yes, it's our old friend Barking and Dagenham which essentially is behaving like a complete aberration - one that could well become dangerous if left to fester.

Tower Hamlets: where did the Respect vote go?

I was surprised, and pleased, to see Tower Hamlets' Greens doing well considering previous poor performances at council elections. At just over 11% they had one of the largest Green rises from the last Euro-election and let's hope this means that we're turning the party around in the area.

Not sure where the Respect vote went as, aside from the formidable Labour vote, there seems no other place it could have gone (like an above average SLP, SPGB or No2EU vote). Split between Labour and Greens perhaps?

Certainly a little known Respect member being bottom of No2EU's list did nothing to entice the local population, which is frankly unsurprising given that this must be one of the most internationalist demographics in London who are hardly likely to vote for a party whose very name proclaims it has a problem with 'abroad'.

UKIP's declining fortunes

Despite their vote slipping there are some extraordinary UKIP votes in London. In other regions there is no particularly strong correlation between UKIP's vote and the BNP's but in London the top two results for the Purple's were Havering and Bexley, two of the BNP's top three.

At 26.95% and 20.69% respectively UKIP is truly formidable in these areas and their top five areas account for 33.5% of UKIP's London results. To get a good idea of the scale of the problem let's have a look at the total vote for the 'Barking' right in these areas.

		BNP	English Democrats	UKIP	Total
Barking and Dagenham		19.44%	1.98%	14.8%	36.22%
Bexley		12.36%	2.98%	20.69%	36.03%
Havering		14.77%	2.84%	26.95%	44.56%

So that's between 36% and 44% of the vote to parties to the right of the Tories. There's a real problem here, but it's very specifically located in these areas rather than spread across London liberally.

And the rest?

Well the left's results were pretty uniform (and low) across London with no interesting peaks, troughs or tendencies to report. This probably indicates that if there were campaigning activities then they had little impact on the results of the three leftist organisations. I was attacked by a drunk SLP supporter but I don't think this affected their vote, either way.

Jan Jananayagam was a brilliant independent candidate who achieved more than all the other independents put together. Sadly the figures I have lump all the independents together but with results like 3.72% in Lewisham her campaign certainly had an impact.

The really interesting party in 'the others' were the Christians who managed to get their deposit back and had clear strongholds. Their best result was in Newham (at 5.08%) and they also saw over 4% in Lewisham, Croydon and... drum roll... Barking and Dagenham! If I lived there I'd be praying too frankly.

North West figures: nerdsville

You knew I couldn't resist didn't you? Well, I've got the figures for the North West now, and am happy to do the same on any region that wants to send me the breakdown in a form I can use without spending the first half hour formatting columns (like I just did!).

First of all the North West is divided into five regions on differing sizes.

	Votes	Electorate	Turnout
Cheshire	14.6%	14.9%	31.05%
Cumbria	9.3%	7.5%	39.48%
Gt Manchester	34.8%	37.2%	29.75%
Lancashire	24.6%	21.1%	37.09%
Merseyside	16.6%	19.4%	27.21%

So you can see from this that although Cumbria makes up only 7.5% of the electorate of the region due to their higher turner out they had 9.3% of the say. Overall turnout was 31.72%.

Oh joy to be in Lancaster

Lancaster saw the highest Green vote in the region on 14.34% on an above average turnout (35.88% if you must know). This was the second worst result for the BNP (the worst being South Lakeland, Cumbria on 3.2%) and was a poor area for Labour and the SLP although there little else exceptional about the votes for the other parties.

Manchester itself saw the second highest Green vote on 13.64%. The city seems to have a very different political demographic and this time it was one of the worst performing cities for the Tories, English Democrats and UKIP and was one of the *best* performing cities for Labour. The consistent theme seems to be the more urban the area the better the Greens did.

The ugly folk of Burnley

I almost didn't write that sub header, but then I thought, nah, fuck 'em. It did not come as a surprise that Burnley topped the league for the British National Party with 14.77%. This was the third best area for the Lib Dems and the worst area for the Greens (4.31%).

Unlike in the Eastern region there appears to be far less correlation between the BNP vote and the English Democrats and UKIP - probably indicating that the party had more forces on the ground and were generating their vote the hard way rather than just through the press reports of their enemy number one status.

Their top five performing areas were spread out geographically in Burnley, Tameside, Copeland, Hyndburn and Pendle. Of the top ten regions they were all strong areas for Labour (bar Burnley where the BNP have clearly successfully taken a huge slice of their cake). These were all weak areas for the Greens and mainly weak for the Lib Dems and Tories.

The Lib Dems and Tories: still no surprises

Again the Tories only polled over 40% in one polling district, the Ribble Valley, all under performing areas for the BNP. Their worst performing area was Knowsley, which was the best performing area for Labour.

The Lib Dems tended to perform best in weak Tory areas and their best performing area, South Lakeland, where they scored 37.23% was an exception in the region where almost every other district polled less than half of this.

Labour areas: BNP recruiting ground

Labour had a bad night and only scored more than 30% in three districts Knowsley, Manchester and Liverpool and they topped the poll in nine of 29 districts. The big story of the night, of course, was where the BNP vote came from, and basically it came from Labour areas (not necessarily Labour voters, the figures can't show that).

The graph below shows there is a correlation between how strong the Labour vote was and the BNP support. As we go from right to left we go from Labour's weakest area to strongest. The thin black line is the BNP vote in that area and the thicker line is a rolling average to help iron out the peaks so it's easier to see the trend at work.

I think it's clear from the graph that whilst there is by no means an exact correlation between Labour areas and strong BNP votes there certainly is tendency where the stronger the Labour vote in an area the higher the corresponding BNP vote is likely to be.

That certainly fits with my prejudice that the BNP (who had no councillors when Labour were elected let alone London Assembly Members or MEPs) vote comes from disgruntled Labour heartlands who feel they need to kick back at the government that has let them down.

The more Greens the less BNP

It might be useful to see exactly the same chart but for Green votes rather than Labour ones. So below we see (left to right) the stronger the Greens are in an area the fewer votes the fascists get. Again the thin line is the actual BNP vote in the polling district and the thicker line is a rolling average to help us see the trend more easily by eye.

Did the Left let the BNP in?

The Socialist Labour Party's fortunes were tied very tightly to Labour's. Their weakest area was Labour's weakest and their top ten strongest areas were, almost, identical to Labour's. This means their correlation was basically the same as with the BNP's (and therefore we can't say much about it).

But what of No2EU? Some still seem to blame them for 'splitting' the Green vote and 'letting in' the BNP by nicking that crucial 0.3%. Well here is the correlation between how well the Greens did and what vote No2EU got. The thin line represents the specific vote, the thick line the rolling average so we can see the trend more easily.

Does it dip a little? Squint at it whilst tipping your head to one side and you might be able to discern some correlation there, as long as you'd not brought your spirit level that is. Essentially this might look like the most boring graph in history but in fact it shows the dog did not bark. The Green vote and the No2EU were just speaking to different people.

As it happens you get a very similar graph if you replace the Greens with the BNP so I don't think No2EU split the fascist vote either. What was interesting though is that, as in the East, the Socialist vote and the No2EU vote came from different places too. The implication of this is that if left wing areas were not delivering higher support for No2EU their vote (as opposed to their program or candidates) was not coming from the left.

Anyway, let's not blow them out of proportion neither the SLP nor No2EU got their deposit back in any region of the UK so we're not talking about significant political forces here.

Pity Francis Apaloo

Last, but by no means least, let's look and at the odds and the sods - and some of these sods are very odd indeed.

It still amazes me that the Jury Team were able to beat anyone at all. However, their regional 0.55% was 'strong' enough to ditch Libertas in the murky pond of 0.42%. Commiserations Libertas, better luck next time. Obviously it can't have helped that your lead candidate pulled out of the race worried about your Eastern European partners and backed the Greens instead, but still, A for effort.

Life cannot be easy as an independent. Unless you're backed by a community you basically have not got a chance. At least that's what the good voters of Pendle thought when just 0.07% of them voted for Francis Apaloo. For shame Pendle, his life must be hard enough.

Eastern region figures: nerd attack

Indulging my inner stats nerd may not be getting all those things done that need doing - but it's too hard to control. I've been looking at the breakdown of the results for the Eastern region at the European election. Here's what I've found (pdf);

First of all the Eastern region is made up of six counties of unequal size. Here we see the proportion of the voters in each county.

Beds	10.22%
Cambs	13.08%
Essex	29.83%
Herts	16.87%
Norfolk	15.22%
Suffolk	15.04%

There was not much to choose between them in terms of turn out with 36% in Essex as the lowest turnout and the highest being Suffolk with 39.3%.

Cambridge: Green and pleasant

Cambridge City saw the second highest result in the region for the Greens (18.07%) and the highest for the Lib Dems (26.64%). It was also the 'best' vote in the region for the pro-European Libertas (1.2%).

Alternately the BNP's lowest vote in the entire region came here in Cambridge (2.28%) which also returned the lowest UKIP vote (8.27%).

BNP: strong in Essex, weak where progressives are strong

Of the BNP's top ten boroughs seven were in Essex (Thurrock, Broxborne (Herts) and Basildon being highest). The two outside of Essex were Fenland (in Cambrideshire) and Great Yarmouth, which is a vile hole of a place.

You wont be massively surprised to hear there was some correlation with the UKIP vote (for example five of their top ten areas were the same as the BNP's) although that correlation was not exact. The correlation was far stronger with the English Democrat vote, which might indicate that BNP campaigning didn't make as much of a difference as natural demographics in a particular area.

Interestingly the best areas for UK First (a UKIP breakaway that received 2.38% of the total regional vote) were entirely different and there even seems to be a negative correlation. Weird.

Lib Dems and Tories: no surprises

The highest result for any party in the region was for the Tories in Hertsmere (Herts) with just over 40% of the vote. The county in which they performed worst was Norfolk (which surprised me).

The Lib Dems performed best in Cambridgeshire as a whole and were weakest in Essex, despite strongholds like Colchester and Chelmsford. Having said that the Lib Dems only topped the poll in Cambridge City and Watford which may well not bode well for the general election.

Labour: Bad night in a bad region.

Labour topped the poll in one borough only, Luton, and only achieved over 20% of the vote there and in Stevenage. Other best performing areas were all urban (Cambridge, Harlow, Ipswich, Norwich and Watford) although they didn't win the poll in any of these areas.

Labour only just scrapped over 10% of the vote, although I am pleased that Richard Howitt was re-elected as he is a good sort in my view.

Greens: feisty results, but no panatella

The Greens did not get an MEP but did improve their results all over the region. Taken county by county the results look like this;

Norfolk	11.17%
Suffolk	10.49%
Cambs	9.47%
Herts	8.29%
Essex	7.24%
Beds	6.91%

The total result was 8.8% (1% short of denying UKIP their second MEP).

The top five polling districts (in order) were Norwich City, Cambridge City, Mid Suffolk, South Norfolk and St Albans. The worst areas were the strongest for the BNP; Thurrock, Castle Point and Fenland.

Lefty groups: only wee but still interesting

The Socialist Labour Party's (SLP) strongest areas were identical to the areas with the highest Labour and Green votes.

NO2EU's best votes came from entirely different areas, six of their best ten areas were identical to the BNP's top areas indicating that there was little cross over between those who wanted to make a non-fascist anti-EU vote and those who wanted a socialist or nothing.

Incidentally this is also an indicator that No2EU probably did not cost the Greens the North West seat (which I never thought it did, but some people have been saying this). If I get the North West results I'll check that out.

Let's keep the left's vote in perspective though, NO2EU's best vote was in Castle Point (Essex) at 1.67% and the best vote for the SLP highest poll was a piddly 1.59% (Ipswich) well below the worst results for the main parties or the Greens.

The rest: can I be bothered?

When you get to a very small sample the numbers stop being statistically interesting I think. Points of note are that Animals First didn't come anywhere near 'costing' the Greens a seat, and most of their vote came from Essex.

The Christians polled best in Bedfordshire and worst in Norfolk (where they mainly worship the sun and moon).

The prize for the worst result in the entire region goes to the Jury Team who managed to poll 0.21% in the North Norfolk district. Even the independent didn't manage to get that bad a result in any district. My advice? Better steer clear of North Norfolk you Jury boys - it seems you just aren't welcome.

Considered analysis on the Euro results

The Telegraph is calling this a Tory surge. I rubbed my eyes and checked the figures to be sure. An increase of 1% to 27.7% adding one MEP to their already bloated group. If this is a surge what are they calling the Greens additional 2.4% (the largest gain of anyone standing at these elections)? Oh, that's right - they don't call it anything, we're invisible.

So, today I'm coping with another electoral hangover. It's not as bad as '92 I suppose but, Christ, it would have to be pretty damn dire to come close!

The election was good for the Greens across Europe, just not quite good enough here in the UK to increase our representation. As Ben says "The Greens had set themselves two measures of success: winning more seats, and keeping the BNP out. Though our vote share rose across the country, we didn't achieve either of these aims."

Our arguments in the North West that the left should vote Green to keep the BNP out were born out by the tight result and it is only right that we thank people like Salma Yaqoob and George Galloway who did not simply give a paper endorsement to Peter Cranie but ensured the distribution of thousands of leaflets encouraging their supporters to turn out and vote Green in this election.

I only wish we could thank them from a position of success having beaten Griffin to the final Euro seat. Sadly we now have two fascist MEPs to deal with, but to all those on the left who gave time, money, support and/or their votes despite not seeing themselves as natural Green supporters that assistance has been appreciated more deeply than it's possible to express here.

The BNP have a very poor record as councillors and often struggle to get re-elected because of it. Sadly the performance of our MEPs rarely effects whether they are re-elected. UKIP had no trouble this time round and their representatives have not just been useless they've split, been jailed, not turned up and taken vast buckets of cash for their trouble. Nobody knows or cares if their MEP does a duff job and so we can't rely on the BNP's incompetence to lose them the seats next time around.

The Green increase in vote and county councillors is to welcomed, particularly because we beat all the other parties in Oxford, Brighton and Norwich and it's too tight to call in Lewisham Deptford which means our Parliamentary ambitions are still on target. That's great news.

It seems to me that, leaving aside the small size of the party itself, the two main problems the Greens faced in this election was access to the media and a late attack on the party over stem cell research. Our small media team did a very good job under the circumstances and our party election broadcast was phenomenal but when you have UKIP appearing on every available platform and the Greens fighting to even get mentioned it's frustrating, especially when despite this we saw the largest increase in our vote share of all the parties.

I'll come to the stem cell and general science stuff in a later post when I get the energy (I've said this before but I still mean it!). I've been contacted by quite a significant number of people I know over this and have seen it referenced numerous times so I've no doubt it damaged our vote to some extent. Whether it cost us 5,000 in the North West is impossible to know and I've no intention of speculating about that as you have to take the rough with the smooth.

We didn't lose the North West because of a 'split vote' (which lacks evidence), too few endorsements, the fact that we were alphabetised under 'the' rather than 'green' or a small bit of bad press here and there but because when the votes were weighed the BNP had managed to convince more people to vote for them than we did. If we'd been a bit more credible, or they a bit less, things would have been different but that's the way it's gone.

Our task in the Greens is to build on the advances of the night to create local groups and successes that make a positive difference to people's lives. The party is too small and too often lacks roots and we need to work to improve this if we're to become a truly national party. Our task in the wider progressive movement is to bring people together from many different perspectives and traditions not just to combat the vile British National Party but to tackle the well of reaction and despair from which they draw sustenance.

How did my predictions bear up?

Well, I made two sets of predictions for election night beyond the obvious things like Labour is screwed and the Lib Dems are just treading water.

First of all, and this was off line so I'm only telling you because I was wrong, I thought the BNP would be close but get nothing and that the Greens would get four. At the time I thought I was being conservative at some Greens were making crazy predictions of wild gains, it turns out I was too optimistic.

Whilst the Greens increased their vote in every region and went from 6.2% to 8.6% to just wasn't enough where it counted. Whilst we had plenty to spare in London we missed out on an MEP by just 0.3% in the North West, just pipped at the post by Griffin. I knew that was a possibility but frankly I'd rather lose by 30% than by 0.3%.

Secondly I made a prediction in a previous post as to how the six very minor parties would do. I'm pleased to announce that this went although better than I expected.

I predicted;

1. Christians
2. English Democrats
3. SLP
4. NO2EU
5. Jury Team
6. Libertas

This was *almost* exactly right. In fact English Democrats topped this particular league with the Christians second, apart from that I was spot on. Smug I am not but it's a small crumb of comfort on a very difficult day.

European results: Jim's quick overview

Results that interest me, as they come in, from across Europe. This is the early edition as the stage is set for a bad night for the incumbent governments across Europe. I'll also twitter results as they come in, do keep an eye on that it's chaos here.

There's also a good resource for Green results at the Thursday Briefing and Euro-exit polls here.

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Austria: Greens down, right gains

The Greens have lost one of their two MEPs, from memory they were expecting their vote to drop but I can't remember why.

Belgium: Greens double Parliamentary representation

Belgium is having simultaneous Parliamentary elections. the Greens had 20 MPs and now set to have 42! This meant a rise from two to three MEPs as the right and liberals fall back a place each.

In Denmark the Green affiliate (the Socialist People's Party) has gone from one to three MEPs. This is excellent news and I hope will provide a good set of strong leftists in the European Green group.

Finland Greens go up from one to two more than doubling their vote.

France the Greens came third returning 14 MEPs from six. The hard left also did well returning six MEPs, three of whom from the New Anti-Capitalist Party. All of this seems to be at the expense of the Socialist Party which is in total disarray and lst 13 seats.

Germany the left and the greens both increased their seats by one. The Tory equivalent Christian Democrats lost seven. A verdict on their handling of the recession perhaps, but certainly flies in the face of the official verdict that Europe is moving right.

Greece gains their first Green MEP. Nice work.

Holland: The centre does not hold. Cheeky buggers that they are they announced the results earlier than they're meant to, giving us the first results for the European elections.

The Greens increased their representation from two to three MEPs (on 8.9%) but the main story is that the far right Islamophobe Party for Freedom gained 16.9% of the vote which gained them 4 seats, making them the second biggest party.

Gains for the smaller parties seem to come at the expense of all the main three parties who all lost seats. Also of note is that the hard left Socialist Party vote was steady with just a 0.1% increase which means they held on to their current two seats.

Hungry: three hard core fascists gain seats at the expense of the centre left.

Ireland: naughty Greens to be punished by voters?

The signs are that the spectacularly misjudged coalition deal between the Greens and corrupt right wing government has, as predicted, led to very poor election results indeed. Is it wrong of me to be pleased? Well I am, they need to learn that feeding their ego in the short term is very bad politics indeed.

It appears they've lost 13 out of 17 city and council seats. They were warned! Irish Independent

The Irish Times has an interesting piece on the upcoming crisis meeting of the Irish Greens. Green leader Mr Gormley said, after saying that government participation wasn't up for negotiation said “I think it was clearly an indication that some of the decisions that we have taken were deeply unpopular, there’s no doubt about that.” Well quite.

In better news Lenin reports that the left have done well. People Before Profit have gained five seats including the excellent Richard Boyd Barrett (here) and the Socialist Party has also performed well apparently. Labour has also had the best local election results it has ever had!

Which brings me onto the news about Irish MEPs. It appears that Sein Fein has lost an MEP, but the Socialist Party look like they've made unprecedented gains.

Italy - news coming in that the right has done well. Greens and the radical left have lost all their seats (a total of 11).

Luxemburg: Green losses in Parliament. The Greens have gone from 7 to 4 MPs in Parliament which bodes ill for the single Green MEP.

In Portugal the radical left has increased a seat although as yet I don't know which of the two blocks that is for (and therefore whether that means an extra green)

Sweden Greens up one seat also the Pirate Party wins a seat!

North West results

Our predictions were right, it was a tight race between the fascists and the Greens. We lost by 0.3% of the vote in the race for that last place in the region.

If we'd been able to get just a few more votes instead of returning the most reactionary scumbag imaginable we could have sent a fantastic, clear socialist in Peter Cranie. That was the choice before the electorate and unfortunately we weren't able to prevent the absolutely worst happening. Sickening.

Conservative	423,174	25.6 (+1.5)	3
Labour	336,831	20.4 (-6.9)	2
UK Independence Party	261,740	15.8 (+3.7)	1
Liberal Democrats	235,639	14.3 (-1.6)	1
British National Party	132,094	8.0 (+1.6)	1
Green Party	127,133	7.7 (+2.1)	0
English Democrat	40,027	2.4 (+0.8)	0
Socialist Labour Party	26,224	1.6 (+1.6)	0
Christian Party-Christian Peoples Alliance	25,999	1.6 (+1.6)	0
No2EU	23,580	1.4 (+1.4)	0
Jury Team	8,783	0.5 (+0.5)	0
Libertas	6,980	0.4 (+0.4)	0
Independent - Francis Apaloo	3,621	0.2 (+0.2)	0

South East results

Excellent results here. Well done Caroline.

Seats: Tory 4, UKIP 2, Lib Dem 2, Greens 1, Labour 1

To beat Labour across the region is great - but to top the poll in Brighton and Oxford is even better. Bodes very well for the general election. The Greens are the only party who won a seat to increase their vote share.

I suspect that Hannan's speech for Brown to go will be played and played again, sadly very good.

Conservative	812,288	34.8 (-0.4)	4
UK Independence Party	440,002	18.8 (-0.7)	2
Liberal Democrats	330,340	14.1 (-1.2)	2
Green Party	271,506	11.6 (+3.8)	1
Labour	192,592	8.2 (-5.4)	1
British National Party	101,769	4.4 (+1.4)	0
English Democrat	52,526	2.2 (+0.9)	0
Christian Party-Christian Peoples Alliance	35,712	1.5 (+1.5)	0
No2EU	21,455	0.9 (+0.9)	0
Libertas	16,767	0.7 (+0.7)	0
Socialist Labour Party	15,484	0.7 (+0.7)	0
United Kingdom First	15,261	0.7 (+0.7)	0
Jury Team	14,172	0.6 (+0.6)	0
The Peace Party	9,534	0.4 (-0.2)	0
The Roman Party	5,450	0.2 (+0.2)	0

London results: quick and dirty

Seats:

Tory 3
Labour 2
Lib Dem
Green
UKIP

Greens have done very well here, beating UKIP on 11% and well done to the Tamil candidate, Jan Jananayagam, she richly deserves to save her deposit.

Very glad to see Jean Lambert returned to Europe for her third term. We came second in a large number of places around London, including Lewisham. We may have even topped the poll in Lewisham Dept. where we hope to win the seat at the General election. Things look on track for that right now.

Votes:

Conservative	479,037	27.4 (+0.6)	3
Labour	372,590	21.3 (-3.5)	2
Liberal Democrats	240,156	13.7 (-1.6)	1
Green Party	190,589	10.9 (+2.5)	1
UK Independence Party	188,440	10.8 (-1.6)	1
British National Party	86,420	4.9 (+0.9)	0
Christian Party-Christian Peoples Alliance	51,336	2.9 (+2.9)	0
Independent - Jan Jananayagam	50,014	2.9 (+2.9)	0
English Democrat	24,477	1.4 (+0.6)	0
No2EU	17,758	1.0 (+1.0)	0
Socialist Labour Party	15,306	0.9 (+0.9)	0
Libertas	8,444	0.5 (+0.5)	0
Jury Team	7,284	0.4 (+0.4)	0
Independent - Steven Cheung	4,918	0.3 (+0.3)	0
Socialist Party of Great Britain	4,050	0.2 (+0.2)	0
Yes 2 Europe	3,384	0.2 (+0.2)	0
Independent - Sohale Rahman	3,248	0.2 (+0.2)	0
Independent - Gene Alcantara	1,972	0.1 (+0.1)	0
Independent - Haroon Saad	1,603	0.1 (+0.1)	0

Yorkshire and Humbershire quick and dirty result

The rumours that the BNP might win a seat here are unfortunately true.

Seats:

Tory 2
Labour 1
UKIP1
Lib Dems 1
BNP 1

Balls.

Votes:

BNP 120129
Christian 16,742
Tory 299,802
ED 31,287
Jury 7181
LD 161,552
NO2EU 15,614
Libertas 6,268
SLP 19,282
Green 104366 (9% up three)
Labour didn't hear but massive drop
UKIP 213750 (up!)

Eastern Region results: quick and dirty

Seats:

Tory 3
UKIP 2
Lib Dem 1
Labour 1

Greens did not win a seat in this region. Very disappointing. We needed 1% more to get a seat so it might be worth pointing out that the animals count vote did not effect the result for us.

Votes:

Christian 24646
Tory 500331
UKIP 313921
LD 222235
Labour 167000
Green 141016
BNP 97,000
No2EU 13939
SLP 13599
UKF 38000
ED 32211
Animal 13,000
Libertas 9940
Peter Rigby 9000-ish
Jury 6000

BBC figures here

North East results (quick and dirty)

Seats:

Labour 1
Tory 1
Lib Dems 1

Votes:

Labour 134000
Tory 116911
LD 103644
UKIP 90000
BNP - 52,700 9% (+3)
Green 34084 6% (+1) Region with the lowest Green Membership apparently.
ED 13007
SLP 10000
No2EU 8066
Christian Party - 7000
Libertas 3010
Jury Team 2000

Let's change politics for good

Happy election day people.

To celebrate I've ordered super long ballot papers for everyone!

... well, not everyone.

Don't vote BNP videos

There's been an assortment of don't vote BNP videos to choose from over the last few weeks, some stronger than others. Here's a quick selection of my favourites.

Billy Brit (the right wing git);



This one's from Love Music Hate Racism;



And this one explains there's nothing British about the BNP;



I think the last one is particualrly interesting. It wasn't made by left sympathisers but does talk directly to those who might be tempted to vote for the British National Party - which may well make it the most effective of the lot.

The UK should stop dragging the EU to the right

For too long the UK has been a rightwards drag on the EU. Watering down decent legislation, opting out of areas that would have given us better protection at work and pushing forwards a free market agenda at odds with the general consensus of our European cousins.

I think we should press for a social Europe that brings everyone's quality of life up rather than trying to revive the zombie policies of the failed Bush and Blair years. Being an enthusiast for Europe certainly doesn't mean you can't be a long time critic of the EU institutions and it's no surprise people are frustrated by the bureaucratic, wasteful and arcane nature of the beast.

However, whilse there is no shortage of anti-European parties at this coming election we need voices that are both critical of the overcentralised, undemocratic structures of the EU and that act to democratise them. The current dynamic that is undermining workers' rights and seeks to break up public services is taking Europe in entirely the wrong direction, but we can resist this drive if we engage with it in a critical way.

The answer to undemocratic structures is to democratise them

The Greens have found that critical engagement has led to important victories on the working time directive, migrants' rights and, of course, environmental protection and climate change measures, even though our voices are all too often in the minority.  Because our two MEPs have been passionate fighters against the tide they have been able to make some headway.

In the coming period, who we send to the EU will determine what kind of response we make at a European level to the economic crisis. Will our MEPs demand a Tory style slash and burn approach to the economy? Will they try to combine stabilising the job market with the urgent need to address climate change (what we're calling The Green New Deal).

Despite all its faults Caroline Lucas has shown that MEPs can serve as advocates for local decision making, forward thinking legislation and social inclusion as long as we don't use the institutions' faults as an excuse to turn our backs on that important work. The European Parliament wont stop turning just because we send MEPs whose main objective appears to be to sit sulking in the corner whilst still drawing their paychecks. 

When Open Europe compiled their list of best and worst performing MEPs on  reforming and democratising the institutions they found that of the ten worst performers six were from UKIP despite the fact that the EU's failings were a key part, sorry, only part of their platform. Caroline Lucas topped the league because if it is broke you need to fix it. 

The EU, like the UK, is another bosses club

People are right to be critical of the European Union. The EU is too distant, too unaccountable and too arrogant. There is a lot of work to do to make the European Union an institution we can be proud of, almost certainly it's a never-ending task. However, those who are only critical have absolutely failed to bring forward positive changes.

Those with an unremittingly miserable and negative approach to the "European gravy train" have ironically proved to be the MEPs who are the least value for money. They have no problem taking their wages and expenses but then they abstain from the real work to democratise the undemocratic and propose legislation that makes Europe a better place. If they wont even try to do this then they are simply a waste of space.

For instance, I'm all for opposing the militarisation of the EU as long as we recognise that the UK doesn't need any help in finding new and exciting adventures to send our troops on. When it comes to the war machine the EU is only the main problem for a few eccentrics without a grasp on reality, and yet some parties still feel the need to make this a key part of their electoral platform.

Electing left field voices isn't a protest vote - it makes a difference

To complain of a lack of democratic structures but then refuse to take part in the Herculean task of reforming them is sophistry at best and cynical posturing at worst. However, the elephant in the room has always been that it is the UK that is dragging the EU down to its level rather than the other way round. Instead of us lifting the rights of the UK citizen to European levels we are eroding their rights and their protections. We should do what we can to reverse this trend.

Whilst most European Green Parties regard the GPEW as a Euro-sceptic party it hasn't stopped us promoting progressive legislation and fighting for reform. You can oppose neo-liberalism by sulking but that's just what so many of the anti-EU from the UK seem to want to do.

If only the UK sent a few more positive representatives willing to work to reform the EU's institutions and a few less that sought to shift it to the right, or who simply don't do anything at all. By ensuring there are strong voices for democratic change in the European Parliament we can transform our relationship with our EU partners. Working together with others, like Plaid Cyrmu's excellent MEP Jill Evans, the Greens have shown that you don't have to be a EU-enthusiast or in the biggest voting block to make a real difference.

Mark Steel backs the Greens

Ah, I'm in heaven. If this is followed up by Charlie Brooker, David Mitchell and Mark Serwotka I'll have my full set of heroes.

Mark Steel in The Independent says;

the cheery note is that the Green Party has attained credibilty while retaining its principles, and seems to be the home for many people who opposed the Iraq war, oppose the rule of bankers and private finance, and feel it might be worth looking at doing something about the fact the planet's about to melt. So I'm voting for them tomorrow, and if they implode in a petty row about nothing I'm obviously a jinx and I'm joining the bloody Tories.

After all if Ben Goldacre can tweet;

to be clear, even tho green party are infantile on quackery, embryo research, animal expts, etc they might still be worth a punt.

Ummmm.... thanks Ben! Oh, and now there's Alexei Sayle!

One of the great things about Britain is that, unlike in a lot of Europe, we have never let extremist parties of the right get anything but a tiny toehold in our electoral system. I'll personally be voting Green this time but whoever you support you should use your vote to continue our noble tradition and keep the BNP out.

If Joanna Lumley can do it, anyone can!