PM's worst nightmare has become reality
Last week this blog said that Gordon Brown's worst nightmare in the Euro-elections would be for Labour to come behind Ukip and for the in the Brussels/Strasbourg Parliament. Well, the PM's worst nightmare has become reality.
Labour's share of the vote was just under 16% (), one point behind Ukip (17%) and 12 points behind the Tories (28%). Oh yes, and for the first time ever in this country's long democratic history we've elected two neo-fascists to a Parliament.
This is a devastating double-whammy for Labour MPs -- a humiliation and an embarrassment for them -- and today they must decide how much Gordon Brown is to blame and if they should raise the standard of revolt at tonight's meeting of Labour backbenchers. I wouldn't hold your breath: a Palace Coup to remove the PM has already petered out (the Cabinet couldn't quite bring itself to tell Gordon to go) and I wouldn't expect a Peasants' Revolt to do much better. But we'll see.
Labour MPs have until early evening to take in the enormity of their party's defeat. The details are even more depressing than the headline disaster. In the (excluding London), Labour came 5th, behind not just the Tories and Ukip but behind the Lib Dems and even the Greens (!), with a mere 8% of the vote. Incredibly they did , coming 5th with only 7.7% of the vote.
The significance of these unimaginably bad results for many Labour MPs is this: the South of England is home to a huge number of Labour marginals and Labour seats only moderately safe. If Labour under Gordon Brown is coming close to wipeout in the South, then scores of Labour seats are in jeopardy come the general election and even Labour MPs who thought they were reasonably safe must now be worried.
and seeing two BNP members elected on their watch will be hugely symbolic for many Labour MPs -- but they were anticipated (by me and others). Nobody predicted a third result of immense symbolism: the Tories . It doesn't mean the Valleys have gone Tory but to be beaten by the Tories in their Welsh fiefdom will have many Labour MPs shaking their heads in despair (and the in their other Celtic Fiefdom, Scotland).
The . True, they only got just under 28% of the vote, just up on 2004, as voters preferred third parties to the official opposition. But on the basis of both the local and Euro-election results they would be clear winners come the general election. Indeed leading Tories now think they have the best of all possible worlds: Labour has crashed and burned at the polls but still hasn't the stomach to change leaders.
"Labour is stuck with a lame-duck leader heading a lame-duck government," said one Tory shadow minister to me this morning. "It looks like it will stay that way til the election. If you're a Tory, it doesn't get better than that."
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