1.10am:
Ok, I’m off to bed now – ConHome’s coverage will of course continue in the morning. The only regions yet to give their results are Scotland, where the Western Isles doesn’t count on Sundays, Northern Ireland, where the count will begin on Monday morning and London, where Tower Hamlets appears to be suffering a catastrophic failure to count votes properly.
Here are the national results as they stand so far:
12.50am:
South East:
UKIP: 32.1 per cent. Four seats.
Conservatives: 31 per cent. Three seats.
Labour: 14.7 per cent. One seat.
Greens: 9.1 per cent. One seat.
LibDems: 8 per cent. One seat.
So the Lib Dems have salvaged a seat – meaning at most they will get two MEPs tonight. It should be a quick election to pick their group leader…
12.45am: There are several regions still to come in, but one aspect of the results really sticks out. People expected UKIP to come first, and the Lib Dems to do badly, but the general assumption was that Labour would be comfortably second, well ahead of the Conservatives. So far that hasn’t happened. This table should worry Ed Miliband:
12.40am:
West Midlands:
UKIP: 31.5 per cent. Three seats.
Labour: 26.7 per cent. Two seats.
Conservatives: 24.3 per cent. Two seats.
LibDems: 5.6 per cent.
Greens: 5.3 per cent.
12.30am:
North West:
Labour: 33.9 per cent. Three seats.
UKIP: 27.5 per cent. Three seats.
Conservatives: 20.1 per cent. Two seats.
Greens: 7 per cent.
LibDems: 6 per cent.
12.15am:
Yorkshire and the Humber:
UKIP: 31.1 per cent. Three seats.
Labour: 29.3 per cent. Two seats.
Conservatives: 19.2 per cent. One seat.
LibDems: 6.3 per cent.
Greens: 7.9 per cent.
Midnight:
Wales:
Labour: 28.2 per cent. One seat.
UKIP: 27.6 per cent. One seat.
Conservatives: 17.4 per cent. One seat.
LibDems: 4 per cent.
Greens: 4.5 per cent.
Plaid Cymru: 15.3 per cent. One seat.
11.40pm:
South West (including Gibraltar):
UKIP: 32.3 per cent. Two seats.
Conservatives: 28.9 per cent. Two seats.
Labour: 13.8 per cent. One seat.
Greens: 11.1 per cent. One seat.
LibDems: 10.7 per cent.
So far, the Lib Dems are facing a wipeout – the South West has traditionally been one of their strongest regions, but the Greens pipped them to it – there were 6,071 votes in it to claim that final MEP seat.
11.30pm:
East Midlands:
UKIP: 32.9 per cent. Two seats.
Labour: 24.9 per cent. One seat.
Conservatives: 26 per cent. Two seats.
LibDems: 5.42 per cent.
Greens: 6 per cent.
As an aside, some of the scenes at the counts show vividly the nature of the split on the right. In the East Midlands, UKIP’s Roger Helmer MEP (their candidate in Newark) stood on stage next to Emma McClarkin MEP, the Conservative who is Helmer’s former staffer. In the East of England, one of UKIP’s MEPs is Tim Aker – a former staffer of David Campbell Bannerman, Conservative MEP for the same region.
11.15pm: Lots of people (including the broadcasters) are reporting the numbers for the European Elections from Newark and Sherwood Borough Council. They’re as follows:
UKIP: 33 per cent.
Labour: 21 per cent.
Conservatives: 31 per cent.
LibDems: 6 per cent.
That’s being portrayed as a sign of a forthcoming UKIP victory in the by-election. There are two reasons for caution, though. First, of course people may vote differently in a parliamentary by-election from how they vote in the European elections, just as many people split their votes between the locals and the Euros.
Second, and more important, the Newark constituency boundaries do not match the local council boundaries. The majority of the seat is drawn from Newark and Sherwood Borough council, but there are sizeable portions drawn from Rushcliffe and Bassetlaw Borough councils. We only know the overall results by Borough, not ward by ward, and the raw numbers, not the percentages, so any interpretation for the by-election is impossible, but here are the results for each of them:
Rushcliffe:
Conservatives: 12282 votes
UKIP: 8980 votes
Labour: 6957 votes
Greens: 3363 votes
LibDems: 2373 votes
Bassetlaw:
Labour: 9979 votes
UKIP: 9901 votes
Conservatives: 6030 votes
Greens: 990 votes
LibDems: 865 votes
As I say, it all depends which wards are in the Newark constituency, and the results in each, but it isn’t as simple as saying that UKIP won on the basis of the Newark and Sherwood result. That said, looking at these figures it’s clearly been a close run thing.
10.45pm: Welcome to our blog of the UK’s European Election results.
Having waited three days, after some slightly ridiculous rules delaying the count, the first regions are reporting.
North East:
Labour: 36.5 per cent. Two seats.
UKIP: 29.2 per cent. One seat.
Conservatives: 17.7 per cent.
LibDems: 5.9 per cent.
Greens: 5.2 per cent.
East of England:
UKIP: 34.5 per cent. Three seats.
Conservatives: 28.4 per cent. Three seats.
Labour: 17.3 per cent. One seat.
LibDems: 6.9 per cent.
Greens: 8.5 per cent.