FINAL RESULTS: What They Are Not Telling You About The UK Election Results

UK-wide results are now in. In 2016, there was a binary referendum: Remain or Leave. Leave prevailed. But the professional chattering classes told us that the British public did not mean it, did not understand it, and it cannot be brought about in any event. It did not seem to matter that Leave had more votes. Evidently democracy did not count for much.

Now in 2019, in the European Union election for UK members of the European Parliament, the new wisdom is that the Remain parties beat the Leave parties in terms of the popular vote. The problem is that the 2019 election was not a binary choice. It was not a referendum on Leave or Remain, and many parties do not have a clear vision for Remain or Leave: including the long dominant Labour and Tory parties. Again: the UK election was not a referendum, it was an election for seats in the European Parliament.

In terms of seats: Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party (29 seats) + Democratic Unionist (1 seat) > Liberal Democrats (16 seats) + Greens (7 seats) + Scottish National Party (3 seats) + Plaid Cymru (1 seat) + Alliance (1 seat) + Sinn Fein (1 seat). In other words, 30 seats (Leave) > 29 seats (Remain). With the 2016 referendum, the referendum was about votes, and Leave prevailed over Remain: 52 to 48. By contrast, the 2019 election was about seats, and here too, Leave prevailed over Remain: 30 to 29. See how they changed the goal posts—yet again?

The second, and more important, thing you will not see reported … is about votes. The Remain parties are saying they won the popular vote: Brexit Party (30.5%) + Democratic Unionist (0.7%) + UKIP (3.2%) < Liberal Democrats (19.6%) + Greens (11.8%) + Scottish National Party (3.5%) + Plaid Cymru (1.0%) + Sinn Fein (0.7%) + Alliance (0.6%) + Change UK (3.3%). In other words, 34.4% (Leave) < 40.5% (Remain).

Those numbers are not telling—at least, not as predictors for the next general election for the (national) Westminster (or UK) Parliament. EU citizens (who are not UK citizens) who are resident in the UK are allowed to vote in the UK in EU elections, but as a general matter, such EU citizens (who are not UK citizens) do not have voting rights in a general election for the (national) Westminster (or UK) Parliament. That will cost Remain 100,000s, if not millions of votes in the next general election. That’s what they are not telling you, and they never will.

Seth

For results, see: <https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/may/26/european-election-latest-results-2019-uk-england-scotland-wales-ni-eu-parliament>. The totals at the top of the page only include Great Britain (and Gibraltar), absent Northern Ireland results. NI results are further down the page. 

Seth Barrett Tillman, FINAL RESULTS: What They Are Not Telling You About The UK Election Results, New Reform Club (May 27, 2019, 2:26 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2019/05/final-results-what-they-are-not-telling.html>. 

ORIGINAL POST: Seth Barrett Tillman, What They Are Not Telling You About The UK Election Results, New Reform Club (May 27, 2019, 3:59 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-they-are-not-telling-you-about-uk.html>. 

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