The morning after

Most of the final results are in (except Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland, where they do not count on a Sunday) and it is worse for Labour than I expected even as I went to bed this morning. While I expect Labour's vote share to go up after the results from Scotland to come in (but even there, preliminary counting shows Labour well behind the Scottish National Party on about 20-21%), currently they are sitting on 15.3% of the total vote, and have suffered a loss (again, without the Scottish result where they may lose another) of 5 Members of the European Parliament.

It has been a total rout for the Government, and there is really nothing Labour can say to change that. Of major parties (left or right) across Europe, only the French and Hungarian Socialists had as bad a night, both of them losing a greater percentage of the vote - but from a much higher starting point. The big question on the lips of many in the chattering classes is what happens next. Well, it appears that despite everything, despite the local election results and now these truly horrifying European results, that Gordon Brown may still be safe. While reshuffling his government on Friday may not be what he wanted, it appears to have locked in a government that it would be very hard for Labour backbenchers to unseat. Labour rules require that not only must 70 MP's endorse a leadership race, but these 70 MP's must also agree on a replacement candidate. And with all the major leadership players now inside Cabinet (Alan Johnson. Harriet Harman and Ed Milliband) and with different factions from the left and right of the party represented in those who want Brown to go, it may be very difficult for those opposed to Brown to find a candidate to rally around.

Having said that, Brown is still reshuffling his government. It is the turn of junior Ministers today, and I notice that two other Ministers have withdrawn from the government refusing to unreservedly back Mr Brown. However, it is difficult to see a circumstance where the resignation or sacking of a junior Minister would have the required power to unseat a Prime Minister. There is one more chance for the plotters, and that is this afternoon's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party, in what may be a VERY stormy session. But, short of something else unexpected happening (and frankly, after this last week, you really have to expect something unexpected to happen) I think that Mr Brown will be safe.

Going back to what I was saying last night about the distribution of votes to minor parties, it appears that once again in the Northwest that the British National Party has gained ground at the expense of Labour, with BNP leader Nick Griffin taking a seat of Labour. However, they aren't the only minor party to increase their shares of the vote. Both the Greens and UK Independence Party increased their shares of the votes, while both the Tory and the Liberal Democrat shares of the vote remained broadly static. To me this indicates two things.
One is that the former Labour vote has gone every which way. To put it another way, the results show an almost 'anybody but Labour' night, with votes going to the BNP, the Greens and UKIP. But the second thing it tells me is that some of that vote went to the Conservatives... and more than the results indicate.
Let me explain that seemingly odd sentence. The Conservative share of the vote increased very marginally, by about 1%. However, they also held or increased their share of the vote in places where UKIP greatly increased their share of the vote. Most UKIP voters (to make a gross generalisation) are dissatisfied Tory Eurosceptics, so one should expect to see that where UKIP did well, the Tory vote would fall slightly on the back of that. The opposite has happened, the Tory vote held up well. This would seem to indicate that even though the Tories were losing votes on the right to UKIP, they were picking up votes from Labour that not only equalled those going to UKIP, but led to an increased share of the vote. That would bode well for a General Election, and also makes it difficult to argue that the result for Labour is based solely on the expenses scandal.