European Parliament Election: May 23-26, 2019

[Antonio the Sixth]

Just need to replicate that in another 27 countries then, hey?

If the MUH GLOBAL TRENDS theory is to be believed, we can expect all center-left parties to do well!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Does anyone have a link to the British edition of BBC news? All those I've found are region-locked.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Does anyone have a link to the British edition of BBC news? All those I've found are region-locked.

Does it have to be BBC? Sky News is available on YouTube.

I guess I can go for that. I like the style and tone of the BBC better though.

[Antonio the Sixth]

When are we going to get Scotland results?

[Antonio the Sixth]

When are we going to get Scotland results?

Tomorrow, Catholics in the Hebrides refuse to count on Sundays...

Based on everything that's in so far, however, it's 3 SNP 1 LibDem 1 Brexit 1 Tory

It would be an absolute disaster for Labour if they finished below Tories in Scotland when the Tories are at 9% nationwide.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The list I voted for (Hamon's Génération.s) won 3.3%. That's better than I expected honestly.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The list I voted for (Hamon's Génération.s) won 3.3%. That's better than I expected honestly.

And in Italy?

It's illegal to vote in two different countries for European elections.

If I'd voted in Italy I guess I would have voted for the "united" leftist list, which got 1.7% (which is a stunningly bad result even by the standards of the Italian left). Or possibly Bonino's list to own the Euroskeptics, although she's way to my right economically (it got 3%).

[Antonio the Sixth]

Age breakdowns from France are kind of interesting, this is just one example but it does point to a certain... generational malaise for Les Républicains in particular



The polls were not great this time round in France. I mean, FN slightly underperformed polling, but within the margin of error so that's no great shock - but they got EELV and LR pretty badly off; which I guess is a factor of it being hard-ish to predict who was actually going to turnout in the end.

Also very striking that MUH NEW WORLD!!!!!1!11!! polls best with older voters (especially given how much FBM's policies had supposedly pissed off retirees).

[Antonio the Sixth]

And then it's also interesting looking at Vendée (the Southernmost department in the Pays de la Loire), which was traditionally the most conservative area in France and was De Villiers' fief, but now only the Fontenay-le-Comte (the historic capital of Vendée) area voted RN, the rest voted LREM. I guess Vendée is still conservative but it is wealthier and has less immigration than other regions and thus explains its current voting patterns.

Moreover the bougie-right parts of Paris and the Petite Couronne seem to have been LREM's strongest area in the whole country. Antonio's been talking to me a lot off-forum about Macronism's seduction of much of the traditional right's support base.

It's also interesting (and depressing) to see the concatenation of the post-industrial North and the right-rightist Riviera as RN's two strongest areas.

Yeah the thing is though that 10 years ago Philippe De Villiers was the Vendée council president (and I think he held that role for over 20 years, along with being one of the department's MPs/MEPs for a long time), and he endorsed Marine Le Pen at the last election so it's not exactly the same type of right you'd see in the parisian suburbs that used to dominate the Vendée. That's why it's interesting.

Villiers is a product of the old reactionary, quasi-monarchist and ultra-Catholic tradition of the Grand Ouest, of which Vendée was the epicenter. However, that tradition was already well on the decline 10 years ago, and it's not that surprising to see it dissolve completely into Macronism. Flamby already did shockingly well there in 2012, and Le Pen's scores have never been very strong. Villiers was more of a relic of an era that was already on its way out when he was around.

By contrast, the Western arrondissements of Paris have never flinched in their loyalty to the mainstream French right in literally a century, if not longer. To see them convert to Macronism is a far bigger shock, and something that should strike fear into the heart of whoever the next LR leader is.

[Antonio the Sixth]

We are over one year away from the European Parliament elections throughout the EU, so it’s time for a thread!

[Antonio the Sixth]

The Spitzenkandidat system was never going to work out as intended whenever serious coalition building was involved. It would have been more undemocratic to impose Weber when he has the backing of less than a quarter of the parliament. Parliamentary systems in any country involve negotiations between parties when no one has an absolute majority (except in Canada, because Canada is weird and f**ked up).

That doesn't mean it's worthless. It's still good to have a general "first offer" to see where a party stands. And sometime one of them might actually be selected if they're accepted to the coalition partners. That is, again, how normal parliamentary systems work.