With the highest turnout in 20 years, European voters had a chance to express their support for a broad range of parties in the recently completed European Parliament election. The increased turnout is an indicator of the fraught political environment and high level of interest for many voters. It was clear that one of the reasons for the high turnout was to send a message to politicians in power. This was most clearly the case in the United Kingdom where Nigel Farage’s new Brexit party won the most seats with 30% of the vote, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 20% of the vote. Labour (~14%) was barely ahead of the Green Party (~12%), and the Tories had a devastating result with only 9% of the vote.
Given the strife around Brexit, this outcome is not surprising. The result is part of an electoral meltdown that is likely to continue into the next election for the mainstream parties in the UK. Overall, the results of the election across Europe met the expectation of a changing electorate. As Kathleen R. McNamara wrote in her blog post for the Monkey Cage, “while the election did not produce any real consensus, its outcome is important. The vote starkly demonstrates the limits of traditional European parties and their policies – and the splintering and polarization of the electoral base across Europe. However, it also indicates a new, if disruptive, re-engagement by citizens in politics.”
While it was clear that concerns over climate change had led to a surge in support for Green parties, results for radical right parties were not as strong as expected. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won the most seats with 23% of the vote in France, edging out President Macron’s Renaissance group, with 22% of the vote. The ongoing success of nationalist and populist parties is a clear sign that voters on the right and left are continuing to abandon mainstream parties. The results for social democratic parties indicate a continuing decline in support. However, there were some cases where radical right parties also did not perform as well as they had in national elections. The Austrian Freedom Party was only able to win 17% of the vote after a major scandal and a collapse of the coalition government. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany won 11% of the vote after having won nearly 13% of the vote in the 2017 Bundestag election. (Full election results are available here.)
