Far right on the ascendency in European elections

The Labour party in Britain were left reeling yesterday as they slipped to overall fourth place at a historic low of just 16% of the proportional vote for the European elections held last week.

Voters across Europe deserted mainstream parties in favour of fringe parties or simply abstained from voting, in what some analysts say is a backlash to perceived economic inaction surrounding the global financial crisis.

In Britain, voters were still reeling from the cross party MP expenses scandal. Labour appeared to be most heavily hit with an almost 10 point drop in overall votes, but the conservatives, whilst finishing on top, also did not receive the expected surge in support from their previous showing. They did however hold their ground and led the party vote split with 27% share of the vote.

The centre left parties were the biggest loser across 27 Euro member states with the Centre right coalition cementing its place as the largest voting bloc. The BBC has a rather nifty interactive chart showing the results here

There was also a notable rise of nationalist or specifically anti-immigration (often outwardly racist) parties in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovakia and the United Kingdom.

The British political establishment appeared in despair at their failure to mobilise voters against the far right British National Party (BNP). The party has now broken into the mainstream by securing two seats in the EU parliament.

The Swedish “Pirate Party” won a historic seat in the parliament running on an internet privacy platform, after polling 7.4% of the vote in Sweden. Support for the party increased markedly in April after a Stockholm court sentenced the four original founders of file sharing website the Piratebay to a year in jail.

NP