Winners
Magid Magid
The outgoing lord mayor of Sheffield said the Green party was “just getting started” after winning his seat in the European parliament for Yorkshire and the Humber. Magid came to the UK as a refugee from Somalia in the 1990s and gained notoriety for calling Donald Trump a “waste man” and saying he was banned from the city of Sheffield. He tweeted:
We did it.
— 🚀M
Today is about a Green Wave cascading through Europe & landing on the shores of Yorkshire for the first time. We're just getting started.
This'll be more than a fleeting midsummer night's dream in Brussels. We're going to turn the tide of history!#EUelections2019 pic.twitter.com/91ndUZr8NZΛ G!D (@MagicMagid) May 26, 2019
Annunziata Rees-Mogg
The sister of the arch-Brexiter Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg won a seat for the Brexit party in the East Midlands, where the party took three of the five seats available. Rees-Mogg, who previously stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative general election candidate, described the results as “quite astounding” and said: “The people were telling us they wanted to be listened to.” She said of her brother: “I have no doubt he will be devastated at what has been done to his own party, the Conservatives.”
Ann Widdecombe
The former Conservative MP and government minister won a seat for the Brexit party in the South West, where the overall vote share actually tipped in favour of remain. Widdecombe said: “We shouldn’t even be having these elections. These elections are a clear demonstration of the farce that has enveloped Westminster. I want a clean Brexit and that is where we have to put our pressure.”
Martin Daubney
The former editor of Loaded was elected as an MEP for the Brexit party in the West Midlands, where they won two-thirds of the vote. Daubney, who now describes pornography as a threat to children, said: “For my entire media career as a coal miner’s son from Nottingham I’ve been able to speak with ordinary people. I understand the language of the man and woman in the street and that’s what I think the difference has been with our campaign.”
The United Kingdom is now a sea of @brexitparty_uk blue. We gave the forgotten 17.4million a voice. The future is bright. The people have spoken. It’s time to #ChangePoliticsForGood pic.twitter.com/kFtu2PXux5
— Martin Daubney (@MartinDaubney) May 27, 2019
Rupert Lowe
The former chairman of Southampton football club also won a seat for the Brexit party in the West Midlands. He said: “It’s very exciting, but I will be working pretty hard to ensure that I’m not an MEP past my birthday on 31 October.”
Losers
Tommy Robinson
The founder of the far-right English Defence League got just 2.2% of the vote in the North West, losing his £5,000 deposit. The anti-immigrant activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, told journalists the establishment had “arranged and organised” for him to be banned from social media to scupper his election bid, before sneaking out of the count in Manchester early.
Gerard Batten
The Ukip leader, Gerard Batten, lost the seat he had held in London for fifteen years, after his voters switched to the Brexit party. In November 2018, he was condemned by figures including Nigel Farage for appointing Tommy Robinson as an adviser. A Ukip leadership election is expected on 2 June.
Batten has not announced whether he will stand, but he told Sky News last week: “If I lost my seat in London it would be untenable for me to continue as leader. But I won’t make a decision about what I am going to do until after the European elections because I am getting a lot of people in the party overwhelmingly saying to me, whatever the result is, they want me to continue.”
Carl Benjamin
The anti-feminist YouTuber failed to win a seat for Ukip in the South West. Police announced in May that they were investigating comments he made speculating about whether he would rape the Labour MP Jess Phillips. Benjamin refused to apologise and the Ukip leader, Gerard Batten, defended the comments as satire. Ukip received 53,739 votes in the region, down 29.1 percentage points on their 2014 vote, losing two seats.
Andrew Adonis
The Labour peer and former transport secretary has been a strident anti-Brexit voice, but failed to gain a seat in the South West region for the party. He tweeted:
Very clear that if Labour had been the party of Remain in this election, we would have won
— Andrew Adonis (@Andrew_Adonis) May 26, 2019
Labour lost their only MEP in the South West, picking up 6.5% of the vote.
Rachel Johnson
The journalist and sister of Boris Johnson failed to win a seat for Change UK in the South West, where the new remain party finished last with 2.8% of the vote. Writing for Sky on Sunday before the results were in, Johnson said she did not expect to be in “Bristol, or Brussels or Strasbourg for the foreseeable future”. But, she said: “There are two metrics at play here. Not just the number of remain MEPs elected, but also the total number of votes cast for remain parties. Your vote is a good vote.”
Crispin Hunt
The frontman of the 1990s band the Longpigs, who has written songs for artists including Florence and the Machine and Ellie Goulding, was sixth on Change UK’s list for the South West, so was never likely to be elected. He tweeted at midnight:
Milkshakes at the ready everybody!
— Crispin Hunt (@crispinhunt) May 26, 2019
