{"id":216126,"date":"2019-05-26T23:30:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-27T03:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=216126"},"modified":"2019-05-26T23:30:44","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T03:30:44","slug":"brexit-party-wins-conservatives-bashed-in-uks-eu-voting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/05\/26\/brexit-party-wins-conservatives-bashed-in-uks-eu-voting\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit Party wins, Conservatives bashed in UK&#8217;s EU voting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fbrexitpartyuk%2Fposts%2F296367484581356&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"650\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nLONDON &#8212; Britain&#8217;s governing Conservative Party was all but wiped out in the European Parliament election as voters sick of the country&#8217;s stalled European Union exit flocked to uncompromisingly pro-Brexit\u00a0or pro-EU parties.<\/p>\n<p>The main opposition Labour Party also faced a drubbing in a vote that upended the traditional order of British politics and plunged the country into even more\u00a0Brexit\u00a0uncertainty. The big winners were the newly founded\u00a0Brexit\u00a0Party led by veteran anti-EU campaigner Nigel Farage and the strongly pro-European Liberal Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>With results announced early Monday for all of England and Wales, the\u00a0Brexit\u00a0Party had won 28 of the 73 British EU seats up for grabs and almost a third of the votes. The Liberal Democrats took about 20% of the vote and 15 seats &#8212; up from only one at the last EU election in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Labour came third with 10 seats, followed by the Greens with seven. The ruling Conservatives were in fifth place with just three EU seats and under 10% of the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Scotland and Northern Ireland are due to announce their results later.<\/p>\n<p>Farage&#8217;s\u00a0Brexit\u00a0Party was one of several nationalist and populist parties making gains across the continent in an election that saw erosion of support for the traditionally dominant political parties.<\/p>\n<p>Conservative Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was a \u201cpainful result\u201d and warned there was an \u201cexistential risk to our party unless we now come together and get\u00a0Brexit\u00a0done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The results reflect an electorate deeply divided over Britain&#8217;s 2016 decision to leave the EU, but united in anger at the two long-dominant parties, the Conservatives and Labour, who have brought the\u00a0Brexitprocess to deadlock.<\/p>\n<p>Britain is participating in the EU election because it is still a member of the bloc, but the lawmakers it elects will only sit in the European Parliament until the country leaves the EU, which is currently scheduled for Oct. 31.<\/p>\n<p>Farage&#8217;s\u00a0Brexit\u00a0Party was officially launched in April and has only one policy: for Britain to leave the EU as soon as possible, even without a divorce agreement in place.<\/p>\n<p>Farage said his party&#8217;s performance was \u201ca massive message\u201d for the Conservatives and Labour, and he said it should be given a role in future negotiations with the EU.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we don&#8217;t leave on Oct. 31, then the scores you have seen for the\u00a0Brexit\u00a0Party today will be repeated in a general election &#8212; and we are getting ready for it,\u201d said Farage.<\/p>\n<p>But the election leaves Britain&#8217;s EU exit ever more uncertain, with both Brexiteers and pro-EU \u201cremainers\u201d able to claim strong support. Labour and the Conservatives, who in different ways each sought a compromise\u00a0Brexit, were hammered.<\/p>\n<p>The result raises the likelihood of a chaotic \u201cno deal\u201d exit from the EU &#8212; but also of a new referendum that could reverse the decision to leave.<\/p>\n<p>The Conservatives were punished for failing to take the country out of the EU on March 29 as promised, a failure that led Prime Minister Theresa May to announce Friday that she is stepping down from leading the party on June 7. Britain&#8217;s new prime minister will be whoever wins the Conservative party leadership race to replace her.<\/p>\n<p>The favourites, including ex-Brexit\u00a0Secretary Dominic Raab and former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, have vowed to leave the EU on Oct. 31 even if there is no deal in place.<\/p>\n<p>Most businesses and economists think that would cause economic turmoil and plunge Britain into recession. But many Conservatives think embracing a no-deal\u00a0Brexit\u00a0may be the only way to win back voters from Farage&#8217;s party.<\/p>\n<p>Labour was punished for a fence-sitting\u00a0Brexit\u00a0policy that saw the party dither over whether to support a new referendum that could halt\u00a0Brexit.\u00a0Labour foreign affairs spokeswoman Emily Thornberry said the party needed to adopt a clearer pro-EU stance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere should be a (new\u00a0Brexit) referendum and we should campaign to remain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON &#8212; Britain&#8217;s governing Conservative Party was all but wiped out in the European Parliament election as voters sick of &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":216143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-jill-lawless","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216145,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216126\/revisions\/216145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}