The United Kingdom's participation in the European elections, almost three years to the day after voting to leave the EU, was already surreal. After Sunday evening, 26 May, the situation is even more so, because if Brexit Party of Nigel Farage - the former head of UKIP, who campaigned exclusively on the word 'Brexit' - wins, it is also the one that will send the largest national contingent of MEPs to the European Parliament on 2 July.
This, of course, if no other event precipitates the United Kingdom's exit by then, which seems unlikely at this stage, as the country will be entering a period of appointing a new Prime Minister, there will therefore be 29 Brexit Party MEPs in the European Parliament in July. The largest national contingents are then those of the Italian League of Matteo Salvini (28 deputies) and the Rassemblement national of Mrs Le Pen (22 deputies).
The Brexit Party won its bet by a wide margin, to everyone's surprise, not Jeremy Corbyn's Labour, but Vince Cable's Lib Dems (ALDE) who campaigned exclusively on the 'remain' and a second vote. They won 16 seats, ahead of Labour. With 11 seats, the British Labour Party lost 7 elected seats compared to 2014. Jeremy Corbyn's ambiguous position on the potential retention in the EU through a second referendum and his failed talks with Theresa May are probably the reason.
The Tories of Mrs May - who will leave her post as Prime Minister on 7 June, as she announced on 24 May - are in free fall with only 4 elected against the 19 Tories that the ECR group had in 2014. Syed Kamall, outgoing president of the ECR group, is bearing the brunt of this and is one of the MEPs sent home. Ashley Fox is also leaving.
The Tories came in 5th place, after the Greens, who scored well with 11 seats.
Strong abstention
However, Nigel Farage's extremely clear victory should not mask a participation rate that remained fairly low in the country, at 37% (36.6% in 2014). Despite this strong lack of interest in the election, the former UKIP leader sees it as a major message sent to the EU on the exit of the United Kingdom and has described his victory as “historic”; the Tories in power must hear this message, Nigel Farage added overnight.
One of the presidents of the Brexit Party, Richard Tice, also felt that the party should now have a role in the Brexit negotiations with the EU. For him, voters sent the signal that they wanted a “Brexit of the 'World Trade Organization' type”.
In Brussels, Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas merely repeated on Monday that the Commission had only one interlocutor in these discussions on Brexit, in this case the British Government.
European groups are growing, as long as the country remains in the EU
In concrete terms, the Brexit Party will enlarge the ranks of the EFDD, where the German AfD is also currently located, the Lib Dems will boost the ALDE/En Marche with 15 seats; the Greens/EFA will also benefit from the Greens' good standing, just as the S&D can benefit from the Labour seats.
But all this should be reduced in November 2019, in theory, when the Brexit will have taken place. Boris Johnson, who aspires to replace Mrs May, has already promised that with or without agreement, the country will leave the EU on 31 October, following the extension granted by the Twenty-seven on 10 April (see EUROPE 12233/1).
If this were to happen, the European Parliament groups concerned would therefore automatically see their proportion fall, as the EPP could then regain a clearer numerical lead (it is now credited with 182 seats compared to 216 in 2014). Unless, of course, Nigel Farage and his troops take a liking to disrupt the European Parliament's work and seek to extend their stay in Brussels and Strasbourg. An a priori unlikely scenario, but in this United Kingdom of 2019, nothing seems really impossible anymore. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)