A round up

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Friday, 5 June 2009, 22:27

Most of the votes appear to be in and the BNP has won just three seats. This is not a breakthrough of any sort, especially because in two of three divisions the BNP held district or borough council seats.

I do not have the final figures (and my brain would be too tired to understand them even if I did) but I would guess that the BNP has averaged somewhere around the 12-14% mark. This is of course far too much but it is not an increase on previous years.

And it might not be enough to win European election seats. I had a quick look back at the BNP results in 2004 and it would appear that their European vote was 30% down on their local election vote. There is nothing to suggest that this year would be different. If this is the case then the BNP vote of 19% in Burnley could drop to 13% in the European election, which would be somewhat short of the 16.7% they polled in Burnley in 2004.

Of course there is still everything to play for. The BNP might win no European seats or they might win three – that is how narrow the margin of error is. The BNP is clearly rattled and already warning its supporters that they might not get any seats. I would like to look at it from the other side – the BNP might still win three seats and we must prepare ourselves for that. I hope I'm wrong but it's best to be prepared for the worst.

I'm going to sign off for the night with a final thank you. The fact that the BNP has not got anywhere near the votes it was hoping is down to all of you who have taken part in this campaign.