It might be early on a bank holiday Monday in the UK, but the battle to claim last night’s results as a victory for remain or leave has started. Just before 6am, arch-Brexiteer John Redwood tweeted that the big Brexit party win “must be a wake up call to parliament”.
The former Tory party MP, Ann Widdecombe, has won a seat for the Brexit party in the South West of England. Widdecombe said:
It’s very clear … there was only ever one reason for voting for the Brexit party – and that is what the nation has done, big time. What this does is send a very clear message to Westminster – again – that if they don’t sort out leave, at the next general election both the big parties are going to face carnage. 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.
Alastair Campbell is also up early tweeting his thoughts about the European elections. He writes that “facing both ways has proven to be a total disaster” for Labour, but said they could win over the country by backing a second referendum.
France’s Le Monde draws on the big showing of Marine Le Pen’s party, who won the most seats, ahead of Emanuel Macron’s party. “The extreme right comes first in France, Italy and the UK” is its headline. Le Figaro says “Macron sets up duel with Le Pen” . The leftist Liberation puts a different spin on the result. It carries a poster-style front page with a picture of the leader of the Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV) green list, Yannick Jadot, with the headline: “La croissance Verte”, or “The rise of the Greens”
