Ahead of a crucial #Brexit week, a fascinating set of poll results by @YouGov:
- 72 to 21% say UK gov is handling Brexit badly
- 50 to 40% say it was wrong to leave
- 53 to 31% say #Prorogation is not acceptable, incl majority of Tory voters find it acceptable
@YouGov More crucially, by 41 to 43% there is more agreement to a caretaker government plus fresh elections than I thought.
Huge support for this (81%) amongst LibDem voters.
There is also no difference in support for caretaker gov (41vs43) vs. anti no-deal legislation (41vs42).
@YouGov Finally, to continue the eternal problem of #Brexit, there is no majority support for any way out, and the deal on the table is remains the least supported option at 7%.
But no way no deal can claim majority support at 27% either. /ends
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We know by now that the centre held, and the far-right gains were confined to a couple of (important) member states. But what about the new & non-aligned parties?
To get a better sense, I went through the 77 MEPs counted as new/non-aligned by @EuropeElects
After a - very rough - categorisation by political affiliation, some suprising results:
First, about 42 of 77 fall into the far-right/nat conservative group, chief among them the AfD and Fidesz looking for options. But a few of the smaller are closer to the ECR, less for the ID.
Second, with M5S, SMER and BSW amongst others, there is a sizable group of 24 MEPs who roughly fall into the populist left/nationalist left category. Plus a few Communist who are not sitting with the Left EP group.
With all polls for #EP2024 now closed, an attempt to collect my first thoughts.
Main take away: European politics will get more polarising, more politicised and more populistic.
First, the turnout, likely up or stable. This is astounding after mostly boring, nationally focused campaigns. Whereas national mainstream parties invested (too) little in these elections, voters are getting more interested in European politics.
Second, despite high-profile wins for the far-right, across Europe the centre held. This happened even more than expected, with the EPP even gaining ~10 seats, whereas - for now - the liberals are third and the losses of the Social Democrats with -6 are moderate.
2/ On first sight, a very similar perspective emerged from most countries, with a triangle of concerns:
Democracy, Defence and trade.
3/ Democracy: There are fears that a second Trump term could embolden authoritarian & right-wing populist forces in Europe & globally, undermining democratic rules & norms.
His support for illiberal leaders like Orban is particularly worrying for European democracy.
As far-right parties are gaining ground across Europe ahead of the #EP2024 elections, @Beckehrung and I have analysed the geostrategic positioning of different far-right parties across five key dimensions.
For the analysis, we looked at voting in the EP in regards to EU relations with Russia, China, the US/NATO as well as EU foreign and security policy and enlargement.
We analysed 74 votes during the current legislature, and included all parties to the right of the EPP.
Relations with Russia have long been a divisive point between different far-right parties, but they also differ significantly on EU-China relations, transatlantic relations and (to a lesser extent) enlargement.
2) The focus of the report is to get the EU fit for enlargement and strengthen democracy/rule of law.
The UK is mentioned in a half sentence, for an outer tier of Associate Membership with single market integration, if it wants to. Which neither the UK gov nor Labour wants.
3) The publication of the report was long planned for today's General Affairs Council, ahead of further EU discussions on enlargement planned for the fall. The overlap to Starmer's Paris visit was pure coincidence, driver is the EU's enlargement debate.
As someone who argued for more European sovereignty - in a Euro-atlantic framework - I am truly baffled the German government communication and decision-making on Leopard 2. The damage it is doing to German credibility and European sovereignty is hard to overstate. /1
First, The German government is arguing it does not want to act alone ('No Alleingänge'). But so many of its European allies - from the Central/Eastern Europe (Poland, Baltics), North (Finland), South (Spain), Northwest (UK) now want to act and are calling for Berlin to do so. /2
However, the German government is now arguing it needs a US decision to send tanks before it can send Leos or give other European countries permission to do so.
Instead of European sovereignty, this is effectively outsourcing risky decision-making to the US. /3