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Well, the unexpected European Elections are finally here. After her Brexit deal failed to pass the House of Commons, and then failed again, and then failed again, Theresa May was forced to delay Brexit until October. And so here we are, electing MEPs to a Parliament that we may not even be a part of in a year’s time.
Unsurprisingly, that uncertainty over whether our MEPs will even take their seats has led to some uncertainty over how people are going to vote. Fortunately, plenty of polls have been conducted to give us a sense of how people are going to vote.
So far in 2019, 39 opinion polls have been published asking voters how they’d vote in the European elections. The table below shows averages of polls in each week leading up to the European elections. Note that only 1 poll was conducted in the week of 29th April-5th May.
And here’s my weekly seat estimate based on those poll averages:
As you can see, the polls have changed a lot in the past month. In early April, Labour was in first place, leading the Tories by 12pts; UKIP and the Brexit Party were averaging a joint 24%, but it was split evenly between the two parties; the Lib Dems were averaging 9% (up by just 2pts compared to 2014) and the Greens were averaging 6%, less than in 2014. Change UK was tied in last place with the SNP, with the two parties on 5% each.
Almost all of that has now changed. In the week of the election, my poll average now shows the Brexit Party 14pts ahead of Labour and set to win 34% of the popular vote, the best result for any party since 1994. UKIP has totally collapsed and could well end up winning a mere 3%. Change UK have declined slightly to 4%. The Lib Dems have increased their vote share by 8pts to 17% and are now neck-and-neck with Labour, who have fallen to 19%. The Greens are doing slightly better than in early April, but are only estimated to win 8% of the vote (the same as in 2014).
So what does this mean for seats?
On a universal swing, including this would lead to the Brexit Party winning 31 MEPs (42.5%), the best result for any party since 1994 (and the best result for any party ever under proportional representation).*
Labour would lose 4 MEPs, falling to 16 seats (21.9%), the 3rd-worst result for Labour in a European Parliament election (after 2009 and 1979). The Lib Dems would win 10 seats, their highest share of seats (13.7%) since 1999, whilst the Tories would collapse to just 7 seats (9.6%), their worst-ever result. The Greens would lose seats, winning 2 MEPs (-1). As very few polls have been conducted in Scotland or Wales, I have chosen to apply a universal swing to those nations too, which suggests that the SNP would win 2 seats and Plaid Cymru would win 1. However, we shouldn't rule out the possibility that the SNP could win 3 of Scotland's 6 seats.
But what about the Remain/Leave balance? Well, it depends upon how one defines it. If one defines the parties by what sort of Brexit they prefer, we get the following:
- 37% ~ No Deal (Brexit Party/UKIP)
- 33% ~ No Brexit (Lib Dems/Greens/SNP/Change UK/Plaid Cymru)
- 19% ~ Labour Brexit (Labour)
- 11% ~ May's Deal (Conservatives)
If one defines the parties by whether their official policy position is for Brexit or not, we get the following:
- 67% ~ For Brexit
- 33% ~ Against Brexit
In short, the Brexit Party is set to win, Labour and the Lib Dems are neck-and-neck, and pro-Brexit parties are set to win a majority of the popular vote.
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*Although the Tories won more seats in 1999 (36 seats), this was a lower share of seats (41.1%) because the UK had 14 more MEPs at the time than it does today.
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