THE results are in and psephologists are furiously scratching their heads to try to understand what they mean.
Whatever the outcome of the boffins’ analysis, the Euro elections have shown that the country is angry that clear direction has been elusive.
However, It is worth remembering that the election last week saw about half the turnout of the referendum in 2016, so it is not fair to absolutely compare like with like.
Looking at the percentages, those parties who are unambiguously supporting Brexit scored around 35 per cent of the vote: those unambiguously supporting Remain (or a second referendum) scored around 36 per cent of the vote.
Labour and Conservatives, with confused messages and guilty of poor leadership, were trounced, delivering around 25 per cent of the vote.
To me, the country looks completely split and thoroughly fed up with what has been a masterclass in poor leadership.
That leadership has moved on. The Conservatives have now lost not one, but two Prime Ministers in just three years over the arguments surrounding Europe.
With Conservatives securing their worse electoral defeat since 1835, there can be no uncertainty over the thorough frustration of the electorate towards my party.
Frankly, I am angry about it too. There was a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement on the March 29 – the date we were supposed to have been leaving.
It was the third time that I had voted in support of the WA, seeking to deliver Brexit and move on to stage 2 of our exiting the EU. The government lost that division by 58 votes.
It is noteworthy that 34 of my Conservative colleagues voted against the government. These Tory rebels are die hard Brexiteers and have a much documented mistrust of the WA.
But had they voted with the Government, we would have won with a majority of 10. Whilst not necessarily a purist’s Brexit, we would have left the EU in early April and would have saved our country the £100 million or so that is needed to pay for the EU elections.
We would still be arguing, but about the terms of our future relationship with the EU, not about whether we leave or not.
The next Conservative leader has an enormous challenge. How can he or she unite the party? How can they create a vision for post Brexit Britain that we can all unite behind – not just us politicians but our divided country?
The coming weeks are so important for the future of our great nation; the challenge huge for our next leader.
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