Salford again backed the Labour Party in this year's European Election, almost doubling the number of votes it gained in the 2009 election, while UKIP more than doubled its vote, the Tories lost votes and the BNP tanked.
The Salford Euro vote was as follows…
Labour Party 18,852
UKIP 15,431
Conservative Party 8,006
Green Party 3,565
BNP 1,571
Liberal Democrats 1,391
An Independence from Europe 893
English democrats 781
Pirate Party UK 335
NO2EU 218
Socialist Equality Party 195
There was a 30.09% turnout, compared to 27.54% turnout in 2009 with Labour piling on an extra 8,052 votes and UKIP adding 8,189 votes. The big losers were the LibDems, leaking 4,107 votes; the BNP, losing 3,247 votes and the Tories, losing 1,813 votes since 2009. The right wing party vote seems to have gone to UKIP, with the collapsed LibDem vote going to Labour.
Salford's results were added to a zillion other local authority votes, and 1,773,296 voters around the North West, last night and a similar pattern emerged. On an overall turnout of 33.66% the North West Euro vote was as follows…
Labour Party 594,063
UKIP 481,932
Conservative Party 351,985
Green Party 123,075
Liberal Democrats 105,487
British National Party 32,826
An Independence from Europe 26,731
English Democrats 19,522
Pirate Party 8,597
NO2EU 5,402
Socialist Equality Party 5,067
The Members of European Parliament (MEPS) elected for the North West were…
Labour Party - Theresa Griffin, Afzal Khan and Julie Ward (one gain)
UKIP - Paul Nuttall, Louise Bours and Steven Woolfe (two gains)
Conservative Party - Jacqueline Foster and Sajjad Karim (one loss).
As well as the Tories losing an MEP seat, the LibDems also lost their seat, while BNP leader Nick Griffin lost his Euro seat. The Greens came fourth in both Salford and the North West but, despite getting 7% of the vote, failed to gain enough votes to grab a seat under the proportional representation system.
Speaking last night, Green Party North West candidate, Peter Cranie, joined many in blaming the media for UKIP's success…
"During the European election campaign the media was dominated by UKIP" he said "The decision by Ofcom to recognise UKIP as a major party put us at an unfair disadvantage. In the last few weeks of the campaign, once people heard about our policies, we gained their support, but it wasn't enough to make up for UKIP's media saturation."
Commenting on the defeat of Nick Griffin, the BNP's leader, he added: "Five years of Nick Griffin has been five years too long. Voters in the North West have outrightly rejected the appalling policies of the BNP by removing Nick Griffin from the European Parliament. However, the scapegoating of minorities that UKIP has traded on in this election is a new challenge. The Greens will continue to work for positive, practical solutions to tackle the issues people are facing in their lives, such as low wages, poor housing and pressure on public services…"
Meanwhile, over 70% of Salford people (and just under 70% of North West people) didn't vote in the Euro Election - showing more disillusionment with the political system...
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