The two BNP victories were despite their vote going down
Apologies for straying from the usual technology-related matters on this blog, but having woken up this morning and being confronted with a barrage of posts on Twitter like this one ("Okay people ... what happened there? I turn my back for 5 minutes and the North of England goes fascist."), and general despair and fist-shaking at the people of Yorkshire and Humber or indeed NW England, let's just look at the stats, taken from the BBC website.
In the two regions where a BNP MEP was returned, the actual number of people voting BNP has gone down since 2004. In Yorkshire and Humber, their vote shrank from 126,538 to 120,139. In NW England, it was down from 134,959 to 132,094. The reason the BNP got in was the massive slump in turnout that depressed the votes for the major parties and increased the BNP's percentage share of the vote overall: turnout was down from 42.6% to 32.3% in Yorkshire and Humber, and down from 40.9% to 31.7% in NW England.
It was notable last week that people on Twitter were becoming irate because of the constant badgering of other users to ask them to vote. While the BNP vote increased in the UK overall - indeed, it increased in every other region than the two that actually returned MEPs - people were right to badger. Because the BNP's new European statesmen exist purely because of disillusionment with Labour, Lib Dems and Tories.
In the two regions where a BNP MEP was returned, the actual number of people voting BNP has gone down since 2004. In Yorkshire and Humber, their vote shrank from 126,538 to 120,139. In NW England, it was down from 134,959 to 132,094. The reason the BNP got in was the massive slump in turnout that depressed the votes for the major parties and increased the BNP's percentage share of the vote overall: turnout was down from 42.6% to 32.3% in Yorkshire and Humber, and down from 40.9% to 31.7% in NW England.
It was notable last week that people on Twitter were becoming irate because of the constant badgering of other users to ask them to vote. While the BNP vote increased in the UK overall - indeed, it increased in every other region than the two that actually returned MEPs - people were right to badger. Because the BNP's new European statesmen exist purely because of disillusionment with Labour, Lib Dems and Tories.