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The 2019 European Parliament election in the UK

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2020

Benjamin Martill Open the ORCID record for Benjamin Martill [Opens in a new window]
Benjamin Martill*
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, 15a George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LD, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: benjamin.martill@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article examines the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK. The main beneficiaries were the newly formed Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats, both of which ran on clear Brexit platforms, while the Conservatives and Labour struggled to attract support. But the Brexit focus of the campaign – and the victory of parties with clear positions on these issues – belied the extent to which the election conformed to the expectations of second-order contest theory, with low turnout, declining support for the governing (Conservative) party, a surge in support for new and small parties, and scant discussion of European Union-level issues. While the vote shows realignment in the UK continues and can tell us much about the shifting politics of Brexit, we should be cautious inferring much from the victory of the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats given the second-order nature of the contest.

Keywords

ElectionsEuropean Unionpolitical partiesUK
Type
Research Article
Information
Italian Political Science Review / Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica , Volume 50 , Issue 3: Special Section on 2019 European Elections , November 2020 , pp. 368 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © Società Italiana di Scienza Politica 2020

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