Considered analysis on the Euro results

The Telegraph is calling this a Tory surge. I rubbed my eyes and checked the figures to be sure. An increase of 1% to 27.7% adding one MEP to their already bloated group. If this is a surge what are they calling the Greens additional 2.4% (the largest gain of anyone standing at these elections)? Oh, that's right - they don't call it anything, we're invisible.

So, today I'm coping with another electoral hangover. It's not as bad as '92 I suppose but, Christ, it would have to be pretty damn dire to come close!

The election was good for the Greens across Europe, just not quite good enough here in the UK to increase our representation. As Ben says "The Greens had set themselves two measures of success: winning more seats, and keeping the BNP out. Though our vote share rose across the country, we didn't achieve either of these aims."

Our arguments in the North West that the left should vote Green to keep the BNP out were born out by the tight result and it is only right that we thank people like Salma Yaqoob and George Galloway who did not simply give a paper endorsement to Peter Cranie but ensured the distribution of thousands of leaflets encouraging their supporters to turn out and vote Green in this election.

I only wish we could thank them from a position of success having beaten Griffin to the final Euro seat. Sadly we now have two fascist MEPs to deal with, but to all those on the left who gave time, money, support and/or their votes despite not seeing themselves as natural Green supporters that assistance has been appreciated more deeply than it's possible to express here.

The BNP have a very poor record as councillors and often struggle to get re-elected because of it. Sadly the performance of our MEPs rarely effects whether they are re-elected. UKIP had no trouble this time round and their representatives have not just been useless they've split, been jailed, not turned up and taken vast buckets of cash for their trouble. Nobody knows or cares if their MEP does a duff job and so we can't rely on the BNP's incompetence to lose them the seats next time around.

The Green increase in vote and county councillors is to welcomed, particularly because we beat all the other parties in Oxford, Brighton and Norwich and it's too tight to call in Lewisham Deptford which means our Parliamentary ambitions are still on target. That's great news.

It seems to me that, leaving aside the small size of the party itself, the two main problems the Greens faced in this election was access to the media and a late attack on the party over stem cell research. Our small media team did a very good job under the circumstances and our party election broadcast was phenomenal but when you have UKIP appearing on every available platform and the Greens fighting to even get mentioned it's frustrating, especially when despite this we saw the largest increase in our vote share of all the parties.

I'll come to the stem cell and general science stuff in a later post when I get the energy (I've said this before but I still mean it!). I've been contacted by quite a significant number of people I know over this and have seen it referenced numerous times so I've no doubt it damaged our vote to some extent. Whether it cost us 5,000 in the North West is impossible to know and I've no intention of speculating about that as you have to take the rough with the smooth.

We didn't lose the North West because of a 'split vote' (which lacks evidence), too few endorsements, the fact that we were alphabetised under 'the' rather than 'green' or a small bit of bad press here and there but because when the votes were weighed the BNP had managed to convince more people to vote for them than we did. If we'd been a bit more credible, or they a bit less, things would have been different but that's the way it's gone.

Our task in the Greens is to build on the advances of the night to create local groups and successes that make a positive difference to people's lives. The party is too small and too often lacks roots and we need to work to improve this if we're to become a truly national party. Our task in the wider progressive movement is to bring people together from many different perspectives and traditions not just to combat the vile British National Party but to tackle the well of reaction and despair from which they draw sustenance.