European elections are a second referendum in all but name

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the polling booth, the elections to the European Parliament are upon us. The parties that expect to do badly – let’s face it, the Tories – dismiss them as irrelevant, when in fact it is the Tories that are irrelevant. Those who hope to clean up, or at least to make a splash, most obviously the Brexit Party and the Liberal Democrats, regard them as a lifeline to the future.

Elections are normally about getting elected. The clue is in the name. But not this time. This time, it’s not the number of seats that matters, but the total number of votes delivered for Leave and Remain.

Viewed this way, the contest becomes the most exciting since the 2016 referendum.

I think we can reasonably assume that most Brits who want out without a deal will vote for Nigel Farage’s Brexiteers. That’s what Farage says he stands for. In fact, it’s all he knows. He’s not interested in May’s withdrawal deal, or any other deal. He want us OUT. Those who agree with him have a clear choice.

On the Remain side, those who feel there should be a second “Peoples’ Vote” after all that’s happened should place their X’s in favour of the Lib Dems, Change UK, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein, the Alliance Party or the SDLP – even, at a pinch, the Labour Party. Now that Jeremy Corbyn is (more or less) onboard with the idea of a “confirmatory” vote, it doesn’t greatly matter which.

Traditional Tory voters need to acknowledge that voting Conservative in this particular instance would be largely meaningless – an endorsement of the infighting and chronic indecision that have hobbled Westminster for the last three years. Ranging from Remainers, to Soft-Brexiteers, to out-and-out No-Dealers, the party is a coalition of the incompetent.

On that, if on nothing else, the jury is already in.

Much will no doubt be made of the number of seats won by the Brexit Party, which the pollsters estimate could be anything from 20 to 30 – maybe more. Who knows? Never would the epithet “bragging rights” been more appropriately bestowed. But every bit as important (unless you’re Theresa May) will be the aggregate Remain vote.

If Farage succeeds in securing more than half of the total number of votes cast, the fog of Brexit must surely lift. The once and future MEP will be in an unassailable position to push for No Deal. If, on the other hand, there is a combined majority for a second referendum, then that is what must happen. No ifs, no buts. Either way, Theresa May should resign at once and call a general election, to be held on June 27.

Not that I’ll be holding my breath.

So, to be clear: the ballot to be held in two weeks’ time is not about which individuals we send to Strasbourg on July 1. It is not about who your next MEP is going to be – as if you cared! It is about Britain staying in or leaving the European Union. It is a referendum in all but name.

The danger is that parties that should know better, but don’t, will muddy the waters. Corbyn & Co. are the most likely culprits here, with their neo-Marxist bleating about the virtues of the next Labour Government. No one should vote for Labour, or, for that matter, the Brexit Party, because they want a better-funded NHS, or because they oppose HS2, or because they think more money should be spent on national infrastructure north of Watford, or because they want something done about gangs and knife crime. The European elections are about none of these things (and would not have been even if Remain had won the referendum). Voters might well feel that austerity has reached its spend-by date and that Theresa May and her “colleagues” are a waste of both time and space. Alternatively, they may fear that a Corbyn-McDonnell government would be but a prelude to the re-emergence of the Gulag. They may even take the view – difficult to refute – that the Lib Dems are all mouth and no trousers. But that is no reason to vote for Ann Widdecombe or Annunziata Rees-Mogg.

Should we leave or should we stay? That is what these elections are about. That is what the campaigns should be about. It couldn’t be simpler. Everything else will follow from what is revealed on polling day. Which way the vote will go, I wish I knew. As a Remainer, I can only hope for the best.

Nigel Farage is a political bully who would surely have thrived in the Britain of the 1930s. He is a braggart, best known for the insults he heaps on the heads of anyone who stands up to him, Andrew Marr included. But he has done us all a favour. Had he not decided to “come out of retirement” (a revealing slip from a man who has been handsomely rewarded for representing South East England in the European Parliament for the last 20 years), we would almost certainly be stuck in the purgatory of Brexit for the rest of this wretched parliament. Either that or flung out on our ear by an exasperated EU. He has turned the European elections upside-down, giving them a sense of urgency and purpose that in past outings was always lacking.

Now it is up to the voters. Get out and vote – one way or the other. Young gentlemen of England still abed when the polls close should count their manhoods cheap. Young women, too. Because this time, it’s for real.

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