European elections 2019 how do you vote

The Conservatives are set to win an overall majority of 86 in the general election, according to an exit poll for the BBC, ITV and Sky News.The survey taken at UK polling stations suggests the Tories will get 368 MPs - 50 more than at the 2017 election - when all the results have been counted.Labour would get 191, the Lib Dems 13, the Brexit Party none and the SNP 55.The Green Party will still have one MP and Plaid Cymru will lose one seat for a total of three, the survey suggests.Counting is under way in the UK's 650 constituencies, with a few early results due before midnight, and the rest to come in the early hours, although the final total will not be known until Friday lunchtime. LIVE: Reaction to exit poll as first results awaited Exit poll: What and how accurate is it? Election 2019: The key points you need to know Exit poll forecasts SNP to win 55 seats In the exit poll, voters are asked to fill in a mock ballot paper as they leave the polling station indicating how they have … [Read more...] about Election results 2019: Tories on course to win majority – exit poll

The Democratic Unionist Party's Westminster leader Nigel Dodds has lost his North Belfast seat to Sinn Féin's John Finucane.Mr Finucane's majority was 1,943 votes and it is the first time a nationalist has ever held the constituency.Earlier, Stephen Farry of the Alliance Party won North Down, the first seat declared in Northern Ireland.Mr Farry, deputy leader of the party, defeated Alex Easton of the DUP by just under 3,000 votes.The SDLP took Foyle back from Sinn Féin with a majority of 17,000.In Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Féin and Tom Elliott of the Ulster Unionist Party are neck-and-neck, with a recount now taking place.It is believed 62 votes separate the candidates.A punishing night for the DUPMr Dodds' defeat in North Belfast, a seat he had held since 2001, was the highest-profile indicator of a bad night at the polls for the DUP.The party's deputy leader - a high-profile supporter of Brexit - will not be returning to Westminster.The DUP … [Read more...] about Northern Ireland election results: Sinn Féin unseats DUP’s Nigel Dodds

Candidates in Britain's general election have received four times the abuse they did ahead of the 2017 ballot, a new survey has revealed. Analysis by political technology company PoliMonitor of nearly 140,000 tweets mentioning candidates published on November 11 — the first official working day of the campaign — showed that in 16.5% of cases candidates received abuse of insulting remarks. "This is over four times the amount of abuse candidates were estimated to receive in the 2017 General Election," PoliMonitor said in a statement. A vast majority (79%) of candidates received no abuse on the period analysed, with the company explaining this may have been because they received "few of no mentions at all that day" on social media. Instead, most of the abuse was concentrated on 150 of the 2,503 candidates. Party leaders including Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Labour head Jeremy Corbyn and Jo Swinson from the Liberal Democrats were the most targeted. They each respectively … [Read more...] about UK election 2019: candidates received four times the amount of online insults as in 2017

We have just all lived through some of the most turbulent times in politics any of us can remember.If the exit poll is correct, and Boris Johnson has secured a majority, then he will have the backing of MPs on the green benches behind him to take us out of the European Union next month.A huge junction in our history - a moment that will redraw our place in the world.But not just that - if correct, these numbers could mean five more years of a Conservative government - tipping across a decade.After the fourth defeat for Labour in a row - after several years when they have moved further to the left - this is a serious and historic loss. The SNP have increased their dominance in Scotland, clearing out Conservatives there in a way that leaves most of the country yellow, rather than blue. And it is a failure for the Lib Dems to break through after a campaign that started with high hopes. If these results are correct, this election has been won by a leader, Boris Johnson, who just a year ago … [Read more...] about Election results 2019: Poll could signal historic change ahead for UK

There is only one reason why today’s election is happening: Brexit. Six weeks on, the 2019 election is still a Brexit election. You may want it to be about other things. You may be fed up and distressed with the whole Brexit argument. All this, though, is escapism. What is primarily at stake today is whether Britain leaves the EU on the Conservatives’ terms, or whether it doesn’t. Today, the nation’s votes will decide which it shall be. The leitmotif of Boris Johnson’s campaign has been Brexit. For someone who loves to speechify as much as he does, Johnson’s message discipline has been awesome. “Get Brexit done” has been the “strong and stable” of the 2019 campaign. The slogan is brilliantly succinct and well chosen. But it is a fraud. Johnson did not call the election because he lacked a parliamentary majority for Brexit. A Commons vote on 22 October showed that there was such a majority. But there was no majority for the … [Read more...] about This is a Brexit election. But Boris Johnson will not get Brexit done