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The European election inquest will be all about opinions. I will update this post with the best pieces of factual analysis of the results: please do suggest resources and links, and let us know whether the explanations of politicians and parties stand up.
The national UK result and Europe-wide summary (BBC)
The Guardian summarises a miserable night for the centre-left across most of the EU.
John Curtice (The Independent): A disaster for Labour but hardly a Tory triumph
For Labour, the ignominy of coming third for the first time in a nationwide vote since 1922. Its share of the vote was easily it lowest-ever score in a nationwide vote since it first started fighting elections as an independent party in 1918. It only managed to top the poll in the deepest of deepest heartland, the North East of England.
True, most parties of government around Europe lost ground. But the drop in Labour's share of the vote as compared with the last general election looks set to be the one of the biggest suffered by any EU governing party
...
Yet it was far from a night of triumph for David Cameron. The Tory vote was no higher than in 2004, and well down on the 36 per cent William Hague managed in 1999. Hardly a performance to show that the Conservatives are on course for power ... Collective support for non-Westminster parties increased beyond the already remarkable one-third recorded in 2004 to no less than two-fifths.
Make Votes Count say that three out of four voters will be represented by an MP they voted for, ranging from 62% in the north-east to 87.7% in the south-east.
And they have a response to the criticism that PR let the BNP in
Systems don't elect candidates; it is the actions of parties and voters which do. What we have seen in the North West and Yorkshire and the Humber is a failure of the Labour party and the political class as a whole to engage with and mobilise people – at these elections, and more widely.
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