Both sides of Brexit divide have claimed victory, but the truth is far from conclusive

The European election results have left those on all sides of the Brexit divide claiming victory. Here we analyse the results and what they mean for leave and remain.

1. Support for pro-remain parties eclipsed pro-leave parties, despite the Brexit party’s overall victory

Nigel Farage’s Brexit party may have triumphed in the European election by a significant margin, but there is enough data for remain supporters to argue that their side was victorious on the night – and that they could win any second referendum.

There are several ways to make plausible comparisons. The simplest is to compare the Brexit party’s 5.2m votes across the UK with the “Bollocks to Brexit” Lib Dems and the pro-remain Greens, who attracted 3.4m and 2m. Taken together, they come out 142,000 votes higher at 5.4m.

A second method is to take all the pro-Brexit parties – Farage’s party, Ukip and the DUP – and compare that against the pro-remain parties, taking in Change UK and Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalists. That gives you 5.9 million voting unambiguously pro-Brexit and 6.8 million voting for remain parties, including 884,000 from the SNP, Plaid, Sinn Fein and the Alliance Party in Northern Ireland.

2. A narrow pro-remain lead is confirmed when Conservative and Labour votes are factored in

The merit of the first two approaches is that neither tries to take into account the dwindling numbers of Conservative and Labour voters, where it can be argued that both parties retain some support across the Brexit divide. But even so, remain comes out ahead.

Various pollsters have come up with their own formula for how to account for those who stubbornly stuck to the traditional two main parties. Over the weekend Deborah Mattinson of Britain Thinks suggested Tory voters were 80% pro-leave and that a majority of Labour voters – 60% – supported remain.

That yields 2.1 million more for leave composed of 1.2 million Conservatives and 938,000 Labour voters and 1.7 million more for remain made up from 302,000 Tories and 1.4 million for Jeremy Corbyn’s party. Applying that to the totals so far would produce 8.1m votes for leave and 8.7m to remain.

Or to put that another way: 47% for leave and a fraction over 50% for remain (the exclusion of minor parties with less than 100,000 votes nationwide is why the figures don’t add up to 100%): a narrow remain win by 586,000 votes.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Brexit party’s Anna Bailey, Jonathan Bullock, Annunziata Rees-Mogg and Matthew Patten celebrate. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

3. The Brexit party has nevertheless won a major victory, 45 days after it was formed

There are several reasons to be cautious, however, not least because making any assumptions about Conservative and Labour votes is contestable. The margin of the Brexit party’s victory was significant, particularly when considered in terms of the share of the vote – its 31.6% was well ahead of the second-placed Lib Dems’ 20.3%.

That would mean the party would have done disproportionately well if it was a Westminster election. Its share of MEPs, which are elected on a regional list system, was also disproportionately higher – the party won 29 out of 73 available, or 40%.

Glance at the electoral map, which shows results as they are counted, council by council, and the Brexit party is dominant in England and Wales, outside London and the major cities of the south, Midlands and north-west.

In the North East, Yorkshire and East of England constituencies, the party was dominant, winning in Newcastle, Sunderland, Hull, Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield.

Play Video 2:53 Four takeaways from the European elections – video explainer

4. Turnout was far lower than in the EU referendum and not much higher than the last EU elections

Just over a third of Britons – 36.9% – voted last Thursday, an improvement of just 1.5 percentage points on the 2014 election. The total of votes cast including Northern Ireland first preferences was 17.2m – less than the 17.4 million who voted to leave in the 2016 referendum, where turnout was 72.2%.

5. This was not a protest vote – it was a values vote and the politician with the strongest brand took the most advantage

Those explicitly hoping to seek a Brexit compromise – the Conservatives – and those hoping to straddle the arguments – Labour – were emphatically knocked back. The Conservatives’ 9.1% share was the worst it had achieved in any national poll in its history.

Labour, in particular, lost share in pro-Brexit areas such as the North East (17 points) and in pro-remain London (13 points). Underlining the scale of the disappointment, the party was fourth in Sheffield, as well as second in Newcastle and Leeds to the Brexit party. In the south, Labour came fourth in Bristol, Norwich, Brighton and Hove – where the Greens won, the Lib Dems were second and the Brexit party third.

From the moment it became clear that a European election was inevitable, it was obvious the defining issue would be people’s attitudes to the Brexit crisis. The results showed that for leavers the answer was simple: to support the most famous pro-Brexit name on the ballot paper, Nigel Farage. By contrast, votes for pro-remain parties were split and the cause clearly lacked a figurehead.