The most unexpected of elections has produced the most unexpected of consequences. It was an election which most people did not think would happen, which a lot did not want, in which only a minority voted, and in which the winning candidates may never take their seats. Yet for all that, the UK’s European elections of 2019 could prove one of the most consequential destabilisations of the political order in modern British history.

These elections have been a rolling wheel of fire. They incinerated the foundational assumptions of the two largest parties, but ignited new confidence among the successful smaller ones. Their legacy will be complex. In a traditional first-past-the post perspective, the UK result has been portrayed as a triumph for the Brexit party, a party that barely exists, published no manifesto, had only one policy – an unconditional Brexit – and only one figurehead, Nigel Farage. From nowhere, the Brexit party captured 32% of the vote and won 29 of the UK’s 73 seats in a parliament it despises, destroying its Ukip ancestor and the Conservative party along the way.

Don’t belittle that. The Brexit party’s success, and the anger that fuels it, are real. But don’t exaggerate it either. It is not the whole story. Overall, the anti-European parties faltered. The Brexit-Ukip-Tory total in 2019 – 43% of the vote – was markedly lower than the Ukip-Tory total in the 2014 EU elections – 51%. And Brexit anger is not the only anger any more. Anti-Brexit indignation found its voice too. More voters abandoned old cautious parties to vote for remain parties than for leave ones. There will be more pro-European MEPs going to Brussels from Britain than anti-European ones. Seen as a whole, the 2019 election mirrored the consistent poll finding that there is a steady majority in Britain for staying part of Europe.

Pro-European voters rallied in renewed strength behind the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists and, even though they did poorly, Change UK. These results utterly destroy the claim so often made on the right, that the British people just want their government to deliver Brexit, if necessary through a no-deal crash-out from the EU. The truth is that barely a third of the electorate voted for this, while nearly two-thirds voted against it. These results give the lie to the claim that Britain is clamouring for a no-deal Brexit.

Those who claim otherwise should be challenged relentlessly. That goes not just for Mr Farage but also for most of those who are auditioning to succeed Theresa May, and who are making similarly foolish claims. These results are a terrible indictment of the Tories and of the failure of Brexit. Think about it. In an election that can reasonably be seen as the most engaged EU election in UK history – the first in which turnout rose – the governing party has won support from fewer than one in 10 British voters for its Brexit policy. To pretend that the election of Mrs May’s successor confers any kind of a mandate to wreck this country’s relationship with Europe still further would be an outrage.

Yet the election confers no mandate on Labour either. The main party of opposition did not do quite as badly as the main party of government, but Labour’s 14% is almost as derisory and plumbs new depths. It poses almost as great an existential challenge as the one facing the Tories. Instead, the Lib Dems trounced Labour for the first time with an unambiguous pro-European message, while the Greens came close to pushing Labour into fourth. Labour’s hopes of winning a Commons majority now look more tenuous, after drubbings in London, where it came second, and Scotland, where it won only 9% of the votes.

The picture of the old duopoly fragmenting into a more pluralist politics is not confined to Britain. It was also a strong feature of the EU elections in several of the 27 other EU states. There, as in Britain, greens and liberals on the one side, and nativists on the other, have challenged the old hegemony. They have not destroyed the old two-party system. But they have weakened it in ways that the old parties ignore at their peril. Here, as in so many other ways, Britain is part of Europe.