One can, of course, choose to ignore the results of the EU election and pretend that they don't have significance, but that would be unwise.
If anything they were a snapshot of public opinion at this time, not perfect and not all-encompassing, but still relevant. A kind of opinion poll. With real people really voting. Which shows a tendency. What did the results show?
That Labour and the Tories position is massively unpopular, as if their Brexit strategy, which is incoherent and muddled. The estremes, Farrage and the Liberals, against and for Europe, did far, far, better. The Brexit schism is actually widening and deepening, which is worrying.
It'w worrying because a house devided against itself will fall, as the saying goes. In times like these creating an 'artificial' split down the centre of the country, is potentially very dangerous going forward. People who don't appereciate the dangers involved, are either fools or knaves. Cameron, was probably both.
I think, given the character of British political life, that the idea that the left is going to profit from the unfolding disaster of a hard Brexit, is fanciful in the extreme. Farrage and Johnson are the winners here, at the moment, by a country mile. A priority for the left should be to stop either one of them becoming PM, riding to power on a wave of nationalism that may have severed and unintended consequences.
I simply see no evidence or even signs that the left, whih includes Labour, are benefitting from this Brexit fiasco, compared to Farrage and Johnson, but maybe I've missed something?
Perhaps we need a really big shake-up? That is Labour splitting and the Tories splitting too? Farrage then steps into the void with his Brexit Party, which could become very large very quickly. The Labour rump might be bigger than what's left of the Tories, but so what?
A hundred Labour MPs join the Liberals along with a hundred from the Tories, this new part then confronts Farrage's lot! What a nightmare that sounds like. The complete meltdown of traditional party politics, with Labour and the Liberals run by old and ineffective leaders, whilst both Farrage and Johnson have massive charism and rhetorical skills and appeal to an awful lot of people.
I think the left have massively underestimated the appeal of Farrage, no surprise there 'cause they are rather dim, and the negative and destructive potential inherent in Brexit.
Looking at the UK from mainland Europe, the UK seems crazy. Everyone I know, mostly Anglophiles, are stunned by what's happening. They used to think the British were calm and rational, not given to flights of nationalist fancy. Ah, I'd say, but you don't know them, just look at Northern Ireland, that could be the future, that kind of dangerous and 'artificial' political schism.
Where is there, on the left, a figure to rival Farrage or Johnson? I think that's a relevant question. I think the left and people who sympathise with the left, ignore this question at their peril.