Brexit Party punishes Tories and Labour in EU elections
Find out the results from the West Midlands and Welsh vote.
Voters punished the Conservatives for the Brexit debacle – and abandoned the Labour Party too.
The Brexit Party, only set up by Nigel Farage to contest the EU elections, won huge support, with the Conservative Party paying the price.
The Liberal Democrats were the other big winners, with the party’s pro-remain stance bringing back large numbers of voters who abandoned them following the 2010 decision to form a coalition government with the Conservatives.
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The Brexit Party took three of the West Midlands’ seven MEP seats.
Rupert Lowe, one-time chairman of Southampton Football Club, Martin Daubney, ex-editor of Loaded magazine, and Andrew Kerr have been elected for the party.
In his acceptance speech, Mr Lowe said: "I want to thank the West Midlands constituents, what I call real people...
"They believe in their community, they believe in their country and they have supported this democratic movement to try and ensure we end up with a sovereign democracy at Westminster.
"We will be working tirelessly now to try and ensure common sense prevails."
Labour and the Tories both lost a seat, securing one each for Neena Gill and Anthea McIntyre respectively.
Ms Gill, who was returned to the European Parliament, was jeered as she attacked the Brexit Party for promoting "division and destructiveness".
The Greens and Lib Dem candidates also took one seat each.
It was a comeback for Liberal Democrat Phil Bennion who lost his seat in 2014.
And Ellie Chowns secured the West Midlands seat for the Greens.
Outgoing MEP Bill Etheridge, who stood for UKIP in 2014 but had been backing the new Brexit Party in recent weeks, offered his congratulations to the party's colleagues.
He said: "I still have s few weeks left of officially being an MEP but I want to give my warm congratulations to the Brexit MEPs who will now represent the West Midlands. Do us proud lads."
In Shropshire the Brexit Party won with 36,260 votes, well ahead of the Lib Dems in second place with 19,505.
The Tories came in fourth with 10,753 behind the Green Party with more than 12,000.
In Telford & Wrekin the Brexit Party finished more than 10,000 votes ahead of second place Labour. The Tories were fourth behind the Lib Dems.
The Brexit Party also came out on top in Powys.
Results from across the region were last night being collated in Birmingham before the seven West Midlands seats were distributed to reflect the vote.
The dominance of the Brexit Party in the West Midlands was replicated in the early results across the country.
In contrast, Change UK, and UKIP both returned disappointing results.
The Remain vote appeared to be split between several parties, with The Liberal Democrats, The Green Party, Change UK and Labour all picking up voters who want to remain in the EU.
The overall turnout for the West Midlands region was 33.10 per cent, with 1,355,222 of an eligible 4,094,486 casting their votes.
Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin had turnouts of 39.08 per cent and 33.05 per cent respectively.
Nigel Farage's Brexit Party gained two Welsh MEPs - Nathan Gill and James Wells - after winning in 19 of the 22 council areas.
Plaid Cymru kept its MEP Jill Evans, coming second in the poll, with third-placed Labour taking the fourth seat with Jackie Jones, ahead of the Lib Dems.
Both the Conservatives and Labour had been braced for a backlash from voters over Brexit.
The European elections took place almost three years after the UK voted to leave the EU because of Theresa May’s failure to get her Brexit deal through Parliament.
They have brought another damaging blow for the Tories after a distinctly lacklustre campaign, and voters have punished Labour too.
