Jacobin Radio: Breaking Down the European Parliament Elections

Two interviews on the results of the May 26 European Parliamentary elections, which did not cleanly match predictions that there would be a further shift to to authoritarian hard-right parties. The biggest losers across the continent were the center-right neoliberal mainstream parties, but the shift to the Right was not as pronounced as feared. First, Sebastian Budgen, contributing editor for Jacobin, analyzes the election across Europe, especially in France, where the failed policies of the center were critical in understanding the results. We also get his take on the continuing protest and promise of the gilets jaunes social movement. Then Kevin Ovenden takes a deeper look at the vote in Great Britain, where the upset couldn’t have been more pronounced in the wake of the repeated failure by the Tories’ Theresa May to implement Brexit. The Conservative Party had its worst result in history, but Labour also lost votes, as Jeremy Corbyn tried to bridge the divide between those in favor and those against Brexit. The newly created “Brexit” Party of Nigel Farage took first, with the center Lib-Dems in alliance with Scottish and Welsh nationalists and Greens doing very well.