murphys_lawyer | Onwards, and hopefully upwards

So, the European elections. To nobody's surprise, the Brexit Party have got the largest share of the UK's seats. To almost nobody's surprise, almost nobody is reporting that this is because they've cannibalised UKIP's share of the vote as well as getting a few hard-core supporters from Labour and the Tories, and that this has been a long-term plan (ignore the 2019/2018 typo at the start).

The same thread also makes the point that the Brexit party was started because UKIP was not right wing or authoritarian enough. Combine this with their leaving the public racist baggage behind with UKIP - a remarkably successful branding - and the UK has a very dangerous political party which is already planning its campaign for the next General Election.

So what are the other parties doing?

The Tories continue to fight among themselves for leadership, because the purpose of power is power as far as they're concerned, and if they have to destroy the Conservative Party and the Union to win, it'll be worth it. They can retire abroad and cultivate their magic money trees in the plantations of the Caribbean, or the hot-houses of Lichtenstein if it all gets too boring for them. If we'll get anyone who gives a damn about anything other than themselves in the driver's seat of the clown car it'll be impressive (casts a brief sideways glance at Rory Stewart, 20/1 against at Paddy Power if anyone wants to make a flutter).

Labour continue to be absolute masters of equivocation - not wanting to "break faith" with their followers who voted to leave the EU, but also vaguely understanding they have to hold onto those who didn't vote to leave. They've done as little as possible to keep both sides on board, and while this would have been a brilliant strategy for up to the first year after the Article 50 notification was sent to the EU, it needed an actual plan to start bring remainers and leavers together to begin to work something out. They haven't, and it's now definitely fence-sitting to see how badly the Tories mess up Brexit so they can ride in and save the day. In one of his rare pronouncements, Jeremy Corbyn has said that if anyone wanted to raise the possibility of putting a motion for a referendum on the current deal at the next party meeting, he wouldn't object to it. (Also, he hasn't said he'd support it, the next meeting's in October, and we leave the EU by automatic operation of law on October 31st.)

That's the Leaver and the Shrodinger factions. As for the remainers, the Liberal Democrats are looking more solid than they've been for some time. They've shown a level of contrition for the alliance government they got into: how much they still need to show depends on how well you think they moderated the Tories and you can get a good idea of that by what the Tories did when they got into power without the LibDems. If they can stop their "We're the only party who can beat Farage" call and look towards seriously working with other remain parties, that would be a good next step.

The Greens are, rightly, exuberant, but like the LibDems need to work out how to work and play nicely with others at a higher level than they currently do. They also need to remember that votes for the European Parliament have never correlated well with UK General Elections. (Disclaimer: I voted Green because I like living on this planet, it's going to be much harder for me and mine to do this if we leave the EU, and Majid Majid impresses me.)

I'll leave commenting on the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein and the DUP to those who have to live with them. For now, we seem to have a slight pause in the madness. I'm taking the time to check where I am in all of this, and whether I could be elsewhere, not necessarily a better place, but perhaps a necessary one.