So after all the talk of expenses, sleaze and massive protest votes the election went off with the usual apathy that symbolises a European Election.

Less than 35% of the eligible voters came out and put their cross in the box, yet we hear talk in the media of a massive victory for the Conservatives and UKIP, so I thought it was time the results were put in context.

TURNOUT: 14,032,420  ELECTORATE:  40,300,527 34.82%
  Votes MEPs
Party Total % Total +/- % of Electorate
Conservative 4,198,394 27.7 25 1 10.42%
(+1.0)  
UK Independence Party 2,498,226 16.5 13 1 6.20%
(+0.3)  
Labour 2,381,760 15.7 13 -5 5.91%
(-6.9)  
Liberal Democrats 2,080,613 13.7 11 1 5.16%
(-1.2)  
Green Party 1,303,745 8.6 2 0 3.24%
(+2.4)  
British National Party 943,598 6.2 2 2 2.34%
(+1.3)  

The Conservatives managed to convince just 10% of the electorate to vote for them, and with this underwhelming vote of confidence are representing us with 25 MEPs, second place goes to UKIP who with just 6% of the public vote get 13 MEPs, and poor old Labour gets knocked into third place with just under 6% of the vote and get 13 MEPs.

These are not figures any of us should be proud of, in a democracy we need to use our vote to make a difference, we now have 25 Conservative MEPs when 90% of the people in the UK didn’t vote for them.

This wasn’t a victory for the Conservatives or UKIP, it was a show of just how many people are totally disillusioned with our political system.

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