Plaid Cymru environmental and justice campaigner Jill Evans was re-elected to Brussels, while Labour slumped in the vote, losing their second seat to UKIP. It was a good night for the Tories in Wales too, topping the poll for the first time since 1859, a time before universal suffrage for men or a secret ballot.
Labour’s vote in Wales is fragmenting, doubtlessly aided by courting free-market policies that alienated the traditional “working class” vote – as evidenced in Pembrokeshire recently, with a call for “British jobs for British workers”.
Meanwhile, continuing to curtail civil liberties pushes Moet Marxists elsewhere. For UKIP to register such a high vote in Wales appears paradoxical for a country that has been so dependent on European funding.
Their argument that it is “our money” is nonsense: the Barnett Formula does not deliver funding to Wales based on needs, but on population.
Perhaps it is time for the old alliance between Plaid and the Greens to be rekindled: 24,000 more votes would have given Wales another MEP for the European Free Alliance, where both Plaid parties sit. Another MEP of Jill Evan’s calibre and outlook is what Wales needs at the moment: one that toils, not talks.