Nigel’s revenge

Something’s been missing from Westminster these past few days. Normally, in an election week, there is a buzz about the place. Politicians feast off their encounters with the voters, coming back from the campaign trail with new theories about what the public really want. But this time, few MPs from any party seem keen to talk about this week’s local elections — or the impact they are likely to have on Brexit, Theresa May’s tenure in No. 10 and the future of British politics in general. This is because they know that the European elections, which are just three weeks away, will have a huge influence on all of these questions.

The European elections are the vote that was never meant to happen. When the country woke up on 24 June 2016 to the news that the United Kingdom had voted to leave the EU, few would have imagined that almost three years later they would have been voting to send another cohort of MEPs to the European parliament for a term that ends in 2024.