you're watching a bbc news eu elections special with the brexit party a clear winner, the lib dems taking second place and a very tough night for the conservatives and labour. nigel farage says he's ready to take on the biggest parties at westminster — after the brexit party took nearly a third of the vote... and 29 meps. we have a mandate and want the government to include us in their negotiating team. we have got to get ready for leaving the european union in october 315t. there is an awful lot we can do. a successful night for the liberal democrats, who campaigned to stop brexit, coming second with around 20% of the vote.

i'm carrie gracie at westminster, where the two main parties have suffered heavy losses. the conservatives are pushed into fifth place with an historic low of less than 10% of the vote. one minister says it's time to rethink their strategy. it is a wake—up call to my colleagues in parliament we have to deliver on the instruction of the british people in 2016, with the brexit referendum. and pressure onjeremy corbyn to back another refendum after labour falls to third place overall. he says the party's position remains unchanged. what this party does is supports an agreement with the european union to prevent crashing out, supports putting that proposal, when agreed, to a public vote. we'll bring you all the results and the picture across europe, where turnout is up and the traditional parties have lost out to smaller ones.

good afternoon and welcome to this bbc news special. in a major blow for the largest parties at westminster, the brexit party has emerged as the clear winner in the poll for a new european parliament. formed only recently, nigel farage‘s party have won 29 seats and received almost a third of the share of the vote. both labour and the tories posted some of their worst results ever, with the liberal democrats taking second place on an anti—brexit platform. jeremy corbyn, pressed by some senior labour figures to back another referendum, said the party's position had not changed but they had a responsibility to listen and to ensure a public vote

on any brexit agreement. with only northern ireland still to declare, let's take a look at the results in detail. the brexit party gained the largest share of the vote with 32%. the liberal democrats took second place with 20% of the vote, up 13 points compared to the last eu elections in 2014. labour came third with 14%, down 11 points on 2014. the greens increased their support, gaining 12% of the vote. the conservatives fell to a historic low, with just 9% of the vote, putting them in fifth place. the snp dominated the poll in scotland with a big lead over the other parties. the uk independence party, winners in 2014, saw their vote fall heavily to just 3%. the new change uk party also failed to make an impact

with only 3% share. in total, 73 seats in the european parliament were up for grabs in the uk. the brexit party have won 29 seats. the lib dems have 16 — they gained just one in 2014. labour have ten meps, a loss of eight. the greens more than doubled their seats, with seven meps, up four. and the impact on the conservative party is clear — they've gotjust four meps, down 15. in scotland, the snp won three seats. while in wales, plaid cymru have won one seat after beating labour. counting in northern ireland got under way this morning. our first report comes from our political correspondent tom barton. a warning his report contains

some flash photography. smiling faces for members of a party that was only launched six weeks ago. the brexit party, the clear winners of this election, taking almost a third of the vote and 29 meps. brexit! the party's leader saying that this could be just the start. if we don't leave on october the 31st, then the scores you have seen for the brexit party today will be repeated in a general election and we are getting ready for it. be repeated in a general election and we are getting ready for itm wasn't just a and we are getting ready for itm wasn'tjust a good night for the brexit party. those standing on a clear remain platform also made great lea ps forward. clear remain platform also made great leaps forward. the greens beat the conservatives into fourth place.

while it was a champagne moment for the liberal democrats, coming in second with 20% of the vote. this is the first time in 100 years where we have beaten both the conservative and labour party in the same election and we are clearly able to demonstrate that both the conservative and labour party did badly because they were absolutely split, could not articulate what they wanted on brexit. we made it very clear we are the strongest remain party. the one thing that is clear from this result is that voters don't like the tight rope work brexit compromises that the two main parties have been offering up until now. what does that mean for the future? both for labour and the conservatives, it means they are going to be under pressure to adopt a simpler, clearer positions. for the tories, devastation at the polls is likely to see leadership candidates taking an even tougher

position. this is the worst result in our party's history in elections and it is a wake—up call to my collea g u es and it is a wake—up call to my colleagues in parliament that we have to deliver on the instruction the british people gave us in 2016, the british people gave us in 2016, the brexit referendum. in scotland, labour has been wiped out in the face of an snp surge, while in wales, the party was forced into third place. the pressure now on the leadership, including from some senior voices to back another referendum. jeremy corbyn today promising to listen. what you have from me today is a commitment that out from me today is a commitment that our party is listening to its members and its supporters and reaching out to other parties across the house of commons to prevent a crashing out with a new deal. a commitment that the future will of course put to a public vote, as we have already proposed in parliament. these results providing no easy a nswe i’s

these results providing no easy a nswers for these results providing no easy answers for the parties when they return to westminster next week. let's go to westminster now. carrie gracie is there with the latest reaction. the sun has come out again. yes, a tough night for the conservatives and labour and with the tory leadership race already under way, last night is likely to have a big impact on how theresa may's prospective successor pitches their solution. but labour are also losing ground. with me is our chief political correspondent vicki young. we heard in that report a government minister saying we have to deliver 01’ minister saying we have to deliver or else. and it was a message theresa may told them many times but they did not listen. i think her hope was that these results would focus the minds of mps but we are way past that. she has already left the scene. but the question is, what

impact will it have on that leadership contest. if you are a tory leadership candidate looking at these, thinking nigel farage is the new enemy. are they going to move towards a more no deal argument, that will be the temptation because it is the tory grassroots who vote them into position, and we know they don't have so much of a problem with no deal. but in the end it has to be something that can get through parliament and what these results show us is that the country is still very split, parliament is very split, and it is a turnout of 37%, there is a turnout of another 30% that would usually vote in a general election and we have no idea where they votes would go. and we heard about the, told you so, type of messages, which were notjust for the conservative party but also labour, because plenty of their seniorfigures have labour, because plenty of their senior figures have said, labour, because plenty of their seniorfigures have said, you sit in the middle of the road, you get squashed. to a certain extent, they will be saying, i told you so. yes,

and they are getting in a tangle about this. last night, you could see labour mps about this. last night, you could see labourmps in about this. last night, you could see labour mps in northern heartlands who voted brexit, they felt they were losing support to the brexit party. but in the south, saying it is about not being clear ona saying it is about not being clear on a second referendum. when it comes to that, we have had jeremy corbyn talking about a people's vote, but suggesting that could mean a general election. we have caught up a general election. we have caught up with john mcdonnell, a general election. we have caught up withjohn mcdonnell, the shadow chancellor today, and this is what he said about the possibility of another referendum. we are faced with the prospect of no deal which could have catastrophic consequences. could have catastrophic consequences. a tory leader being elected on that basis no matter what the damage to jobs. elected on that basis no matter what the damage tojobs. we have got to prevent that. we want to avoid a general election but realistically, there are many tory mps voting for a general election, so the best thing

to do would be to go back to the people in a referendum and i think that's what our members want. if there can be a deal, great, but it needs to go back to the people. if there is a no deal, we have got to block it. we have got to argue the case against it. i suppose for everybody, their message seems to be, more clarity. the clarity came from the brexit party very clearly saying, we just need to get out, get up without a deal, that is fine. and the liberal democrat saying, we want another referendum, we want to stop brexit. equally the greens. they are the parties that benefited. but it is a massive problem for labour. i read that asjohn massive problem for labour. i read that as john mcdonald saying massive problem for labour. i read that asjohn mcdonald saying a referendum in any circumstances. and welsh labour have broken ranks, saying the same thing, we just need to go back to the people with whatever the outcome is, and welsh

labour saying they would clearly campaign to remain. one last thing, before i let you go, this is a very high. you can still hear him. absolutely. and that is it from me now. we will go back to the studio. let's take a look at the overall results across the rest of europe and the spread of seats in the european parliament. the big centre—right and centre—left blocs have lost their combined majority amid an increase in support for liberals, the greens and nationalists. pro—eu parties are still expected to be in a majority but the traditional blocs will need to seek new alliances. the liberals and greens had a good night, while nationalists were victorious in italy, france and of course the uk. however, the centre—right european people's party does remain the largest bloc and analysts say it is likely to form a grand coalition with the socialists and democrats bloc, with support

from liberals and the greens. negotiations and horsetrading lie ahead. they will begin when the european union heads of government meet for dinner on tuesday night to analyse the results. meanwhile, turnout was a surprise. the number of people voting rose to 51%, up from 42.6% in 2014, bucking a long trend of decline in voter numbers and the best since 1994. 0ur europe correspondent damian grammaticas reports. across europe one of the surprises of these elections, green parties. this was germany where they surged into second place. germany's result mirrored the picture europe wide, the traditional centre—conservative right, social—democrat left on the slide, greens and others profited. so now the greens are being courted by those old parties who are looking for their support. people are talking to us. 0bviously they are keen

to have the greens around the table and so if we are invited around to the negotiating table, we will go there. and it is possible the centre—right under pressure might now fragment further. it is a totally new situation, a totally new setup, and i really believe, i am convinced that the vote of the european citizens has a clear message, that the european union must be reformed in order to be strong again. for the greens and all the other parties how their national results translate into power here in the european parliament is through the alliances they can forge and what is clear is that the surge some predicted for far right, anti—eu forces hasn't materialised. that didn't mean any real celebrations for emmanuel macron's party in france. it was beaten, just, by marine le pen's far right eurosceptics, but it wasn't a decisive win for her. her share of seats may actually have fallen. it was matteo salvini's far right league in italy that was a big winner.

however, his allies elsewhere in europe stumbled, losing seats, limiting his influence. so the most significant gains of all may have gone to the liberals. their candidate might now be in with a chance of securing the top eu job on offer, president of the european commission. the monopoly of power is broken and this is of course why we can do something else. 0verall then, the eu centre under pressure has held firm, but change may still be coming. damian mcguinness is in berlin. first of all, on the social democrats, they seem to have had a dreadful night not just democrats, they seem to have had a dreadful night notjust in european parliament elections. they are really struggling. this is the party

thatis really struggling. this is the party that is allied with angela merkel‘s conservatives, but their left wing grassroots and their left—wing members don't want to be in government. they are blaming this gross embrace with the conservatives for their appalling poll numbers and —— close embrace, and there is growing pressure now on that party to break away from the government, quit the coalition, which would bring the german government down. that is unlikely to happen over the next few weeks but we have got as a key state elections in germany over the next few months, in the autumn in particular, and the centre—left social democrats are expected to do really badly there to. if that happens, it is almost inevitable that this government may not see its full term, so that has a number of implications, clearly within germany but also eu wide, because they would be fresh elections in germany and

the news from the european elections, the bad news, particularly for the centre—left, but also for angela merkel‘s party, means it is even more likely that this government in berlin will not see out its full term. the implications as well are serious in terms not just of implications as well are serious in terms notjust of the opposition but also angela merkel already on a slow exit, some have speculated, i saw it in the irish press only on the weekend, that she might be the best hope for europe as a new role of president of the european commission. is there any thought in berlin that is a serious prospect? about once a week we are get a rumour that is going to happen and every time she rejects it. we have it regularly. she has been suggested as this person going for one of the topjobs in as this person going for one of the top jobs in germany, as this person going for one of the topjobs in germany, she has denied anything of this sort, so she has said she will not stand for a top eu job. we are going to have more rumours like this over the next few

months and she will have to decline them again. what it does show is that this result is a big blow for her party, not necessarily for angela merkel herself, because she was not really present in this eu campaign, but it does not bode well for her successor as party leader, who some say could become germany's next chancellor, but these results in these european elections show that actually, under her leadership, the party isn't doing fantastically, so it does make it less likely rather than more likely that she might step into the shoes as chancellor after angela merkel eventually does go. can i ask you something more domestic in the uk, and that is in the light of theresa may's announcement at the end of last week that she was going and the debate already under way in the conservative party, they talk about a no—deal brexit, has that made any impact in political circles in germany? i think the brexit debate

is being watched closely in berlin, particularly by german business, particularly by german business, particularly by german business, particularly by every political actor. i think german voters have com pletely actor. i think german voters have completely switched off because it is impossible for many german voters to follow. i think they just view it as chaos in britain. i don't think it is discussed in the general population that much, but political leaders, business leaders, look at the prospect of no deal with horror, so they would do almost anything to make that not happen, to avoid a no—deal brexit, they call it a chaotic brexit in germany, but the thing they would not do is undermine eu solidarity, so what we are seeing as well is any sense of chaos or any sense of problems with the brexit process is still being fairly squarely put towards britain, so i think the general opinion in germany that it think the general opinion in germany thatitis think the general opinion in germany that it is a written problem, a

westminster problem, an internal tory problem even, and that germany now, more than ever, should stick to the general eu line, which is really not watering down the eu, not undermining eu solidarity, so it is probably what we have seen, and which is important to note in the brexit debate, given that angela merkel‘s party is now weaker than ever, given the weakness and the instability within the german government, that makes it even less likely that germany would countenance reopening any sort of dealfor the brexit countenance reopening any sort of deal for the brexit negotiations with a future tory leader because i think germany is going to be so focused on domestic problems and when the eu debate comes up in germany it is more about sticking to the line in brussels, so there is less room for negotiation and less room for compromise than ever when it comes to brexit. thank you very much. the snp has comfortably topped the poll in the euro elections

in scotland. the party won almost 38% of the vote, increasing its number of meps from two to three. the brexit party secured second place with 15% of the vote, winning one seat. the liberal democrats gained 14% of the vote, the conservatives got 12%. the labour came fifth with less than 10% of the vote, down from 26% in 2014. 0ur scotland correspondent james shaw is in glasgow. good news for the snp, interesting that the brexit party took a seat, ukip have had a seat in the past. they has always been a pro exit element in scottish politics, but what do you make of labour's performance, as a party that was not so long ago seen as such an important player in scottish politics? well, it is a really shocking result for labour, to see their support fall off a cliffe, it

is presumably something they were not expecting. they knew it was going to be a difficult night but for it to be such a bad night will come as a bit of a shock to the labour party in scotland. they lost both their meps, including david martin, the longest serving uk nep, and last night he was clearly devastated by that result, as many people in the labour party will be. just a couple of minutes ago, purely by chance, i bumped into richard leonard, the leader of scottish labour, andi leonard, the leader of scottish labour, and i asked him how things we re labour, and i asked him how things were going, and his response to me was very short and brisk, how do you think? and you can't understand that that gives a sense of how difficult a morning, how difficult a day and an aftermath of this is for scottish labour. i remember david martin 20 yea rs labour. i remember david martin 20 years ago plus, they had a fine

discussion on camera about the future of the european union, and a lot of labour figures now being critical of the party's position, attacking richard leonard for having backjeremy corbyn on this question of being ambiguous on the referendum. is that an argument that has been suppressed during this campaign? in retrospect, you can see it is pretty obvious, when you have a party of the united kingdom, a nation like scotland, so sharply defined by being a remain part of the uk, 62% voted remained back in 2016, and the parties who did really well here, as perhaps in other parts of the uk, are the ones that had very defined positions. the snp went into this election spelling out that they were the party against exit. if you wanted to make a statement against brexit, you voted snp, and that message really seems to have cut through. likewise with the brexit party itself, but to a lesser

extent because that is a minority interest in scotland. there has to bea interest in scotland. there has to be a question as to whether it might have worked in other parts of the country but the idea of being neither one thing or the other, was that ever going to work for voters in scotland ? that ever going to work for voters in scotland? things have been difficult for scottish labour, goodness knows, since the independence referendum, when their support started to drop very badly. this is another blow to a party which used to be the establishment party in this part of the world, but now those days do seem like quite a long time ago. thank you very much. that was the view in scotland — now to wales where the brexit party won the largest share of the vote nigel farage's party won almost a third of the vote — with 32% — giving the party two meps. plaid cymru came in second — with 20% of the vote. labour in third — with 15%. the liberal democrats closely behind with 14%. the tories lost their seat

and dropped to fifth in the vote, just ahead of the green party, ukip and change uk. let's get the details of the results in wales. felicity evans in cardiff. already suggestions that mark dra keford already suggestions that mark drakeford is shifting his position or under pressure to do so. yes, that's right. an historically bad result for labour last night. this has been a machine that has dominated wales elections for 100 yea rs dominated wales elections for 100 years so coming third a major blow not only for the party but to their new leader mark drakeford and we have had an apparent repositioning from him this morning, as you suggest, in a statement that says, among other things, faced with the damage of a hardline tory brexit, does labour believe the final decision must be made by the public ina decision must be made by the public in a referendum. when pressed on whether that means an unequivocal commitment to a referendum, one party source said it absolutely

does, though the statement itself obviously could be a little clearer on that. it is worth mentioning there are celebrations today for another new party leader, adam price of plaid cymru, they came second, an historically good result for them. the question will be whether they can build on that momentum going forward into the next set of assembly elections. and on the question of where wales stands after these sets of results, pretty divided seems to be the answer. if you tally up the lead votes and the remaining votes, there is a small margin infavourof remaining votes, there is a small margin in favour of remain but it is very small, and given that turnout was so low, only 37%, it is difficult to extrapolate from that any strong feeling about where wales is, especially when you consider that in the 2016 referendum when wales voted to leave the eu, turnout was more than 70%. thank you.

in the yorkshire and humber region, the brexit party took three of the six seats. labour won one seat but lost another, with the liberal democrats and the green party gaining a seat each. it means that both ukip and the conservative party lost two meps each in the region. the brexit party mep john longworth is here. what do you put your party's success down to? i think people are angry and frustrated that we haven't left the european union, that parliament and the government have an fulfilled the will of the people, despite the fa ct we the will of the people, despite the fact we had a strong result in the referendum and the two major parties had it in their manifestos that they would respect that result. isn't the difficulty with this result, as we heard a little earlier from sir difficulty with this result, as we heard a little earlierfrom sirjohn curtice, in the end all it tells us is that the uk is as polarised if not more polarised than it was at the time of the brexit debate. this

is not an out and out victory for those wanting brexit nor for those opposed to brexit. isn't a problem for politicians that somehow you have got to rebuild some consensus. if we are leaving, what are we going to be like after we have left, and not many people feel disaffected by the fact they voted... i think people are disaffected by the fact democracy has broken down and we are not fulfilling the democratic will of the people. when we have general elections in the uk, we don't elect a party and then say we don't like the result because they only had 40% of the vote so let's have another election next week. this idea of amalgamating parties‘ votes, in that case, do we put everton and liverpool's scores together? that is not really an analogy that stacks up. it is, because this is not a referendum. we had a referendum in which there was a majority of 1.4

million people. two thirds of uk constituencies voted to leave. had it been a general election, it would have been a landslide. but it was not a general election. you have got a parliament that was elected a year after that referendum. and it was elected on a mandate of the two major parties leaving the eu, the customs union and the single market. how many times do you have to tell the establishment? we told them again last night. what role will you play? in brussels, you will take your seat, sick in the european parliament, but on the measure of what you are saying, you will be keen for us to be out on the 31st of 0ctober. isn't it a gigantic waste of time? i was hoping we would never have to get to this stage but while we are in, it is very important that we are in, it is very important that we have people who have the true interest of the uk at heart calling out the eu, because they may do nasty things to us. tell me what

those nasty things might be. there are many things they could do in law that would cause problems for the uk. nigel farage was saying earlier he thinks it is incumbent on any new conservative prime minister to include you in any, not you specifically but your party, in any negotiations with the european parliament. we have a mandate to be involved. the candidates for the brexit party have all done things in life. they are not professional politicians. i have done business on every continent. i've been involved in trade most of my career. and i've been involved with brussels and the eu. we can make a contribution to these things. we certainly couldn't do any worse than the current negotiators. thanks for talking to us. let's cut back to westminster.

in london, labour lost half of their meps. they now have two. here is one of them, mep for london, said dance. was it a nailbiter? a little back, yes. did you feel angry with jeremy corbyn for not climbing off the fence of constructive ambiguity? i'm pretty angry with our stance, certainly. many of us were warning right from the very beginning what would happen if we didn't have a clear position backing a public vote, and backing the option to remain, and saying we will campaign... backing remain in that campaign... backing remain in that campaign. iam pleased now to campaign... backing remain in that campaign. i am pleased now to see that many of the front bench are now saying that is the position we should have had in these elections. and you jeremy corbyn are still

talking about a general election. do you think that is the right idea, given the very damaged performance that we saw last night? if we have a clear position, then yes. it's unarguable that the tory party has lost the faith of the country. what an incredibly terrible result. i don't think we have a clear position at the moment, that has been shown in the european elections, but it is straightforward to fix. i had many conversations on the doorstep with people who have been a lifelong labour voters who would say to me, if you came out for a clear position one way or the other, i could work with something. i could back you. and i said, jeremy has said we will have a public vote on any option, which he said two weeks ago, and it transformed the response of the doorstep, but it was too late.“ there is a second referendum, what that will do is some labour mps are going to suffer in the next general

election. some of them do represent leave seats. the majority of labour voters voted remain. but in a general election, most people don't have brexit as their number one issue, they have a whole range of issues. what the problem with brexit is, if you are not clear about your position on the most fundamental issue facing the country, it is hard to win the trust of voters on everything else. you are saying it, other senior people in the party are saying this today. but still there is no clear move from jeremy corbyn. do you think he will get pushed before conference? will he put it back to the members and say, you must decide? i hope so. we are a member later party. we have a broad range of people who have come into the party from many different traditions within the labour movement. but our membership should beware of the direction of policy is set. i hope it doesn't take cajoling and some kind of nonsense about

proxy contests within the party. none of us are interested in that. we wa nt none of us are interested in that. we want to get this right and we wa nt to we want to get this right and we want to get rid of this awful government. we have to have that clear policy, and members will set that clearly at conference. it should happen before then. that's it from westminster for the moment. let's ta ke from westminster for the moment. let's take a look at the weather. good afternoon. it is a bank holiday monday, so no surprise that the weather is mixed. some grey skies earlier on for this weather watcher in edinburgh. through the afternoon, scattered showers, the heaviest will drift down across wales and the midlands. some outbreaks of rain across the eastern side of scotland. the winds are light across scotland. a relatively chilly night here. not as cold further south where it stays breezy. into tomorrow, still some

scattered showers, especially across central and eastern parts of the uk. further west, not as many showers. more dry weather and some sunshine, but despite that it will feel cool, especially across northern areas. 11 degrees in aberdeen. may be 17 in london. not as warm as it has been. through the week and into the weekend, southern areas will turn warm indeed. we could get to the middle 20s, always the chance of some rain across northern and western parts. more weather to come later on. british number one, johanna konta is through to the second round of the french open for the first time ever. she beat antonia lottner

of germany in straight sets. it's the first time in five attempts that konta hasn't been knocked out in the first round. she'll now play the american, lauren davis. konta has been on a good run of form on clay, reaching two finals and beating some big names along the way. petra kvitova meanwhile has been forced to withdraw from the tournament, with an arm injury. she said on social media she was "truly sad" to have to pull out. england's cricketers are playing their final warm—up match at the oval before the start of the cricket world cup on thursday. england are 102 for one — johnny bairstow stumped for 39. jason roy's just brought up his half century. england won the toss and put afghanistan into bat — and jofra archer took two early wickets. the home side dominated from there, bowling afghanistan out for 160. some more good news for england — bowler marc wood's been passed fit and will be available for their opening world cup game against south africa on thursday. the match descibed as the richest game in football kicks off in half an hour's time.

aston villa and derby county meet in the championship play—off final at wembley this afternoon. at stake is a place in the premier league. i believe completely on my team, because of the squad they have a mass, they are a strong team. people will see that from the outset, they might fancy villa bit, doesn't matter to us. it is a challenge for us that we have to step up to and try to overcome. there is nothing better in football than winning the game you are not expected to win. when you are expected to win it feels good, when you are not, it feels good, when you are not, it feels great. so there is a challenge for us. the big thing as momentum because we feel there is momentum. the run we had in the season, the domination we had in the season, the domination we had in the two play—off games, we can take that settle into our game on monday.

mo farah has won the vitality london 10,000 for the seventh time. the olympic champion was the honorary starter for the race, before finishing ahead of fellow britons andrew butchart and nick goolab. farah said he'd lost track of his winning streak. i this was going to be my sex, even better that it is my seventh! it is nice to come out here and win the race. as i said, andy is a strong athlete, and make is another one. and it was pushing on early on. i had to cover every move, and push at the end, i knew that was what it was going to take. ste p h twell retained the women's title, as she continues her bid to make the british squad for next year's olympic games in tokyo, while daniel sidbury and three—time paralympic medallist shelly woods won the wheelchair races. england's bronte law has won her first lpga title at the pure silk championship in virginia. she had a share of the lead from day one and finished two shots clear of the field with a closing round of 67 — a great victory

after she lost out in a play—off in san francisco earlier this month. i believe in hard work and determination, i really stayed so focused at there today. my caddie did a greatjob keeping me calm. i guess did a greatjob keeping me calm. i gu ess after did a greatjob keeping me calm. i guess after san francisco, gave me perspective that i could compete at the top. i came this week with the sole intention of getting that one better. and it feels really good. that's all the sport for now. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. we are talking about the european union elections. they are still counting in northern ireland, the

one region of the uk that is yet to declare. are corresponded as at that count. 0bviously declare. are corresponded as at that count. obviously a lot of the debate about brexit was about the northern ireland and irish republic border. how much was that a figuring in the debate, and what impact on the result? it very much figured in the debate leading up to the elections. usually politics in northern ireland is defined by the unionist and nationalist divide, but this time people were looking at parties as to whether they were the parties of brexit or whether they were supporting remain. in the last hour or so we have had the results of people's first preference results. sinn fein topping the poll closely followed by diane dodds for the democratic unionist party. but the success story of the day is the alliance party. a party which neither designates herself as unionist nonnationals. it is a remain supporting party, and they

have doubled their share of the votes from 2014 from the last european elections, doubled their first preference votes here. a big success story for that emerging centre ground party because for so long politics in northern ireland has been dominated by the unionist and nationalist divide. brexit has thrown a lot of that up in the air. but it is also a sign of people changing here. voters' habits are changing, not wanting necessarily to be defined by that unionist or nationalist voting pattern, and an emergence perhaps of the centre ground. a big result then for alliance. still none of those three seats of northern ireland confirmed, those three candidates so far out in front, it will take another few rounds of counting to look at second preference votes and so on, because thatis preference votes and so on, because that is the voting system that is used in northern ireland. but sinn fein, the dup and the alliance party taking votes, we expect the result

slightly earlier than before, sometime early evening, that will be confirmed. but those three candidates now so far out in front. very unlikely that anyone else will catch them. it was that third seat that will be the interesting contest throughout the lead up to these elections, because the way that voting patterns are in northern ireland, there is very little swing between unionists and nationalists. it was almost guaranteed that the biggest unionist and nationalist parties would take two of the three seats, but there was always that? 0ver who would clinch that third one. huge celebrations for the alliance party today. i'm sure there will be more big cheers when those seats are finally confirmed later this evening. consolation for naomi long who was at westminster for one period as an mp had lost her seat there. she could be going to europe. for the rest of the uk, could you explain, i had to do this, but could you give us an expiration of how the voting system works? because it is different in northern ireland from the rest of the uk. it is different,

and the reason is the unique politics of the northern ireland because of this big green and orange divide, you need a voting system that guarantees representation for both sides of the community. unionist parties, defined by their belief in the union of the uk, and nationalist parties generally defined because their belief in a united ireland, a belief in northern ireland breaking away from the uk, if you like, being the ultimate ideology of those two sites, which at one point, you know, bombs and bullets were the result of that kind of divide. 0f bullets were the result of that kind of divide. of course northern ireland is a peaceful place now but because of that unique history of politics you need a different voting system, the single transferable voting system. it means voters mark candidates in order of preference and you have rounds of voting. you eliminate candidates with the least votes, their second preferences get distributed. and you keep going full stop it is a bit more complicated and technical and takes more time

but gives you a different distribution which ensures representation for both sides of the community. the other reason that northern ireland is playing catch up in terms of declaring its results, they don't count votes on a sunday here, observing that christian tradition of the sunday being the day of rest. northern ireland only started counting at eight o'clock this morning. it looks like it is those three parties that will take those three parties that will take those seats. it is a bit of a formality now to count through the rest of those preferences, distribute them all as i've just explained, add those up before you get to those seats, finally confirmed later on. thanks, emma. now to the view of the hacks must carry has a few with her. i will

test you on the single transferable vote later! but first let's tackle some strategic questions for the big party. thank you both for coming up on to this balcony. firstly, we have heard from some of the tory contenders for leadership, boris johnson called the vote a crushing rebuke. jeremy hunt said it is an existential question. what do you think they will be considering as they make their pitches?” think they will be considering as they make their pitches? i think for both main parties it was a very defeating night. for the conservatives, they will be really worried about the rise of the brexit party. we have seen some leadership contenders tacked to the right in recent weeks, talking up the prospect of no deal. even somebody who voted remain likejeremy hunt has been talking about no deal. in the conservative party leadership contest we will see the party moved to the right. labour equally faces

huge strategic issues. labour was hoping to come second to the brexit party, instead was pushed into third place by the lib dems by a significant margin. i think that shows that the labour strategy of prevaricating, trying to be all things to all voters, saying to some but they are a party of south brexit, try to save it back a referendum to others, it isn't working. voters in all side seams to reject labour in significant numbers. for both parties there are strategic challenges ahead. and stephanie, your take? in a way, you could say nothing has changed. i see this more from a european, german, brussels perspective. people on the continent will look at this, they will see that basically the country is as split as it was before. 0n the one hand you have the brexit party, and then if you put the votes for the pro remain parties together, it isa higher the pro remain parties together, it is a higher number than the brexit party. they will look at this and think, what is the outcome? i heard

someone say to me this morning in brussels, "let'sjust wait someone say to me this morning in brussels, "let's just wait and have a cup of tea." but this is coming down the road quite fast in october, they will be put on the spot about whether they are prepared to reopen the negotiation or otherwise see a no—deal brexit. the next leader of the conservative party, the next prime minister, may well have to ta ke prime minister, may well have to take that position. that's true, but they also look at the house of commons, and they have seen twice the vote against leaving the european union without a deal. they will be thinking, if this really comes to this situation that they have to vote about this, they might reject it. and what happens next? that prime minister might then say, eithera that prime minister might then say, either a general election, or a second referendum. and the commission has said all the way along that if that is the case, they will extend article 50. so while

they are drinking tea in europe, back to this question of whether parliament can overturn a head long drive towards no deal. do you think there are enough tory soft brexit supporters to make the enormous existential decision to vote against their own government? the challenge for parliament is that they are running out of parliamentary devices to stop no deal. we had the institute for government who are experts producing a paper saying there is one fail—safe route to bucking no deal, and it is a vote of no confidence in the government. there are already a number of tory rebels who have made themselves known, perhaps even philip hammond, the chancellor, saying they would do something quite serious if they had to to stop no—deal brexit. there is a chance that we could see parliament, if we had a prime minister of borisjohnson parliament, if we had a prime minister of boris johnson or parliament, if we had a prime minister of borisjohnson or dominic raab gunning to take out the country on the 31st of october without a

deal, there is a chance that some tory rebels could come together with labour to vote no confidence in the government. that still creates a huge amount of uncertainty about what is next, that is why labour's position is so important. huge pressure onjeremy corbyn today position is so important. huge pressure on jeremy corbyn today to stop his prevaricating and come firmly around to the position of a referendum. i'm just firmly around to the position of a referendum. i'mjust going firmly around to the position of a referendum. i'm just going to interrupt you because we are just hearing that the home secretary sajid javid has announced his own candidacy for leadership of the conservative party and next prime minister, as you can see his tweet. he is entering a crowded field. absolutely. in the next few weeks, there are such a paradox. the country is facing this huge question, time is ticking down to 0ctober question, time is ticking down to october the 31st, and we have the tory party engulfed by its own beauty parade for some huge numbers of candidates. it is not that clear what the differences are between them. you have lots of candidates

taking very similar stances around things like being more gung ho about no deal. it will be quite a damaging few weeks. the focus will be on the tory leadership candidates competing with each other in trying to be more like nigel farage than the next one, whereas the real work around how we get out of this brexit impasse will not get done. and on the european perspective, once they are watching all these machinations in london and the uk, there will be decisions for them. how do you see the outcome of them. how do you see the outcome of the eu elections on the continent affecting the willingness to negotiate? i'm thinking about the departure of angela merkel, the relatively poor performance of emmanuel macron's party. you are right, on the other hand i cannot see they would suddenly turn around and say, ok, we have said we will not open their withdrawal agreement and suddenly doing that. they have

actually won against the populists, this election, and they would not now suddenly turn around and prove the opposite. thank you both very much forjoining me. now let's turn to one of the new brexit party meps. former conservative minister ann widdecombe won a place and has been speaking to our correspondence.“ you look at the map today it is a sea of brexit blue. we asked the nation a simple question. we didn't have a great raft of policies, we had one, which was to get britain out of the eu without a deal. and the nation voted for us, and voted for us big time. my reflections are, that was the second referendum. twice now the nation has said to parliament that we want to leave. i hope this time parliament listens. because if it doesn't and we don't get out of the eu on the 31st of october, then we will contest, the

brexit party, we will contest the general election. nigel farage has talked about the ambition of the party this morning, he has talked about possibly contesting in the general election, whenever that might be. when you think about that longer term, what are your thoughts? i very much hope it isn't necessary. the only way it won't be necessary is if we have left and let cleanly and there is no doubt about it and there is no reopening of the argument. if that happens then the job of the brexit party is done. but if that doesn't happen, if we don't leave, and at the moment that is the most likely outcome, given the record, if we don't leave or we leave in name only and stand there one leg in an one leg out, or if there is then a serious attempt to reverse there is then a serious attempt to reverse it, then we will stand in a general election, yes. the green party have had their best performance in a european election in 30 years, winning seven seats.

with me is the party's co—leader. your response to this outcome? we heard from ann widdecombe, they are thrilled with their outcome, they have said we cannot stand one foot in and one foot out. we are delighted to get the number of votes we did, and to more than double the number of meps from three to seven, we have people elected in regions across the uk. if we can stay in the eu they will be fantastic representatives for their regions. and that is a strong message that they want to remain, that they support the parties who are calling for a people's vote. if you combine our votes with the liberal democrats, with plaid camry, with the snp, the parties who are clearly for remaining in the eu, we have thrashed the brexit party today. nigel farage can be too happy. but the arithmetic is complex will stop conservatives and labour are on ma nifestos conservatives and labour are on manifestos of leaving, so if you add them to the leave total... these are

people in favour of hard brexit. you are comparing yourself with hard brexit. we are. people who voted for the conservatives and labour were doing so out of loyalty rather than out of a strong desire to send a message. those people came to us or alternatively went to the brexit party. i think it shows there is greater support to stay in the eu there was in 2016 full stop look at there was in 2016 full stop look at the number of young people who voted particular for the greens will stop this is a pattern we have seen right across europe. young people are saying, i want a future for the planet, and i a future inside europe, to make that possible, but also because i value the that my generation had come and they want that too. but it is not clear that all young people who support that agenda came out to vote. now, but those who did voted for the green party. you can see in germany, first—time voters, the majority that the greens had in germany among those voters is huge. we also came

first for under 25 is in france. in both those countries we increased our number of meps significantly as well as here. the difficulty is when you bring the arithmetic back to a general election situation or a referendum situation, it is quite difficult to see how this would all work out. it is quite difficult to extrapolate. it is. this is why we need a people's vote to sort this out once and for all. we need to put before the people... i think the parties who want to remain need to get together and listen to people about the causes of brexit, listen to what the they want solved are, and put together some kind of potential deal that attempts to do something like that, and then put that the people. in a people's vote. we cannot get to the point where we get to revoke versus no deal. that is an unimaginable situation.“

get to revoke versus no deal. that is an unimaginable situation. it is not unimaginable to lots of hard brexiteers who voted for nigel farage. i think leaving without a deal, a no deal, crashing out brexit, people have not quite grasped how horrific that would be. is that not patronising? the ma nifesto is that not patronising? the manifesto of the brexit party was clearly exactly that. a clean break brexit, they called it. it was the overwhelming single party winner.|j think we need to look very closely at what that actually means. this wasn't done during the election campaign, but if it came to getting close to october we will have to look at that very carefully, and listen to business leaders and people like us who point out how appalling this would be for the most vulnerable in society. it wouldn't solve the problems that lead a lot of people to vote for brexit, and it would be a disasterfor the environment as well as our security. there is a whole list of things for which no—deal brexit would be a

disaster, and we have to avoid that. we have to work together. thanks for joining us. that's all from me for now. we have seen quite a few showers already, some heavy ones today across northern ireland. the odd flash of lightning and rumble of thunder. this cluster of heavy showers likely to push further south eastwards into parts of north—west england and wales before the day is done. a few showers, quite breezy down towards the south. generally not as warm as it has been. this

evening and tonight, showers will continue, becoming increasingly confined to eastern parts of the uk. we also see more general rain for a time across the south—east of scotland. the skies clearing elsewhere. it could be a chilly night in scotland. not as cold further south. into tomorrow, we continue to see some scattered showers. most likely across central and eastern areas. the odd heavy and thundery one across the south—east of england. elsewhere sunny spells developing. temperatures not doing particularly well. tuesday night will be chilly under this high pressure. into wednesday, frontal systems start to move on from the atlantic. this is the start of quite a big change for the second half of the week. some outbreaks of rain moving through northern ireland will

stop brighter skies across the far north of scotland but with showers at times. chilly here, but further south it will be increasingly warm and humid. into thursday, frontal systems moving across northern and western parts. to the south of these weather fronts, we start to draw air from the south—west. that will feel very from the south—west. that will feel very warm from the south—west. that will feel very warm and humid. as we approach the weekend, in southern parts of the weekend, in southern parts of the country temperatures are likely to get up to the mid 20s. always with the potential for more rain at times across the north and west. things are staying pretty mixed.

you're watching a bbc news eu elections special, with the brexit party a clear winner, the lib dems taking second place and a very tough night for the conservatives and labour. nigel farage says he's ready to take on the biggest parties at westminster after the brexit party took nearly a third of the vote and 29 meps. we have a mandate and want the government to include us in their negotiating team. we have got to get ready for leaving the european union in october 31st. there is an awful lot we can do. a successful night for the liberal democrats, who campaigned to stop brexit, coming second with around 20% of the vote.

i'm carrie gracie at westminster, where the two main parties have suffered heavy losses. the conservatives are pushed into fifth place with an historic low of less than 10% of the vote. 0ne minister says it's time to rethink their strategy i is a wake—up call to my colleagues in parliament that we have to deliver on the instruction the british people gave us in 2016 in the brexit referendum. and pressure onjeremy corbyn to back another refendum after labour falls to third place overall. he says the party's position remains unchanged. what this party does is supports an agreement with the european union to prevent crashing out, supports putting that proposal, when agreed, to a public vote. we'll bring you all the results and the picture across europe, where turnout is up and the traditional parties have lost out to smaller ones.

good afternoon and welcome to this bbc news special. in a major blow for the largest parties at westminster, the brexit party has emerged as the clear winner in the poll for a new european parliament. formed only recently, nigel farage's party have won 29 seats and received almost a third of the share of the vote. both labour and the tories posted some of their worst results ever, with the liberal democrats taking second place, on an anti—brexit platform.

jeremy corbyn, pressed by some senior labour figures to back another referendum, said the party's position had not changed but they had a responsibility to listen, and to ensure a public vote on any brexit agreement. with only northern ireland still to declare, let's take a look at the results in detail. the brexit party gained the largest share of the vote — with 32%. the liberal democrats took second place with 20% of the vote — up 13 points compared to the last eu elections in 2014. labour came 3rd with 14% — down 11 points on 2014. the greens increased their support — gaining 12% of the vote. the conservatives fell to a historic low —

with just 9% of the vote — putting them in 5th place. the snp dominated the poll in scotland — with a big lead over the other parties. the uk independence party — winners in 2014 — saw their vote fall heavily to just 3%. the new change uk party also failed to make an impact with only 3% share. in total, 73 seats in the european parliament were up for grabs in the uk.the brexit party have won 29 seats. the lib dems have 16 — they gained just one in 2014. labour have ten meps — a loss of eight. the greens more than doubled their seats — with seven meps, up four. and the impact on the

conservative party is clear — they've got just four meps — down 15. in scotland, the snp won three seats. while in wales plaid cymru have won one seat after beating labour. counting in northern ireland meanwhile is still under way. our first report comes from our political correspondent tom barton — a warning his report contains some flash photography. smiling faces for members of a party that was only launched six weeks ago. the brexit party, the clear winners of this election, taking almost a third of the vote and 29 meps. brexit! the party's leader saying that this could be just the start.

if we don't leave on october the 31st, then the scores you have seen for the brexit party today will be repeated in a general election and we are getting ready for it. it wasn'tjust a good night for the brexit party. those standing on a clear remain platform also made great lea ps forward. the greens beat the conservatives into fourth place. while it was a champagne moment for the liberal democrats, coming in second with 20% of the vote. this is the first time in 100 years where we have beaten both the conservative and labour party in the same election and we are clearly able to demonstrate that both the conservative and labour party did badly because they were absolutely split, could not articulate what they wanted on brexit. we made it very clear we are the strongest remain party. the one thing that is clear from this result is that voters

don't like the tightrope walk brexit compromises that the two main parties have been offering up until now. what does that mean for the future? both for labour and the conservatives, it means they are going to be under pressure to adopt simpler, clearer positions. for the tories, devastation at the polls is likely to see leadership candidates taking an even tougher position. this is the worst result in our party's history in elections lam deeply i am deeply saddened by the fact so many activists worked so hard and we did not get the result we wanted. the message is clear, we absolutely need to deliver brexit. i led the campaign to take britain out of the european union and we must honour that referendum result. in scotland, labour has been wiped out in the face of an snp surge, while in wales, the party was forced into third place.

the pressure now on the leadership, including from some senior voices, to back another referendum. jeremy corbyn today promising to listen. what you have from me today is a commitment that our party is listening to its members and its supporters and reaching out to other parties across the house of commons to prevent a crashing out without a deal. a commitment that the future will of course be put to a public vote, as we have already proposed in parliament. these results providing no easy answers for the parties when they return to westminster next week. let's go straight to westminster. as we have been reporting, a very tough night for the conservatives and labourand tough night for the conservatives and labour and with the tory leadership race already under way, last night likely to have a big impact on how theresa may's potential successor pitches they their brexit solution, but with

labour losing ground, questions about what it policy should be. theresa may says the results were very disappointing. she tweeted... with me is our chief political correspondent vicki young. focusing minds for sure but focusing minds in the direction that theresa may would like to see?|j minds in the direction that theresa may would like to see? i think she thought these results would have focused the minds of mps on all sides to push her deal through but we have now gone beyond all that and leadership contenders looking at how they try and appeal to the grassroots of the tory party because they need them to vote for them, but also they now see the enemy as nigel farage, so also they now see the enemy as nigel fa rage, so inevitably also they now see the enemy as nigel farage, so inevitably you think they are going to move more towards leaving without a deal. we heard

borisjohnson say leaving without a deal. we heard boris johnson say today those tories who deserted the party will not return unless brexit happens on the 3ist return unless brexit happens on the 31st of october. jeremy hunt has talked about an accidental crisis. very strong language. -- existential crisis. so a big focus on tory leadership contestants. and sajid javid has entered the fray today to try and make his case as well. so the worst electoral result for the tories in 200 years but it is no bed of roses for labour either, as we have been hearing. a terrible performance in scotland. incredible, to be fifth in scotland, third in wales, second in london, so in their heartland they are facing a massive problem. a lot of mps are saying it is because they were not clear on their position on brexit. emily thornberry said it took at least five minutes to describe their

position on the doorstep. are they in favour of a second random or not? this is whatjohn mcdonald the shadow chancellor had to say today. we are in a situation now, where do we go from here, and we are faced with the potential of a brexiteer extremist almost certainly becoming the leader of the tory party, whether it is borisjohnson or dominic rob or someone of that ilk. so we are faced with the prospect of no deal, which could have catastrophic consequences for our economy. a tory leader being elected on that basis no matter what the damage to jobs. elected on that basis no matter what the damage tojobs. we have got to prevent that. how do we do that? of course a general election but not many tory mps are going to vote for a general election, it would be like to turkeys voting for christmas, i think the best is a second referendum, so if they can be a deal, great, but it needs to go back to the people, if there is a no deal, we have got to block it, and the way to do that is to go back to

the way to do that is to go back to the people and arguing the case against it. it would be catastrophic for our economy, it is notjust me saying that, it is a philip hammond, others across the parties, independent economists as well, and lam not independent economists as well, and i am not willing to stand by and let my constituents lose theirjobs. so are you saying it is a referendum under any circumstances?” are you saying it is a referendum under any circumstances? i think it is, yes. so there, very clear, under any circumstances. jeremy corbyn is not being quite as clear as that but tom watson, his deputy, his shadow chancellor, emily thornberry, welsh labour have broken ranks as well saying they must be a referendum whatever happens. this is something they are going to have to resolve pretty quickly. jeremy corbyn suggesting it could be done at the next conference. if it is then at the next conference, it will allow him to do so in a dignified fashion because he can say it is what members want. it is, but there is a

timing issue. if you are in labour and you are backing jeremy corbyn, you say this is a conservative party problem, they have inflicted this on the country, it is up to them to sort it out, it whether you think you parliament has a duty to do so. they will be some labour mps looking at this feeling they are being hit, not as badly as the conservatives, but they have been losing votes to the liberal democrats, particularly in the south, and the brexit party in the south, and the brexit party in the north. we saw what happened in scotland. this is a big problem for the two main westminster parties. as you've been hearing, the brexit party have topped polls in every part of the uk, apart from scotland, won by the snp, and london by the liberal democrats. northern ireland is still left to declare. reeta chakrabarti has been taking a look at the results this has been an election of stark contrasts, with the brexit party putting in a very impressive performance, but strong performances too from the liberal democrats and the greens and a real disaster for labour and the conservatives.

let's take a look at some of the details. castle point here in east of england, this was one of the brexit pa rty‘s strongest results. look at that, 59% of the vote here in a very leave voting area. but a really, really strong performance, leaving all the parties behind. the brexit party also coming out on top in windsor and maidenhead, that's theresa may's constituency, her own backyard. they came out on top in saint helens here in the northwest, beating labour in their own heartland. look at that. the brexit party on 35% and the labour party on 22%. for the liberal democrats, it was also a very good night. here in elmbridge for example they topped the poll by 39%. now this is an area that had been conservative for the last three european elections and if you take

a little look at the change in the share of the vote, look at that. the conservatives plummeting by 31% to the benefit of the liberal democrats. for the lib dems it was a great night in london, they topped the poll in london and that included islington which isjeremy corbyn's constituency. that tale of labour woe was reproduced in scotland where the snp took almost all the areas, all the local authority areas that there are. and in blaenau gwent labour also suffered there at the hands of the brexit party. one word for the greens who came top in three areas and that included bristol as well, and they will be very happy with their performance at this election. i think the takeaway dealt from these selections is the result for the conservative party who on 9% of the vote share came fifth in the table.

and there is one remarkable fact for the governing party which is that in the whole of the united kingdom they failed to top the vote in any single local authority area in this entire election. with me now is the snp‘s drew hendry. let's have a look at scotland. thank you forjoining us. the snp did well last night and you manage to keep the levers and remain as roughly behind you. i don't think we just did well, it was an historic result. scotla nd did well, it was an historic result. scotland emphatically got behind the snp to say no to brexit. brexit has been comprehensively rejected by the scottish voting public. been comprehensively rejected by the scottish voting publiclj been comprehensively rejected by the scottish voting public. i don't want to rain on your parade but do you think it was you doing well or labour doing badly?” think it was you doing well or labour doing badly? i think the snp went out with a very clear message

that scotland is for europe and that message chimed with people on their doorsteps and in their homes, and thatis doorsteps and in their homes, and that is why people came out in such great numbers, our vote is at some 996 great numbers, our vote is at some 9% on 2014, to get behind the snp and to say absolutely emphatically no to brexit, to reject that situation. nicola sturgeon has been first minister of scotland, she has beenin first minister of scotland, she has been in ireland today, and she has been in ireland today, and she has been talking rather angrily about the contempt with which westminster has been treating scotland over the whole brexit issue. is that something you felt did shine on the doorstep? i have seen it personally, being an mp in westminster, the tories and the labour party have had for scotland for scotland since scotla nd for scotland for scotland since scotland voted overwhelmingly, 62%, to remain. since then we have seen the scotland government attempted a compromise on brexit, looking after scotland's interests. every party

but the tories ignored by the uk government in the scottish government, and the majority of scottish mps ignored as well. and on the doorstep, people have noticed that. they are not willing to put up with scotland being ignored anymore. and nicola sturgeon again saying today that she wants to hold another independence referendum and she wa nts independence referendum and she wants it before the next year.” think the mandate was clearly there in 2016, the snp went into that election saying if there was a material change in circumstances we would have a referendum. there is every reason now, if we are going to lurch towards a chaotic brexit with the tories in fighting over a leadership contest for the next eight weeks and taking us up to the brink, there really is a need now to say to the people of scotland, you have an opportunity to take a different path from this chaotic brexit, a different path from the

premiership of somebody like boris johnson or one of the others, and this is your opportunity. except there is no opportunity unless that prime minister decides that scotland can hold a referendum. but leaving that question aside, do you think scotla nd that question aside, do you think scotland now, which way would it vote ? scotland now, which way would it vote? i think more and more, as people have gone through this process , people have gone through this process, they have seen this brexit farce and fold, the fact that westminster doesn't pay attention to scotland's unique needs, very different to other parts of the uk, and more and more people, now that polling is starting to show this, more and more people are seeing that in future, if we are going to have this brexit played out the way it is, people are willing to get behind independence and the referendum and i think that is what will happen. coming back to the brexit farce, car crash, that kind of language... that's what it is. what do you think their way out is now? i think the uk

government, particularly the labour party, need to wake up and see that the only way to resolve this on a uk basis, and we are very concerned about the impact of brexit, because the uk government's own analysis shows there is no vision of brexit that doesn't harm our economy, affect jobs and that doesn't harm our economy, affectjobs and people's living standards, so the best way to resolve this is a people's vote, that's what should happen and it needs to happen very soon, but i am concerned with another round of tory vicious infighting over the leadership contest, the labour party will do what they have been doing and fight amongst themselves while all this unfolds. thank you for joining us. that's it from me for now. more in a short while. back to you, shaun. let's take a look at the overall results across the rest of europe and the spread of seats in the european parliament. the big centre—right and centre—left blocs have lost their combined majority

amid an increase in support for liberals, the greens and nationalists. pro—eu parties are still expected to be in a majority but the traditional blocs will need to seek new alliances. the liberals and greens had a good night, while nationalists were victorious in italy, france and of course the uk. however the centre—right european people's party does remain the largest bloc and analysts say it is likely to form a grand coalition with the socialists and democrats bloc, with support from liberals and the greens. negotiations and horsetrading lie ahead. meanwhile, turnout was a surprise. the number of people voting rose to 51%, up from 42.6% in 2014, bucking a long trend of decline in voter numbers and the best since 1994.

0ur europe correspondent damian grammaticas reports. across europe one of the surprises of these elections, green parties. this was germany where they surged into second place. germany's result mirrored the picture europe wide, the traditional centre—conservative right, social—democrat left on the slide, greens and others profited. so now the greens are being courted by those old parties who are looking for their support. people are talking to us. obviously they are keen to have the greens around the table and so if we are invited around to the negotiating table, we will go there. and it is possible the centre—right under pressure might now fragment further. it is a totally new situation, a totally new setup, and i really believe, i am convinced that the vote of the european citizens has a clear message, that the european union must be reformed in order to be strong again.

for the greens and all the other parties how their national results translate into power here in the european parliament is through the alliances they can forge and what is clear is that the surge some predicted for far right, anti—eu forces hasn't materialised. that didn't mean any real celebrations for emmanuel macron's party in france. it was beaten, just, by marine le pen's far right eurosceptics, but it wasn't a decisive win for her. her share of seats may actually have fallen. it was matteo salvini's far right league in italy that was a big winner. however, his allies elsewhere in europe stumbled, losing seats, limiting his influence. so the most significant gains of all may have gone to the liberals. their candidate might now be in with a chance of securing the top eu job on offer, president of the european commission. the monopoly of power is broken and this is of course why

we can do something else. overall then, the eu centre under pressure has held firm, but change may still be coming. the news from austria now, some breaking news, this is the parliament in vienna, it has just passed a vote of no confidence in the government, a centre—right government. it was in coalition with the far right freedom party, which has had... the key point is that because that caretaker government that came after the freedom party pulled out of coalition, because of their leader resigned, because he was caught up in allegations of corruption, what he called a sting that was filmed on camera, he denied

any corrupt activity, he resigned, the parliament has now voted no confidence in the temporary government, and they will be a temporary temporary government to get us through to elections in austria in probably now september. that has happened in the last few minutes. it is all happening in the european union. back to that european union. back to that european parliament elections now. let's cross to paris now, where we can speak to our correspondent hugh schofield. the big story there is the success of the far right and marine le pen. yes, and success, nonetheless, also of emmanuel macron. i know he lost, but he has been in powerfor two yea rs but he has been in powerfor two years and normally they get thrashed at elections like this, and he very nearly won. that requires a bit of

reflection. for me, what is happening in france, which may be happening in france, which may be happening across the rest of the union slowly, that new political world struggling to be born. what we see here is the old bipolar risen, left, right, completely knocked for six, in existent now, the socialists got 6%. they were ruling the country two years ago. the centre—right, they got 8%. between them they didn't even muster 14, 15%. instead, you have to new parties, emmanuel macron and marine le pen's party, the new dominant players. they are both very tight, neither can really say they won. it is neck and neck, and they dominate the political landscape. and that is a new order of things. what has happened in this

election shows that it wasn't a flash in the pan from two years ago, that the situation has persisted. they have new meps. what looks like happening is that they are going to govern this country, or dominate the politics in this country for the time being, and in a way this is a reflection which is more accurate of the old left, right divide in the way people are split up in our world today. so what is the difference between the marine le pen and emmanuel macron approaches to the european union? it is chalk and cheese, if that is an appropriate metaphor. they exist because they are the opposite of each other. what we saw in the election campaign here was the way they were both secretly quite pleased that they had the other as the main enemy, because it

meant they could rally around all those who may otherwise have gone to other parties by saying, we are the party that can keep out the other. marine le pen clearly attracted a lot of votes from people who would have been on the far left, because she was the one most likely to embody a victory over emmanuel macron, and she did, but emmanuel macron, and she did, but emmanuel macron, with his fervent european credentials, was able to say to the country, i am the only one to push back on this challenge from populist nationalism in france. and they both got the vote they looked for. very, very different, geographically. emmanuel macron clearly based in the big cities and marine le pen in the small towns around the country. it isa small towns around the country. it is a new reality. what france has, at least the political situation reflects that now. thank you very much. now it's time for a look at the

weather. things are pretty mixed this bank holiday monday. no great surprises there. for some there have been sunny skies, but for others this guy has been looking quite threatening. you can see the show is quite widely spread across the chart. some particularly heavy once drifting out of northern ireland. some of the showers continue through the night as well. some outbreaks of rain across the eastern side of scotland. winds easing across scotland so it will turn a little bit chilly. not as cold further south where it stays fairly breezy. tomorrow they will still be sent showers around. the odd thundery one across the south—east of england. further west, not as many showers, more in the way of dry weather. it will be quite a cool day though. temperature struggling. 10 degrees in newcastle. 17 in london. but as we head towards

next weekend, in the south, some real warmth to be had. further north and west, they will be some rain at times.

you're watching bbc news — we'll have much more reaction and analysis to the european election results shortly. first, let's get all the day's sport now. no goal so far in the so—called richest game in football. this match worth an estimated £170 million to the winner, associated with the

benefits of premier league football. joanna konta is into the second round, she will play the american lauren davis will stop she has been ona lauren davis will stop she has been on a good run of form, reaching two finals and beating some big names along the way. petra kvitova meanwhile has been forced to withdraw from the tournament, with an arm injury. she said on social media she was "truly sad" to have to pull out. england thrashed afghanistan in the final warm england thrashed afghanistan in the finalwarm up england thrashed afghanistan in the final warm up match before the start

of the cricket world cup. afghanistan were all out for 160. archer led the way with three wickets. england had no problems, jason roy brutally smashing his way to an unbeaten 89. more good news for england. mark wood is fit and will be available. mo farah has won the vitality london 10,000 for the seventh time. the olympic champion was the honorary starter for the race, before finishing ahead of fellow britons andrew butchart and nick goolab. farah said he'd lost track of his winning streak. i thought this was going to be my sixth, even better that it is my seventh! it is nice to come out here and win the race. as i said, andy is a strong athlete, and nick is another one. and it was pushing on early on. i had to cover every move, and push at the end, i knew that was what it was going to take. ste p h twell retained the women's title,

as she continues her bid to make the british squad for next year's olympic games in tokyo, while daniel sidbury and three—time paralympic medallist shelly woods won the wheelchair races. i was nervous i was nervous because i was nervous because there is a great depth in british running. but i think great depth in british running. but ithink an great depth in british running. but i think an equal run is a great way to push yourself. i supported a lot of guys in the race as well as them supporting me. ithought of guys in the race as well as them supporting me. i thought that was fantastic was that i made sure i made the finishing line with the guys, made the finishing line with the guys, because i am here to finish as fast as i can. england's bronte law has won her first lpga title at the pure silk championship in virginia. she had a share of the lead from day one and finished two shots clear of the field with a closing round of 67 — a great victory after she lost out in a play—off in san francisco earlier this month. i believe in hard work and determination, i really stayed so focused out there today. my caddie did a great job keeping me calm.

i guess after san francisco, gave me perspective that i could compete at the top. i came this week with the sole intention of getting that one better. and it feels really good. still 0—0 in their play—off, will have more support for you later. in today's other news — a man and woman have appeared in court charged with the murder of two teenagers who died in a house in sheffield on friday morning. the woman, who is mother of the dead children, is also accused of the attempted murder of two other children. the defendants appeared at the dock in the magistrates‘ court, both wearing grey t—shirts. the 34—year—old is accused of two counts of murder over the death of her two

teenage children, that is blake who was 14, and triston who was 13. she is also accused of three charges of attempted murder relating to two other children. the 37—year—old man was accused of two counts of murder also. no pleas were given today, and the pair were remanded in custody to appear at sheffield crown court tomorrow morning. the carmakers fiat chrysler and renault are in discussions to merge their two businesses. the combined company — that would be split 50/50 between fiat and renault shareholders — would create the third largest car maker behind volkswagen and toyota. car makers have faced pressure to consolidate amid major industry shifts, including the trend towards electric vehicles. what‘s believed to be the clearest ever moving footage of queen victoria has been discovered in the film archive

of a museum in new york. the importance of the piece of film went unrealised until a curator from the british film institute saw it earlier this year. correspondent sarah campbell. queen victoria in sharper focus than ever, she was believed to have died less tha n ever, she was believed to have died less than a year later. it is the best view you will ever get of queen victoria in moving footage. the film had been stored for decades in new york‘s museum. it was only when a british historian was shown at that its historical significance was truly realised. i nearly fell off my chair because i had never seen queen victoria in close up before. it is com pletely victoria in close up before. it is completely unique because you can see her face completely unique because you can see herface for completely unique because you can see her face for the first time probably since 1900, since this was shown. it is close—up, you can see

expressions, you can see her in movement, rather thanjust expressions, you can see her in movement, rather than just a stiff portrait or still photograph. queen victoria embrace the new medium of film. she and nicholas ii were filmed at balmoral in 1896, and the following year 40 cameras were used to capture the queen‘s diamond jubilee. film was an extension of a whole series of image making about queen victoria. it makes her seem real. and she is real. what sets this film apart is the level of detail. that is largely down to the film size. 68 millimetres on the left, and on the right, the footage was filmed in 35mm is, a cheaper format which became the industry standard, despite the loss of detail. the result? very few films of such high quality were made, no others capture so clearly this living, breathing, moving monarch.

and does it look like she was wearing tinted spectacles? back to the european elections now. with me now is sonia sodha from the observer and stefanie bolzen — uk correspondent for die welt. watching those images of queen victoria reminded me that this is the worst tory election result since the worst tory election result since the early 19th century, since before those pictures of victoria! that says it all, you have to go back a long way. both main parties took an absolute drubbing, as forecast by lots of pollsters in the election results. both main parties face big questions about their strategy going forward as a result. the conservatives will look at the huge number of voters who left them for the brexit party and think, maybe we

need to start doing a bit more like nigel farage. 0n the other side you have labour who lost some voters to the brexit party, but more voters to strongly remain parties like the lib dems and the greens. for the lib dems and the greens. for the lib dems it was extraordinary, leapfrogging dems it was extraordinary, lea pfrogging labour. dems it was extraordinary, leapfrogging labour. for labour, lots of pressure onjeremy corbyn from senior ministers. they are saying to him, your prevarication strategy of trying to be a soft brexit party and i remain party, you‘re going to have to take. brexit party and i remain party, you're going to have to take. put this in the larger picture for us, centrist parties have lost out across the continent. yes, they have. germany is the best example of that. the social democrats, angle america's party, they have had a catastrophic night. they did not only lose, it is not quite victorian

times, but after the second world war they were always in power. in bremen, the more social democratic city, they lost it. the csu, not so much, they did not fare so badly, but the other parties have really suffered. while, not the fringes, but the greens, and the ft not so much, but the greens especially they have had a perfect day. something striking about the result across the continent, the european electorate is not convinced by the brexit performance, so in france and the netherlands, that message has gone

away. yes it has, and in germany, at six o'clock sharp, the results come out, and the interview all the leaders of the parties. they also interviewed the leader of the afd, the anti—immigration right—wing party, and he said, brexit is one of the reasons we did not do so well in these elections. coming back to the uk experience, do you think the parties here are running about thinking about their domestic experience, are the looking at the european agenda and thinking, there area european agenda and thinking, there are a lot of parties getting meps into place, saying, we have to change this from the inside than leave. does that encourage the remainder is to think there is room for change within the eu?” remainder is to think there is room for change within the eu? i suspect so. you have had a lot of talk about what they call a remain and reform agenda in recent weeks. a lot of people feel like there are things that need to change about the eu if

we are to stay within it. we would like to stay in and change it from the inside. but if i am being totally honest, i think we have become very inwardly focused in our politics in britain in the last three years. i think very much that parties and voters when we went to the polls last thursday, they really had britain in mind, the british domestic situation, and brexit, and how that shapes our relationship with the eu. it has been very inwardly focused. coming to the dilemmas facing senior politicians, we saw the home secretary sajid javid entered the race this afternoon. we have heard jeremy hunt is talking about an existential crisis for the tory party if we do not deliver brexit. borisjohnson has talked about a crushing rebuke. they have difficult choices today. they have difficult choices today. they do. what we are seeing is, they are looking at the meteoric success of the brexit party, although he did have a big support base to build on

from his roots in ukip. but he has been very successful. they are looking at that and thinking, we need to move to the right. even people like jeremy hunt need to move to the right. even people likejeremy hunt who voted remain in the referendum has hinted at no deal in the run—up to this tory leadership race. i think we will see the tory party tacked to the right. that puts us in a difficult position as a country because it is conceivable that in a few weeks we will have a prime minister, essentially elected by just 120,000 members, not the public at large, he was much more gung ho about a no deal prospect and theresa may was. even though she said no deal was better than a bad deal, we know she was reticent behind—the—scenes. that raises questions about a parliamentary showdown coming up. what will parliament do to block no deal? how far will they go? if we had boris johnson or dominic raab saying, we have not made any headway and we

will take britain out without a deal. but questions coming up. more in a short while. 0ur reality check correspondent chris morris is here. the brexit party has enjoyed great success , the brexit party has enjoyed great success, party that didn‘t have a ma nifesto. success, party that didn‘t have a manifesto. is there any clarity? not a huge amount is to be no manifesto, very little detail on the party website. beyond the obvious that we wa nt to website. beyond the obvious that we want to leave the european union. the big thing nigel farage has been talking about, his big message in this election is that he wants to leave with what he calls a clean

break brexit. he has tended to avoid the term no—deal brexit. may clean break sounds more uplifting. but it still means there would be a sudden ru ptu re, still means there would be a sudden rupture, and all the rules and regulations that have governed our relationship with the eu over more than 40 years would in effect disappear overnight. the brexit party and nigel farage has said, within that, we can still do some deals. 0ne within that, we can still do some deals. one of the other things they have said they will do, they produced a pledge card during the election that had one or two details. 0ne election that had one or two details. one of them was this. the £39 billion divorce bill which is in their withdrawal agreement that the government has agreed to pay to the eu over a number of years to settle past debts and future obligations, nigel farage says, we will not pay any of that. that will hardly create warm relations with the european union at this critical moment. when it comes down to it, the big thing that he has said, it is a term we will hear a lot of, we want to leave

the european union on world trade organisation terms. that question of the wto, it is interesting because there are some question, prominent brexit conservatives saying it is absolutely fine, it would be a painless move if we go on wto terms. everyone has to operate by the same rules. it is not the wild west. others say, no, wto rules have stings in the tail because they are just meant to be a fallback if everything else fails. we will hear a lot about this in the conservative leadership campaign, so get used to this. what does it mean? not a lot, actually. the rules of the world trade organisation are the basic building blocks of international trade. and they only offer rudimentary benefits on their own, you need to build on top of it. the brexit party says, don‘t worry, we can use this thing called article

24, which means we will still be able to trade with the eu without any tariffs or taxes on goods crossing borders. these are things that you need to reach a deal with another party about. the uk cannot impose it on the eu or vice versa. you could argue because their companies and businesses and camp tumours benefit from trade with us, it is in their interest that we get an agreement, it is in the interest of both parties to get a deal. there is no question that if you ended free trade abruptly, both sides would suffer. and the message of nigel farage has been, if push comes to shove, the eu will come running to shove, the eu will come running to us for a trade deal. it is not what the european union is saying. and if there were to be no deal, thatis and if there were to be no deal, that is not an end state. what are we talking about then? the eu has said very clearly that ministers

from all 27 countries agreed this, their first priorities in the event ofa their first priorities in the event of a no—deal brexit, it is to talk about the divorce bill, the irish border and citizens‘ rights. exactly the things that are at the heart of their withdrawal agreement negotiated by theresa may‘s team, which has been rejected three times by the house of commons. some simple slogans from the brexit party which have proved attractive and generate a lot of support, but brexit is a very complex process.” a lot of support, but brexit is a very complex process. i said that you are a former brussels correspondent, you spent many years out there. you have sat through a lot of brussels meetings. a lot of those through the night summits. is it possible that these elections, i don‘t don‘t mean just in the uk but across the rest of the eu, could give some eu leaders pause for thought? as we heard from paris, it is not just thought? as we heard from paris, it is notjust in britain that parties

sceptical about the current direction of the european union have done really well. they have, and it will give them some pause for thought. but it is not unexpected. it is the continuation of a process that was already there. roughly 20% of the seats in the previous parliament were occupied by parties you could generally say were from the radical right, eurosceptic in different forms. but the other story of the elections, both here and in other european countries, is that parties right in the centre have done well. the liberal democrats full stop president macron‘s party in france. the greens will be a much bigger block in the european parliament than ever before. the story here is one of fragmentation. the old big blocks on the ce ntre—left the old big blocks on the centre—left and centre—right, we‘ve seen it here but across europe, they will no longer be calling the shots, but it is not necessarily a protest vote in one particular direction. the paradox is we could be leaving

the european union just the paradox is we could be leaving the european unionjust at the paradox is we could be leaving the european union just at the the paradox is we could be leaving the european unionjust at the point when more of the voters in the european union and therefore politicians are starting to move any federalist direction. yes. there is a strong argument to say that the eu is moving in the direction that the british would always have favoured. focusing on things like the single market, and getting economic relations in really good shape, less about political integration. of course there are federalists there, there always will be. but there is a block in the eu that was very much moving in britain‘s direction. if the uk leaves, they will miss us when we are gone. well, earlier i go the thoughts of the election analyst sirjohn curtice —

from the university of strathclyde. there are two contests, one was the conservative party is battling against lee voters. the question was to what extent would leave voters frustrated by the government be attracted to the brexit party? the a nswer attracted to the brexit party? the answer was, rather a lot. well over half conservative voters switched to nigel farage‘s party. with 32% of the vote it got what the opinion polls thought, and the conservatives if anything doing slightly worse. very clear that voters on the leave side of the argument were strongly punishing the government. not least because many of them thought that leaving without a deal would be prefera ble leaving without a deal would be preferable to the endless extension. they accepted nigel farage‘s argument? yes. the other battle

going on was more on the remain side of the debate. it was between labour and both the liberal democrats and the greens for the remain vote. the opinion polls were uncertain. all of them were detecting that during the campaign the liberal democrats and the green seems to be pulling away remain votes from the labour party. the question is, was the clearer, we wa nt the question is, was the clearer, we want a second referendum, of the greens and the liberal democrats and change uk, would that attract voters from labour? it seems that it did, not to the same extent that the brexit party drew away votes from the conservatives, but because this was a much less anticipated result, it has perhaps come as more of a shock to the labour party, and perhaps surprised liberal democrats in particular. it does mean that on the one hand the conservative party

will have the debate, should the next tory prime minister embraced the idea of leaving without a deal? equally, should the labour party move more clearly to saying that it is in favour of a public vote on whatever deal emerges in order to shore up a remain vote, which has a lwa ys shore up a remain vote, which has always been the largest share of its vote but now seems at risk of being lost. boris johnson wrote this morning that the results were clear, and what had to happen was the government had to deliver on brexit. are they that clear? now. it is true that 35% of people voted for parties that 35% of people voted for parties that were saying they would have no deal, and those represent a majority of leave voters. but a 35% is rather less tha n of leave voters. but a 35% is rather less than 50%. it is difficult to argue that this means a majority of the public is in favour. and this is what we know from opinion polls as the proportion that is in favour of no deal. but on the other side, some wa nt to no deal. but on the other side, some want to add up the numbers to say

that more people voted for pro—referendum parties than for no deal parties, therefore this was a mandate for a second referendum. we can argue about the extent to which the snp vote is a remain vote. it is predominantly, but not completely. if you take them out, it is 35 and 35. but in any event, it is still less tha n 35. but in any event, it is still less than 50%. the honest truth is neither side can claim on the basis of these results that voters have sent a clear signal edge should be one thing or another. the signals of the voters have sent on both sides of the argument is that many of them are now sufficiently polarised as to which choice they prefer. the two extreme options of leaving without a deal, and having a second referendum, as the polls are suggesting, the two most popular options, and options about which voters feel sufficiently strongly that many a person who would otherwise vote conservative or labour, switched to a smaller party.

how worried should the conservative party b by the result? we know from opinion polls that not as many people would vote for the brexit party as they would in a general election. but we also know that around 16—18% would. maybe that number would come down a bit, except that brexit is not going off the agenda any time soon. this may be a european election that gets remembered by voters rather more. the conservative party cannot afford the brexit party running at 18%, because the opinion polls at the moment for westminster voting intentions have the conservative party behind the labour party was no prospect of being able to form another administration. to that extent, yes the conservative party have to worry. it is unlikely that the brexit vote is going to disappear unless and until the conservatives deliver brexit. a

second note that says, we are better placed to deliver this the nigel farage, is probably not going to work. therefore, the next tory prime minister is probably going to have to try to work out a way to deliver brexit within the arithmetic of the current house of commons, because the option of going to the country is unlikely to look attractive. now let‘s get the weather. it isa it is a bit ofa it is a bit of a talking point still on the bank holiday, because it is mixed. blue skies one moment, just like this. this was the scene in guernsey earlier on, and the next moment a cloud comes along and drenches you. sunshine and showers. this is the radar picture. heavy showers across northern ireland and the odd flash of lightning. though showers making progress across to

northern england and parts of southern scotland. they will get to wales and the midlands. quite a strong breeze, not quite as windy further north. temperature is not as high as they have been. further north, 10—11 for stornoway and aberdeen. through this evening and tonight, showers drifting through. some clear spells. the winds will ease across scotland. a relatively chilly night. some showers could even be wintry and higher ground. not as cold further south. tomorrow, another day of sunshine and showers. some subtle changes. the showers for central and eastern areas, further west not as many. more dry weather and spells of sunshine here. a drier day for northern ireland. with the winds from the north—west it will never be too warm. as this ridge of

high pressure comes through on tuesday night, it could be chilly for wednesday morning. frontal systems approaching from the west. after a bright start for many on wednesday, increasing cloud and outbreaks of rain across northern ireland, parts of wales, the south west. a few showers across northern scotla nd west. a few showers across northern scotland as well. it will start to feel a little bit humid towards the south. that‘s the start of a change that takes us to the end of the week. frontal system still around, but the further south you are we start to bring in airfrom the south—west. that will be mild and warm air, quite humid. temperatures in the south rising up to middle 20s. but further north, continuing with some rain at times.

you‘re watching a bbc news eu elections special — with the brexit party a clear winner, the lib dems taking second place, and a very tough night for the conservatives and labour. nigel farage says he‘s ready to take on the biggest parties at westminster — after the brexit party took nearly a third of the vote, and 29 meps. we have a mandate and want the government to include us in their negotiating team. we have got to get ready for leaving the european union in october 31st. there is an awful lot we can do. a surge in support for the liberal democrats — who campaigned to stop brexit —

coming second with around 20% of the vote. i‘m carrie gracie at westminster — where the two main parties have suffered heavy losses. the conservatives are pushed into fifth place with an historic low of less than 10% of the vote. home secretary sajid javid becomes the latest mp to join the race to become the next leader of the conservative party. and pressure onjeremy corbyn to back another refendum after labour falls to third place overall — he says the party‘s position remains unchanged. what this party does is supports an agreement with the european union to prevent crashing out, supports putting that proposal, when agreed, to a public vote. we‘ll bring you all the results — and the picture across europe, where turnout is up and the traditional parties have lost out to smaller ones.

good afternoon and welcome to this bbc news special. in a major blow for the largest parties at westminster, the brexit party has emerged as the clear winner in the poll for a new european parliament. formed only recently, nigel farage‘s party have won 29 seats and received almost a third of the share of the vote. both labour and the tories posted

some of their worst results ever, with the liberal democrats taking second place on an anti—brexit platform. jeremy corbyn — pressed by some senior labour figures to back another referendum — said the party‘s position had not changed but they had a responsibility to listen, and to ensure a public vote on any brexit agreement. with only northern ireland still to declare, let‘s take a look at the results in detail. the brexit party gained the largest share of the vote — with 32%. the liberal democrats took second place with 20% of the vote — up 13 points compared to the last eu elections in 2014. labour came third with 14 per cent — down 11 points on 2014. the greens increased their support —

gaining 12 per cent of the vote. the conservatives fell to a historic low — with just 9 per cent of the vote — putting them in 5th place. the snp dominated the poll in scotland with a big lead over the other parties. there have been further indications from nicola sturgeon that she will push for a second independence vote, perhaps later in the year. the uk independence party — winners in 2014 — saw their vote fall heavily to just 3 per cent. the new change uk party also failed to make an impact, with only 3 per cent share. in total, 73 seats in the european parliament were up for grabs in the uk. the brexit party have won 29 seats. the lib dems have 16 —

they gained just! in 2014. labour have 10 meps — a loss of eight. the greens more than doubled their seats, with 7 meps, up 4. and the impact on the conservative party is clear — they‘ve got just four meps — down 15. in scotland the snp won 3 seats. while in wales plaid cymru have won one seat after beating labour. counting in northern ireland meanwhile is still under way. we should get that result later this afternoon, possibly early this evening. 0urfirst report comes from our political correspondent tom barton — a warning his report contains some flash photography. smiling faces for members of a party that was only launched six weeks ago.

the brexit party, the clear winners of this election, taking almost a third of the vote and 29 meps. brexit! the party‘s leader saying that this could be just the start. if we don't leave on october the 31st, then the scores you have seen for the brexit party today will be repeated in a general election and we are getting ready for it. it wasn‘tjust a good night for the brexit party. those standing on a clear remain platform also made great lea ps forward. the greens beat the conservatives into fourth place. while it was a champagne moment for the liberal democrats, coming in second with 20% of the vote. this is the first time in 100 years

where we have beaten both the conservative and labour party in the same election and we are clearly able to demonstrate that both the conservative and labour party did badly because they were absolutely split, could not articulate what they wanted on brexit. we made it very clear we are the strongest remain party. the one thing that is clear from this result is that voters don‘t like the tightrope walk brexit compromises that the two main parties have been offering up until now. what does that mean for the future? both for labour and the conservatives, it means they are going to be under pressure to adopt simpler, clearer positions. theresa may today sharing her disappointment saying she hoped that the result would focus minds in

parliament. for many of the contenders, the message from voters isa simple contenders, the message from voters is a simple one. one message is clear from these results: we absolutely need to deliver brexit. i led the campaign to take britain out of the eu, and we must honour that referendum result. in scotland, labour has been wiped out in the face of an snp surge, while in wales, the party was forced into third place. the pressure now on the leadership, including from some senior voices, to back another referendum. jeremy corbyn today promising to listen. what you have from me today is a commitment that our party is listening to its members and its supporters and reaching out to other parties across the house of commons to prevent a crashing out without a deal. a commitment that the future will of course be put to a public

vote, as we have already proposed in parliament. these results providing no easy answers for the parties when they return to westminster next week. we are going to lambeth now, not to hear from the we are going to lambeth now, not to hearfrom the archbishop we are going to lambeth now, not to hear from the archbishop of canterbury but from sir vince cable who is with party activists there.” think we done brilliantly well. taken together with the local government election results a few weeks ago, we are clearly now a major national force again, and weeks ago, we are clearly now a major nationalforce again, and our next big task is to work with other people in other parties who are like—minded, initially to stop britain crashing out of the european union by accident. there is a task ahead, but we‘ve had a brilliant result, and we‘ve got a lot now to build on. thank you very much.

we expect some questions to vince cable from the journalist there. in fa ct, cable from the journalist there. in fact, it looks like he is doing separate interviews. we will hear what he says in just a short time. some breaking news that has come in to us. interesting in the light not just of the european parliament results but because of the conservative party leadership contest, and that is that nicola sturgeon has given her strongest indication yet, at an event in dublin, that she expects to call for another referendum on independence from the uk in the second half of 2020, despite the fact that the uk government is determined there shouldn‘t be another referendum

because the result in 2014 was a rejection. we will have more, we hope, from the snp and scottish electors later. for now, back to carry. she has said before she thinks there should be won before the next scottish elections, but pinning it down a bit more. she has been under pressure from some within her own party to this position where she is more specific about the second independence referendum. from her point of view, she wants to make sure that it can be won this time round and will be looking very carefully at the polls, but she probably views the prospect of a new conservative leader, one who may well move to a no—deal brexit, she might see that as a good chance, because she would look of course at the result in scotland at the last

referendum, where scotland voted overwhelmingly, around 61%, to remain. it is worth pointing out that 1 remain. it is worth pointing out that1 million remain. it is worth pointing out that 1 million people remain. it is worth pointing out that1 million people in scotland did vote to leave the eu, but she would point to that and think that that might be the thing that would prompt scotland to go for independence a second time round. of course, it means the westminster parliament has to allow it first. so, the government here would have to give its permission. another potential nightmare for the new conservative leader and prime minister, the dissolution of the union as a referendum issue. turning to that question, the next leader of the conservative party, we have another candidate hat in the ring. that‘s right, we are up to nine candidates, home secretary sajid javid throwing his hat into the ring, joining others. it is hard to see how any of them can get beyond theissue see how any of them can get beyond the issue of brexit and what they do

about it. because it is on and has brought down the prime minister, theresa may, they need to come up with a plan for how they are going to deal with it. of course, they will be under tremendous pressure to ta ke will be under tremendous pressure to take a hard line because they are under pressure from nigel farage and his brexit party. borisjohnson said today that there are conservative voters who have gone to nigel farage‘s party and may never come back if brexit is delayed again beyond the 31st of october. jeremy hunt has talked about it as an existential crisis. that code in the end destroy the conservative party. it will be intriguing in the coming weeks to see what plans each of them comes up with. they have to appeal to the grassroots of the conservative party, and they, as we know, are much more pro—brexit than the rest of the population and have no problem with a no—deal brexit.

vince cable was out and about in lambeth enjoying his party‘s success , lambeth enjoying his party‘s success, and he joins lambeth enjoying his party‘s success, and hejoins us now. thank you for talking to us. were you surprised by the scale of your victories in the election is? yes, i was pleasantly surprised. it was fairly clear we had momentum and we we re fairly clear we had momentum and we were doing well, but i‘m delighted by the scale of the popular vote and the seats we‘ve won. actually, i think a bigger picture is if you ta ke think a bigger picture is if you take the remain parties as a whole, we‘ve had a very strong turnout, a very good result, and i think we are now demonstrating that there is a majority of people in the country who don‘t want to leave the eu now. the pollsters are not exactly drawing that conclusion, are they? the conclusion we have from sirjohn curtis, who is doing the saif ology on the bbc is that —— the polling on the bbc,... are you unpleasantly

surprised by the brexit party result? not greatly. they have made a small advance on where the ukip party were when the last european election results were announced. there will be arguments back and forward , there will be arguments back and forward, and the only way forward now to resolve the issue is to go back to the public and have a referendum on whether we leave or stay, and what are the terms of leaving. it is the only way of resolving what is a very polarised electorate, as you rightly say.“ is obvious to you but doesn‘t seem obvious tilt of the labour leader, despite the quite vocally expressed views of some of his front bench. he is still talking about preferring a general election. well, that is another option. and that may well happen. if we get a new conservative leader who wants to establish some credibility, and whether they would risk an election, i‘m not sure, but

it certainly is an option. jeremy corbyn‘s position is now very weak. he has been almost humiliated in these elections. it was understandable that the tories would ta ke understandable that the tories would take a understandable that the tories would takea hammering, understandable that the tories would take a hammering, but for the labour party to go down so far and become so discredited with this ambivalent position towards brexit, i expect his own position is a good deal wea ker his own position is a good deal weaker than it was a few days ago. if we can talk about your electoral fortu nes if we can talk about your electoral fortunes again for a moment, because obviously it was a good result, as eve ryo ne obviously it was a good result, as everyone is saying, for you overnight, but many are also saying it isa overnight, but many are also saying it is a protest vote over brexit and would not be repeated in a general election. it would be a wasted vote there. well, it clearly isn't a wasted vote, because otherwise we wouldn‘t have done so well in the local elections either, where far from being a protest vote, it was a very positive vote for liberal democrats in local government. when we get to a election, clearly we

have the familiar problem of first past the post, but i think british politics is changing in quite a radical way and i would be surprised if the conservative or labour party survives intact. there are tremendous tensions within the two traditional parties and we may well get out completely difficult kind of political alignment by the next time we go to the polls nationally. and the lib dems will be in a very strong position to lead opinion in those elections. is that you with evidence orfacts to those elections. is that you with evidence or facts to support that, orare evidence or facts to support that, or are you just stirring it up to provoke a more imminent existential crisis for the two main parties? well, i don‘t need to. just listen to the way they talk to each other. the conservative party are clearly in terrible disarray. we don‘t know what‘s going to happen with their leadership election, and the labour party has been quiet for a while, but we know there is a civil war that could break forward again at any time. i don‘t think i‘m

exaggerating. the tensions, the cracks in the system are all too apparent. talking about tensions and cracks in the system around the question of leadership, because your own party will soon have a leadership battle as you depart. is that going to be all sweetness and ught? that going to be all sweetness and light? no, i think it's that going to be all sweetness and light? no, ithink it's very that going to be all sweetness and light? no, i think it's very good. we are doing this in a very orderly way, as i hope. isaid we are doing this in a very orderly way, as i hope. i said we would have a planned succession. that‘s what we‘re going to get. but there is a competition between potentially very good candidates. i wish them well. i will remain active myself in the broader movement. no, i am very optimistic about where this is going to leave my party. and so, who are you supporting for that role because my do you have a preferred candidate? no, i don't. ithink it would be inappropriate for me to pick sides. in any event, the

candidates i know about are very capable, have served in government in senior roles. they are very good opposition campaigning politicians as well. what will be your first word of advice to them, about what they should do in their first week in office? i'm not giving instructions. i will be, you know, talking privately about some of the problems, you know, any party in our position faces trying to build up to the next step. they‘ll be taking on the next step. they‘ll be taking on the leadership in a very good position, but there‘s a lot more to do. we‘ve still got to win the battle over brexit. i‘m optimistic now that it‘s got to be won. battle over brexit. i‘m optimistic now that it's got to be won. sir vince cable, thank you very much for joining us. with us now, conservative mp james joining us. with us now, conservative mpjames morris. i know you are vice chair of the party, so you are vice chair of the party, so you don‘t express preferences, but what do you the think challenges are

for them today? this was a bad set of results for the conservative party. i don‘t think there is any way of spinning it otherwise. we failed to deliver brexit by the 29th of march, so as a government, we have to take some responsibility for that. the prime minister in her resignation speech also took responsibility for it, so now the party needs to move forward, and the party needs to move forward, and the party has challenges. we need to deliver brexit by the 31st of october, and whoever the next leader is needs to bring the party in the country together. we had sir vince cable say there, and we have heard the same thing from senior figures in your own party, as senior as the chancellor, that there are concerns about the possibility of tacking towards a new do you —— no—deal brexit. i would prefer us to leave the eu with a deal. i supported the prime minister‘s withdrawal agreement, but we do need to deliver brexit. that will be a matter for

the leadership contenders.“ brexit. that will be a matter for the leadership contenders. if i brexit. that will be a matter for the leadership contenders. ifi can press you on the choices that may be coming down the road for someone like you. the question is a no—deal brexit or no brexit — what way will you go? it is on the public record. i voted to keep no deal on the table. i thought it was a mistake to ta ke table. i thought it was a mistake to take it off the table. parliament was wrong to take no deal off the table. it is imperative for the conservative party to deliver brexit. that is why we had such a bad set of results. people were frustrated by the fact that despite our efforts we weren‘t able to lead by the 29th of march. so that is an absolute imperative for whoever the leader is. i know what you would prefer. we need to leave the european union in order to fulfil the promise of the referendum in 2016. but coming back to the point about philip hammond, that is clearly not the view of every mp in

your party, so are you in danger of a situation where you get some soft brexit or remain supporters who vote down the government? you're asking a hypothetical question about what may happen in our future scenario. time is short. i don't know who will be in the leadership contest, but it is for them to lay out how they will approach this issue on the basis that it approach this issue on the basis thatitis approach this issue on the basis that it is imperative that we need to leave the eu by the end of october. you‘re asking me about a hypothetical which i can‘t comment on right now. let's look at something you can comment on. when you look to europe and see the results there, do you get the sense that there might be a partner out there who is prepared to go back, i unpick the negotiation and put it together in a more congenial fashion where you can all go into the lobby for it? as i say, i think it would be better to leave with a deal.” for it? as i say, i think it would be better to leave with a deal. i am asking for your assessment of europe. it is in our interest and those of the eu to have that deal.

we‘ve had elections across europe that have been mixed. there are populist parties doing well in some areas are not so well in others. the european commission will be different when we get to september. i think there is a strong possibility that the eu will want to doa possibility that the eu will want to do a deal with the uk so we leave in an orderly fashion. they don‘t want an orderly fashion. they don‘t want a no—deal brexit, but i am on public record as saying but i think we should keep no deal on the table. thank you forjoining us. as you‘ve been hearing, the brexit party have topped polls in every part of the uk — apart from scotland, won by the snp, and london, by the liberal democrats. northern ireland is still left to declare. reeta chakrabarti has been taking a look at the results this has been an election of stark contrasts, with the brexit party putting in a very impressive performance, but strong performances too from the liberal democrats and the greens and a real disaster for labour and the conservatives. let‘s take a look at

some of the details. castle point here in east of england, this was one of the brexit party‘s strongest results. look at that, 59% of the vote here in a very leave voting area. but a really, really strong performance, leaving all the parties behind. the brexit party also coming out on top in windsor and maidenhead, that‘s theresa may‘s constituency, her own backyard. they came out on top in saint helens here in the northwest, beating labour in their own heartland. look at that. the brexit party on 35% and the labour party on 22%. for the liberal democrats, it was also a very good night. here in elmbridge for example they topped the poll by 39%. now this is an area that had been conservative for the last three european elections and if you take a little look at the change in the share of the vote, look at that.

the conservatives plummeting by 31% to the benefit of the liberal democrats. for the lib dems it was a great night in london, they topped the poll in london and that included islington which isjeremy corbyn‘s constituency. that tale of labour woe was reproduced in scotland where the snp took almost all the areas, all the local authority areas that there are. and in blaenau gwent labour also suffered there at the hands of the brexit party. one word for the greens who came top in three areas and that included bristol as well, and they will be very happy with their performance at this election. i think the takeaway dealt from these selections is the result for the conservative party who on 9% of the vote share came fifth in the table. and there is one remarkable fact for the governing party which is that in the whole

of the united kingdom they failed to top the vote in any single local authority area in this entire election. that‘s it from me for now. more in a short while. back to you, shaun. we promise you we would hear from nigel farage at some point. we obviously just heard nigel farage at some point. we obviouslyjust heard from sir vince cable. he has had his news conference, nigel farage, but they did it in a corridor, not the main room. we will get it replayed and bring it to you in a few moments. let‘s look at the overall results across the rest of europe, and the spread of seats in the new european parliament, which will sit for the first time next month. the big centre—right and centre—left blocs have lost their combined majority amid an increase in support for liberals, the greens and nationalists. pro—eu parties are still expected to be in a majority

but the traditional blocs will need to seek new alliances. the liberals and greens had a good night, while nationalists were victorious in italy, france and of course the uk. however the centre—right european people‘s party does remain the largest bloc, and analysts say it is likely to form a grand coalition with the socialists and democrats bloc, with support from liberals and the greens. negotiations and horsetrading lie ahead. meanwhile, turnout was a surprise. the number of people voting rose to 51 percent — up from 42.6 percent in 2014 — bucking a long trend of decline in voter numbers, and the best since 1994.

let‘s bring you what nigel farage had to say. all these people come to the real world. they won‘t mind not being in the european parliament. they can get on with the rest of their lives. they do it because they believed in it. what is your plan for after this? westminster?” believed in it. what is your plan for after this? westminster? i tell you what, if we had left the brexit process to the conservative and labour party, we would never have got a brexit that resembled anything like what we talked about in the referendum. this will put pressure on them, pressure on the conservative leadership contest. an the question is, will they respond to the pressure or will they make coalitions? if they stay indecisive and we don‘t leave on the 31st of october, it will produce a result in

the next general election that will stu n the next general election that will stun them. there wasn't room for all 29 brexit party meps to stand together, and he wanted to be photographed there. you notice prominently and were former conservative and now up prominent brexit supporter. now, the weather. temperatures are struggling to 11 celsius under the cloud. the showers are developing more widely, some of them heavy and thundery. they will continue to drive their way south this evening before slowly fading away across western areas later in the night. it could turn chile in rural of northern ireland. sunshine for northern ireland and many western parts of scotland, wales, down the western side of england. most showers will be further east, particularly across the midlands and

eastern england. temperatures struggling to 10—13dc in many areas. warmer further south and west. 17-18dc. we will warmer further south and west. 17—18dc. we will bring weather fronts bringing less cold there but more cloud and some rain on wednesday. —— less cold air.

hello, we will have more reaction and analysis of the european elections shortly. but let‘s get an update on the sport. not long to go in the championship play—off final, a place up for grabs in the premiership. it is currently 2—0 to aston villa. they took the lead just before half—time. a diving header from a cross, and another ball into the box contributed to their second. this match worth an estimated £170 million to the winner, associated with the benefits of premier league football, and it is billed as the

richest one game in football. around 15 minutes left. british number one, johanna konta is through to the second round of the french open for the first time ever. she beat antonia lottner of germany in straight sets. it‘s the first time in five attempts that konta hasn‘t been knocked out in the first round. petra kvitova meanwhile has been forced to withdraw from the tournament, with an arm injury. rafa nadal beat the german qualifier in straight sets to meet the next round. he is chasing a record extending 12th roland garros title. he will face german qualifier next. england thrashed afghanistan by nine wickets in theirfinal england thrashed afghanistan by nine wickets in their final warm england thrashed afghanistan by nine wickets in theirfinal warm up match before the start of the cricket world cup. afghanistan were all out for 160. archer led the way with three wickets, joe root matching that.

and good news, boler mark wood is fit and will be available for the game against south africa. captain owen marker was back from a fractured finger. mo farah has won the vitality london 10,000 for the seventh time. the olympic champion was the honorary starter for the race, before finishing ahead of fellow britons andrew butchart and nick goolab. farah said he‘d lost track of his winning streak. i thought this was going to be my sixth, even better that it is my seventh! it is nice to come out here and win the race. as i said, andy is a strong athlete, and nick is another one. andy was pushing on early on. i had to cover every move, and push at the end, i knew that was what it was going to take. ste p h twell retained the women‘s title, as she continues her bid to make the british squad for next year‘s olympic games in tokyo, while daniel sidbury and three—time paralympic medallist shelly woods won the wheelchair races. i was nervous because there

is a great depth in british running. but i think an equal run is a great way to push yourself. i supported a lot of guys in the race as well as them supporting me. i thought that was fantastic and i made sure i made the finishing line with the guys, because i am here to finish as fast as i can. england‘s bronte law has won her first lpga title at the pure silk championship in virginia. she had a share of the lead from day one and finished two shots clear of the field with a closing round of 67 — a great victory after she lost out in a play—off in san francisco earlier this month. i believe in hard work and determination, i really stayed so focused out there today. my caddie did a great job keeping me calm. i guess after san francisco, gave me perspective that i could compete at the top. i came this week with the sole intention of getting that one better. and it feels really good.

thanks for that. before we return to carrie gracie with more european news, let‘s take a look at some of the other stories. a man and woman have appeared in court charged with the murder of two teenagers who died in a house in sheffield on friday morning. the woman, who is mother of the dead children, is also accused of the attempted murder of two other children. the defendants appeared at the dock at sheffield magistrates‘ court, both wearing grey t—shirts. the 34—year—old woman is accused of two cou nts 34—year—old woman is accused of two counts of murder over the deaths of her two teenage children. blake was 14, and triston was 13. both at a house in sheffield on friday morning. she has also accused of

three charges of attempted murder relating to two other children. the 37—year—old man was accused of two cou nts 37—year—old man was accused of two counts of murder also. no pleas were given today, and the pair were remanded in custody to appear at sheffield crown court tomorrow morning. the carmakers fiat chrysler and renault are in discussions to merge their two businesses. the combined company — that would be split 50/50 between fiat and renault shareholders — would create the third largest car maker behind volkswagen and toyota. car makers have faced pressure to consolidate amid major industry shifts, including the trend towards electric vehicles. president trump‘s four—day state visit to japan is drawing to a close. on monday, the us president became the first foreign leader to meet japan‘s emperor naruhito. mr trump also held talks with prime minister shinzo abe. trade dominated the agenda, as did defence issues and north korea. we‘ll have more on that story in the next half hour.

what‘s believed to be the clearest ever moving footage of queen victoria has been discovered in the film archive of a museum in new york. the importance of the piece of film went unrealised until a curator from the british film institute saw it earlier this year. with this exclusive report, here‘s our royal correspondent sarah campbell. queen victoria, in sharper focus than ever seen before. this was her last trip to ireland, in 1900, and is believed to be the last time she was filmed before her death less than a year later. it is the best view you will ever get of queen victoria in moving footage. the film had been stored for decades in new york‘s museum of modern art. it was only when a british historian was shown it that its historical significance was truly realised. i nearly fell off my chair because i had never seen queen victoria in close up before. it is completely unique

because you can see her face for the first time probably since 1900, since this was shown. it is close—up, you can see expressions, you can see her in movement, rather than just a stiff portrait or still photograph. queen victoria embraced the new medium of film. she and tsar nicholas ii were filmed at balmoral in 1896, and the following year 40 cameras were used to capture the queen‘s diamond jubilee. film was an extension of a whole series of image making about queen victoria. it makes her seem real. and she is real. what sets this film apart is the level of detail. that is largely down to the film size. 68mm on the left, and on the right, the footage was filmed in 35mm, a cheaperformat which became the industry standard, despite the loss of detail. the result? very few films of such high quality were made,

and no others capture so clearly this living, breathing, moving monarch. let‘s go back to carrie. i have taken a quick straw poll of collea g u es taken a quick straw poll of colleagues here, and we reckon those are definitely spectacles. they look are definitely spectacles. they look a bit steam punk! isee are definitely spectacles. they look a bit steam punk! i see exactly what you meant! now... one of the new brexit party mep‘s is the former conservative minister ann widdecombe. she‘s been speaking to our correspondent sarah ransome. if you look at the map today, it is a sea of brexit blue. we asked the nation a very simple question. we didn‘t have a great raft of policies, we had one, that was to get britain out of the eu without a deal. and the nation voted for us, and voted for us big time. my reflections are, that was the second referendum. twice now the nation

have said to parliament, we want to leave. i hope this time parliament listens, because if it doesn‘t come out we don‘t get out of the eu on 3ist out we don‘t get out of the eu on 31st october, the brexit party will contest the general election. nigel farage has talked about contesting the general election. what are your thoughts?” contesting the general election. what are your thoughts? i hope it is not necessary because the only way it will not be necessary is if we have left cleanly and there is no doubt about it and no reopening of the argument and we have gone. if that happens, the job of the brexit party is done. if that doesn‘t happen, if we don‘t leave, and at the moment that is the most likely outcome given their record. if we don‘t leave or leave in name only and stand with one leg and on one leg out, or if there is an attempt to reverse the leave, we will stand

in the general election. with me now is professor sara hobolt from the london school of economics and politics. you are an election behavioural specialist. is your assessment similarto specialist. is your assessment similar to that of ann widdecombe? she said this basically was the second referendum on the outcome is clear, people want to leave and get on with it. there's a couple of things to say about that. it was not a referendum, it was an election to the european parliament. but she is right when she says brexit was the overwhelming issue that most people had in their minds, we think, when they went into the polls. you can see that in the clear divide between parties like the brexit party that stood for a clear brexit message, but also the parties on the other side, the parties that promoted remain and a people‘s vote. if this was a referendum, the brexit party didn‘t get more than 50% of the

vote. i‘m not sure it is to her advantage to present it like that. it is always hard in an election thatis it is always hard in an election that is not a referendum to say which side one. but if we grouped together the parties that said we wa nt to together the parties that said we want to remain and we want a people‘s vote, it looks like they did slightly better, with 40% if you look at the greens, liberal democrats and the snp. in that sense the referendum was not clearly won by one side of the other, in fact we see that the public is divided on the issue. what is harder to see is how the traditional tory or labour supporters, how they voted. the results of the main parties were bad, it is not clear given the convoluted positions of both those parties where they would fall. what we saw was that these two main parties that didn‘t have as clear a position in the eyes of voters both lost out. when we look at local

constituency data we can see that they lost out both in remain leaning and leave leaning areas. the brexit party picked up the most votes in the areas where a lot of people in 2016 had voted for brexit and where the lib dems and greens picked up most votes was where remain did well backin most votes was where remain did well back in 2016. there was that new divide in british politics. and the conservatives and labour lose out to both sides. some of that was flagged up both sides. some of that was flagged up in advance, the scale of it perhaps worse than both main parties imagine. what else do you read into the results? we have to be careful in translating from the european parliament election with low turnout and where voters know they are not voting for a government, they are voting for a government, they are voting to send a signal. this is what they did. they sent a signal to the people sitting over here in westminster about brexit. but it was

not one signal, it was two very different signals. we had one part of the population that sent a strong signal saying, we want to get on with brexit, and another part of the population said no, we want a second referendum we want to revoke article 50 or something like that. we are not really any further in terms of being able to use this vote to say, now we know what the public wants. another key player in the brexit drama is the eu. elections across the continent. is there anything in the continent. is there anything in the results you have seen that affects the debate here? what we see in europe is some similarities, although across europe these were different elections because they we re very different elections because they were very much about the composition of the parliament. but you also have domestic dynamics. 0ne of the parliament. but you also have domestic dynamics. one of the key thing is to take away from european results is fragmentation and the weakening of the two major party groups, the centre—right and the ce ntre—left. groups, the centre—right and the centre—left. they are now weaker in parliament. going forward they will

have to work together with other groups such as liberals in order to come to agreements. that is also agreements on a future trade deal with the uk. in a sense it might be more complicated for the uk to work with the eu in the future. but we are not seeing a major shift so far. what we have to look out for in terms of the eu is who will be the next commission president. those talks are going on now in the eu, and that will be interesting to watch. thank you. the brexit party leader, nigel farage, has been speaking in the past half hour at an event in westminster. who was there. what did he have to say? as well as what he had to say was how he said it. iam

what he had to say was how he said it. i am in the room what he had to say was how he said it. iam in the room by what he had to say was how he said it. i am in the room by the press conference was supposed to happen. it is rather empty, and the fact is it did not happen in here at all because nigel farage arrived with his meps, including the likes of ann widdecombe, and they stood outside of this room in front of a brexit party banner, and at that point nigel farage spontaneously decided he did not want to do the press conference in here, he wanted to do it in the other room. they were a ratherjubilant it in the other room. they were a rather jubilant and spontaneous crowd. he repeated some of the similar themes we have heard from the party before. he said nobody would ever trust the tories again. he brought up theresa may‘s many promises to leave the eu and the 29th of march, the conservative party had failed to deliver that. he was dismissive of the conservative leadership race, and talked about how the brexit party in his view having topped the ballot now has a mandate to take part in the negotiations going forward. the big

question is what negotiations? the eu has said while the future relationship might be up for debate, the withdrawal agreement is not open for renegotiation. in terms of the actual content of his clean break brexit that he talks about, did you hear any more of the detail? he is reiterating that in his view and the view of the brexit party, they want to have a wto brexit, reverting to world trade organisation rules. in other words, a new deal departure. he wants some of his meps who he claims are very experienced in business and negotiations to get round the table with the eu to make sure that happens. but it is not exactly clear how he will do that. he suggested that whoever succeeds

theresa may could approach the brexit party in order to involve them in the negotiations. but not entirely clear how that will work out. the other thing he talked about is how he wants to get his brexit party on an election footing for a general election. they will start looking at candidates for all constituencies going forward, quite an extensive piece of work to do. i also asked about policy. there has been a lot of discussion about how the brexit party has been criticised for being a single issue party, simply wanting to leave the eu on wto rules, what else do they stand for? he said he will now consult supporters of the party going forward to try to work out a wider policy platform. but he mentioned he wa nted policy platform. but he mentioned he wanted to help the self—employed, and has voiced concerns before about the house of lords. but he said from now what he will try to do is recruit people to stand in 650 constituencies across the uk. they

are looking for a general election footing, and looking to their supporter base to see what policies they should have going forward. no shortage of tasks for him. earlier shaun ley spoke the election analyst sirjohn curtice from the university of strathclyde. there were two contests, one was the conservative party battling amongst leave voters. the question was to what extent would leave voters frustrated by the government be attracted to the brexit party? the answer was, rather a lot. well over half of conservative voters switched to nigel farage‘s party. with 32% of the vote it got what the opinion polls thought, and the conservatives at 9% if anything doing slightly worse. very clear that voters on the leave

side of the argument were strongly punishing the government. not least because many of them thought that leaving without a deal would be preferable to the endless extension. they accepted nigel farage‘s argument? yes. the other battle going on was more on the remain side of the debate. it was between labour and both the liberal democrats and the greens for the remain vote. the opinion polls were uncertain. all of them were detecting that during the campaign the liberal democrats and the greens seemed to be pulling away remain votes from the labour party. the question is, was the clearer, "we want a second referendum," of the greens and the liberal democrats and change uk, would that attract voters from labour? it seems that it did, not to the same extent

that the brexit party drew away votes from the conservatives, but because this was a much less anticipated result, it has perhaps come as more of a shock to the labour party, and perhaps surprised liberal democrats in particular. it does mean that on the one hand the conservative party will have the debate — should the next tory prime minister embrace the idea of leaving without a deal? equally, should the labour party move more clearly to saying that it is in favour of a public vote on whatever deal emerges in order to shore up a remain vote, which has always been the largest share of its vote but now seems at risk of being lost. borisjohnson wrote this morning that the results were clear, and what had to happen was the government had to deliver on brexit. are they that clear? no. it is true that 35% of people voted for parties that were saying they would have no deal, and those represent a majority of leave voters. but 35% is rather less than 50%.

it is difficult to argue that this means a majority of the public is in favour. and this is what we know from opinion polls as the proportion that is in favour of no deal. but on the other side, some want to add up the numbers to say that more people voted for pro—referendum parties than for no deal parties, therefore this was a mandate for a second referendum. we can argue about the extent to which the snp vote is a remain vote. it is predominantly, but not completely. if you take them out, it is 35 and 35. but in any event, it is still less than 50%. the honest truth is neither side can claim on the basis of these results that voters have sent a clear signal it should be one thing or another. the signals the voters have sent on both sides of the argument is that many of them are now sufficiently polarised as to which choice they prefer that the two extreme options

of leaving without a deal, and having a second referendum, as the polls are suggesting, the two most popular options, and options about which voters feel sufficiently strongly that many a person who would otherwise vote conservative or labour, switched to a smaller party. how worried should the conservative party be by the result? we know from opinion polls that not as many people would vote for the brexit party in a general election. but we also know that around 16—18% would. maybe that number would come down a bit, except that brexit is not going off the agenda any time soon. this may be a european election that gets remembered by voters rather more. the conservative party cannot afford the brexit party running at 18%, because the opinion polls at the moment for westminster voting intentions have the conservative party behind the labour party with no

prospect of being able to form another administration. to that extent, yes the conservative party have to worry. it is unlikely that the brexit vote is going to disappear unless and until the conservatives deliver brexit. a second note that says, we are better placed to deliver this than nigel farage is probably not going to work. therefore, the next tory prime minister is probably going to have to try to work out a way to deliver brexit within the arithmetic of the current house of commons, because the option of going to the country is unlikely to look attractive. hello there, a chill in the air. you might see clouds like this is the showers come rolling in. it is mixed, sunshine and showers, some

could be heavy. feeling cooler, and the most significant change in temperatures will be in the north—east. towards the south—east and east anglia, 23 yesterday. 19 at best today. not too many showers along the south coast. some blustery winds. northerly winds across scotland, dragging down the colder air. a sprinkling of showers across many parts through the afternoon, into the evening, and slowly easing down across western areas overnight. some clearer skies in northern ireland. in rural parts of could be down to three or four. tuesday could be the coldest of the next few days. colder air coming down on the north—westerly wind. by wednesday, less cold air from the atlantic but some cloud and rain. it may well be

dry for many parts on tuesday, more sunshine in the east, the midlands, a few showers that could be thundery. temperatures will struggle again. further west and towards the south it will be a little warmer. chilly overnight. this high pressure will kill off a lot of showers. and then we have this atlantic air, meaning more cloud, higher humidity, and some outbreaks of rain. some early sunshine down the east, but the cloud thickens from the west. outbreaks of rain pushing across. not much rain in the south—east. northern scotland with a mixture of sunshine and showers. not really getting warm air yet. the rain will move northwards. 0n getting warm air yet. the rain will move northwards. on thursday and friday the rain heads up to scotland and northern ireland. most places

dry over the weekend. high temperatures in the mid 20s.

you‘re watching a bbc news eu elections special — with the brexit party a clear winner, the lib dems taking second place and big losses for the conservatives and labour. nigel farage says he‘s ready to fight a general election after his new brexit party secured nearly a third of the vote and 29 meps. if we don‘t leave on the 31st of october i think we can produce a result in the general election. the liberal democrats — who backed a second referendum — surged into second position — vince cable said it was a brilliant result they could now build on. i‘m carrie gracie at westminster — where the two main parties have

suffered heavy losses. the conservatives are pushed into fifth place — with an historic low of less than 10% of the vote. home secretary sajid javid becomes the latest mp to join the race to become the next tory leader. and pressure onjeremy corbyn to back another refendum after labour falls to third place overall — he says the party‘s position remains unchanged. what this party does is supports an agreement with the european union to prevent crashing out, supports putting that proposal, when agreed, to a public vote. we‘ll bring you all the results — and the picture across europe where turnout is up, and the traditional parties have lost out to smaller ones. northern ireland are still to declare.

good afternoon and welcome to this bbc news special. in a major blow for the two largest parties at westminster, the brexit party has emerged as the clear winner in the eu elections. formed only recently, nigel farage‘s party has won 29 seats and received almost a third of the vote. both labour and the tories posted some of their worst results ever, with the liberal democrats taking second place, on an anti—brexit platform. jeremy corbyn — pressed by some senior labour figures to back another referendum — said the party‘s position had not changed but they had a responsibility to listen,

and to ensure a public vote on any brexit deal. with only northern ireland still to declare, let‘s take a look at the results in detail. the brexit party gained the largest share of the vote — 32%. the liberal democrats took second place with 20% — up 13 points on the last eu elections in 2014. labour came third with 14 per cent — down 11 points on last time. the greens came fourth with 12 % of the vote. the conservatives fell to a historic low — just 9% of the vote — putting them in fifth place. the snp dominated the poll in scotland — with a big lead over the other parties there. the uk independence party — winners in 2014 — saw their vote fall heavily. and the new change uk party failed

to make an impact with just three % of the vote. in total, 73 seats in the european parliament were up for grabs in the uk. the brexit party now have 29 meps. the lib dems have 16 — up from just one in 2014. labour have ten meps — down eight. the greens more than doubled their tally — with seven meps, up four. and the impact on the conservatives is clear — they‘ve now gotjust four meps — down 15. in scotland the snp won three seats. while in wales plaid cymru have won one seat after beating labour into third. counting in northern ireland meanwhile is still under way. we are hoping for a result within a

couple of hours. our first report comes from our political correspondent tom barton — a warning his report contains some flash photography. a party that was only launched six weeks ago. soon to be the joint largest of any in the european parliament. surrounded by more than two dozen new brexit party meps in jubilant mood. hoping to lead to a hard exit from the eu. if we left the brexit process to the conservative and labour party, we would never have got a brexit resembling what we voted for in the referendum. this clearly will put pressure on them, pressure on the conservative leadership contest. for the liberal democrats, a champagne moment. the party coming second with 20% of the vote. the greens also leapt forward,

beating the conservatives to fourth place. this afternoon the liberal democrat leader claiming victory for those who want to remain in the eu. clear from the big picture of the results we now have a clear majority in the country who want to stop brexit. stay in the european union. as for the liberal democrats, i think we have done brilliantly well, taken together with the local government election results some weeks ago, we are clearly now a major national force again. the one thing that is clear is that voters do not like the tightrope walk brexit compromises that the two main parties have been offering up to now. what does that mean for the future? both for labour and the conservatives, it means that they will be under pressure to adopt simpler and clearer positions.

theresa may is sharing her disappointment today. the result is focusing the minds of those are hoping to replace her, like home secretary sajid javid, who joined the race today. for many of the contenders, the message from voters is a simple one.” the contenders, the message from voters is a simple one. i am saddened deeply by the fact that so many candidates and activists worked so hard and we did not get the result we wanted. 0ne message is clear, we absolutely need to deliver brexit. i read the campaign to take britain out of the european union and we must honour the referendum result. in scotland, labour has been wiped out in the face of an snp surge, while in wales the party was forced into third place. the pressure now in the leadership including from some senior voices to

back another referendum. jeremy corbyn today promising to listen. what you have for me today is a commitment that our party is listening to its members and supporters and reaching out to other parties across the house of commons. to prevent a crashing out from the european union with no deal. a commitment that the fruitful that matt the future will be put to a public vote... no easy answers for the parties when they return to westminster next week. tom barton, bbc news, westminster. scotland‘s first minister, leader of the s&p nicola sturgeon, celebrating her party‘s success there, says the second half of next year will be the right time to try to hold another independence referendum. nicola sturgeon also said the brexit

parties made big gains but the advances of remain supporting parties she hopes will push for another referendum. clearly the conservatives are moving in a hard brexit, possibly no—deal brexit direction. 0n the other side, jeremy corbyn will come under enormous pressure because of the dire results in the elections to back a second referendum. there is the real opportunity i think to get a second eu referendum and hopefully when an outcome that has the eu though it uk sting in the eu. —— uk staying in the eu. let‘s start with the labour leaderjeremy corbyn, who is facing increasing pressure from senior members of his party to back another referendum on brexit, with his own shadow chancellor saying it is the only way through the deadlock.

john mcdonnell said the country was now facing the prospect of a "brexit extremist" becoming the next prime minister, meaning the uk faced the prospect of no deal. we are in a situation now, where do we go from here, and we are faced with the potential of a brexiteer extremist almost certainly becoming the leader of the tory party, whether it is borisjohnson or dominic raab or someone of that ilk. so we are faced with the prospect of no deal, which could have catastrophic consequences for our economy. we have got to prevent that. how do we do that? of course a general election but not many tory mps are going to vote for a general election, it would be like turkeys voting for christmas, i think the best is a second referendum, so if there can be a deal, great, but it needs to go back to the people, if there is a no deal, we have got to block it,

and one way to do that is to go back to the people and arguing the case against it. it would be catastrophic for our economy, it is not just me saying that, it is philip hammond, others across the parties, independent economists as well, and i am not willing to stand by and let my constituents lose their jobs. so are you saying it is a referendum under any circumstances? i think it is, yes. let‘s speak to the labour mp peter dowd. are you fed up with constructive ambiguity? time for a second referendum announcement?” ambiguity? time for a second referendum announcement? i do not think it is a question of being sick of so—called constructive ambiguity, what we have been trying to do is move out of this binary, polarised position. i think the elections yesterday were a proxy on another referendum. if we have to have

another referendum, i prefer a general election, but if we have to to ratify a deal or have remain on the ballot paper, that is something that will have to happen, i suspect. you still prefer a general election, even after results which were so very bad for your own party? yes, but because a general election is going to widen this debate up. whatever happens in a referendum, we are still going to be faced with the tensions and polarisations. what we have to do is have a broader debate on how you want to see the future of the country, whether in the european union or outside with a deal. the only way to do that is a general election because this stalemate and polarisation, binary position which continues at infant item. that is why i want a general election. going back to voters and a general election with a position unclear in the view of many as the one you

approach the european elections, are not you going to get doors slammed in yourface and not you going to get doors slammed in your face and results like last night? i don't believe that is the case because what we have had for the last two or three years is brexit being completely and utterly polarised. the shame of it is, we haven‘t been able to move on to the whole question about issues of nhs cuts, economy, education, social care, tuition fees. while i have been out to it in the house of commons of the last few years, no airtime. we need to get that back in the agenda. we can talk about brexit but we must get other policy issues onto the agenda. i'm quite happy to do that on the doorstep. 0n the doorstep, will you be happy to say to your voters and when you get back to your voters and when you get back to westminster to your other mp colleagues, that we have to leave with a deal or stop the process?” think we preferably weave with a

good deal. that is where we are at but we have really struggled to get that position for the past three yea rs. that position for the past three years. because the prime minister, without getting into party politics, hasn‘t been willing to talk to anybody. we are and have been and we have to pursue that. pursue the can sensible —— sensible, constructive dialogue. it can‘t all be about the narrow confines of brexit, as important as that is, it cannotjust be about that. with me is our chief political correspondent vicki young. still some talking about the idea of leaving with a good deal. everyone else is taking one path or another, do you think the prospect of the deal is there at all now? it seems hard. depends on the tory leadership contest. another person throwing their hat into the ring, sajid javid, the home secretary. all are

under pressure to take a hardline view because if you are conservative trying to get elected as the leader, appealed to tory grassroots, and now they feel they have nigel farage back as a new enemy, taking votes from them. that will be crucial. when it comes to labour, lots of talk about a second referendum, jeremy corbyn coming under pressure for many. welsh labour, scottish labour saying it is time to be lesser do it less equivocal. referendum under any circumstances and they say they would campaign to remain. there are not the numbers in the house of commons, will there be legislation between now and the end of october? how do they get to the point where they could bring that about? it looks difficult. on the european side, plenty happening there. will there be anyone to talk to about the terms of getting out with a deal before october 31? people like philip hammond the

chancellor, saying they want to renegotiate. the eu have said no to that, they might budge, no evidence. the timings in all of this, although october 31 seems a long time away, it is not. a new leader being in place by the middle or end ofjuly. they are not going to have a new commission in place really until the autumn. doesn‘t leave much time. but borisjohnson warning today autumn. doesn‘t leave much time. but boris johnson warning today saying those conservatives who have abandoned the party, going to the brexit party, he says they may never come back if brexit is delayed once again. jeremy hunt to the foreign secretary suggesting the whole crisis could do away with the tory party altogether. is there a sense ina way party altogether. is there a sense in a way the results and strengthen the government‘s hand in dealing with europe icing, luck, we really will go without a deal. look at what we have on the right of us and left. this is a very meaningful thing. the

game of bluff become stronger? maybe although europe might look and say, look at the liberal democrats and the greens and pied camry, the party is calling for brexit to stop altogether. —— plaid cymr. —— plaid cymru. philip hammond suggesting they could vote against the prime minister in terms of a no dear brexit, extraordinary. that‘s it from me for now. more in a short while — back to you shaun. let‘s take a look at the overall results across the rest of europe and the spread of seats in the european parliament. (oov)the big centre—right and centre—left blocs have the big centre—right and centre—left blocs have lost their combined majority amid an increase in support for liberals, the greens and nationalists. pro—eu parties are still expected to be in a majority but the traditional blocs will need

to seek new alliances. the liberals and greens had a good night, while nationalists were victorious in italy, france and of course the uk. and we can speak to our europe correspondent gavin lee, as the dust begins to settle on the results, what is the feeling there? notjust results, what is the feeling there? not just the results, what is the feeling there? notjust the uk, not the europe as we have had in the past. a diverse european parliament, more fragmented, more pluralistic. 751 meps in the european parliament, they get things done by majority. scrapping of mobile roaming charges, you have to bring to it build

coalitions. —— but you have to build coalitions. —— but you have to build coalitions. the social democrat party, labourjoins with the social democrats, but we have seen a ebbing away, but they are still the two biggest parties. they will have to work with the liberal party, liberal democrats the eu. best performing share, 37 more seats collectively. emmanuel mccrone, standard—bearer for a changed eu, federalist eu who was to the far right —— macron. enough to give the liberals a big boost. the green party picking up more than they ever have before. more groups will have to talk to each other to get things done. they have enough pro—eu parties to

outrank and outflank at the far right, the nationalist parties, but they have their best growth as well, extra 20 seats collectively, big gains in italy being the standard bearerfor gains in italy being the standard bearer for those wanting more national powers, anti—migrants. matteo savini says they will bring 12 countries together with the far right and national countries. the snp has comfortably topped the poll in the euro elections in scotland. the party won almost 38% of the vote — increasing its number of meps from two to three. the brexit party secured second place — with 15% of the vote — winning one seat. the liberal democrats gained 14% of the vote, the conservatives got 12%. the labour came fifth with less than 10% of the vote — down from 26% in 2014. big debate in scotland about labour. with me now is our scotland

correspondent james shaw. some pretty damning criticism of labour‘s election strategy in scotland, noticeably from mps writing in the edinburgh evening news, labour offered nothing but ambiguity, jeremy corbyn and richard leonard, labour leader in scotland, basically stuck their heads in the brexit sand because they cannot lead. well, we have heard from richard bernard, the leader of scottish labour today, and what he has said in essence is he and his party need to go away and think, regroup. “— party need to go away and think, regroup. —— mike richard leonard. they need to understand why the results were so disastrous. 56% down to less than ten. when pressed, he has also said he has re—thought his

view on whether there should be another referendum on membership of the eu. now seems pretty clear that he is dead set in saying that he thinks there should be another referendum. as far as i see it, that does set him slightly in a different place than the national leadership of the labour party in london. that isa of the labour party in london. that is a kind of moving situation, labour‘s position is changing. the other results, very good for the scottish national party, who seem to be using the good result as a platform to move ahead with their desire to have another referendum on a different subject, scottish independence. nicola sturgeon has said today she is going to put forward legislation in the scottish parliament to start to enable that to happen. she has also said she would like to see it in the second half of next year. we have to bear

in mind that the uk government has set its face firmly against another independence referendum. it has to authorise that referendum for it to be legally binding. in theory, possible for there to be won but it would not have the strength of law in terms of what would be required for scotland to become independent if people voted yes. of course, they voted no in 2014. that sets the scottish government and uk government at loggerheads for the foreseeable future on this issue of second independence referendum. the scottish tories have accused the snp of what they describe as fraudulent behaviour. they said they encourage people to vote snp to support staying within the eu but now the snp is using it to push ahead with its independence agenda. largest

share of the vote in wales. nigel farage‘s party won almost a third of the vote — with 32% — giving the party two meps. plaid cymru came in second — with 20% of the vote. labour in third — with 15%. the liberal democrats closely behind with 14%. the tories lost their seat and dropped to fifth in the vote, just ahead of the green party, ukip and change uk. 0ur wales political editor is in cardiff. felicity evans, it is the same picture as we have seen in scotland, with people in welsh labour kicking on the leadership line on a referendum. that is true. welsh labour has been an election winning machine over the last 100 years, only once in a century had they failed to top a wales wide poll. how different the things look today. they got a drubbing. came third, beaten into second place by the nationalist party plaid cymru. the first time in their history they

have defeated labour in a wales wide poll. sources in welsh labour pointed the finger at the uk readership and suggested the party‘s ambivalence over brexit was to blame for their poor showing here. it must be said the new welsh labour leader mark drake ford has made decisions and judgments of his own over the last few months. under pressure from any to come out more strongly in favour of a referendum. he declined to do that, stuck closely to the jeremy corbyn line. he has issued a statement saying he thinks the welsh public should get the final say on any brexit deal. for plaid cymru, the big question for them is whether they can use this momentum going forward , they can use this momentum going forward, looking ahead to the next assembly elections in two years.

emma vardy, northern ireland can‘t still going on? it is because they started a little later than many other places in the uk, 8am this morning rather than last night. we have had one seat confirm, democratic unionist party‘s diane dodds, some counting still going on to confirm the other two seats, but it looks to be a done deal here, sinn fein‘s martina anderson and the third seat looking strongly on course now to be taken by the alliance party by naomi long. that is interesting here because it brea ks is interesting here because it breaks the tradition of the last 40 yea rs, breaks the tradition of the last 40 years, all three of northern ireland‘s seats ta ken years, all three of northern ireland‘s seats taken by nationalist candidate and two unionist. the alliance party neither designating

them self as unionist or nationalist. attracting cross community votes here in northern ireland, bucking the trend of the last 40 years. why? an increase in support for the centre ground to some degree more recently in northern ireland, something centre ground parties have struggled to do because there is the very clear community divide here. a huge result for the alliance party, more than doubling the vote they got in the last european elections in 2014. also playing into this is brexit, alliance were campaigning strongly for remain and a second referendum. northern ireland voted to remain in the european union. the strong vote for alliance here being taken again as another sign of the remaining voters here in northern ireland. it will be a remarkable moment when it

is confirmed, as it is expected to be in the next one hour or so. different voting system here, using a single transferable vote system, partly because of northern ireland‘s unique history to ensure there is representation for unionists and nationalists. events take longer to count, technical, but at the moment the three leaders strongly on course to ta ke the three leaders strongly on course to take their seats, waiting for confirmation. probably in about one hour. we will bring you that result as soon as we get it. plenty more reaction coming up in the next half hour. and hearing from two meps from different parties representing the same region in the european parliament when it sits injuly, and they have the same name. a bit confusing. less confusing is the

weather. bank holiday monday. a mixture of weather to be expected, blue skies overhead one minute, the next a big shower cloud giving us a drenching. showers continue overnight into the early hours of tuesday albeit with clear spells in between. where the windfall is lightest, chilly night, 2-6. windfall is lightest, chilly night, 2—6. wintry over high ground. keeping the breeze, not as cold. tomorrow another day of sunshine and showers, most likely across central and eastern parts of england. for a time across eastern and southern scotland, showery rain into scotland later in the day. elsewhere, sunshine, wind coming down from the north—west, not especially warm. 11-17dc in north—west, not especially warm. 11—17dc in most areas. temperatures climbing into next weekend, southern parts, further north and west, some rain at times.

you‘re watching bbc news — we‘ll have much more reaction and analysis to the european election results shortly. first, let‘s get all the day‘s sport now, here‘s jane dougall. aston villa have won the championship play off final at wembley and will play in the premier league next season. 85,000 fans — including prince william — watched villa beat derby county 2—1 at wembley. villa took the lead just before half time when anwar el ghazi nodded them ahead. a goalkeeping error from derby‘s kelle roos allowed john mcginn to double villa‘s lead just before the hour mark. a grandstand finale was created by substitute jack marriott. it gave derby ten minutes to find an equaliser and it all got a bit much for most villa fans inside wembley. fortunuately for the duke of cambridge and the rest of the villa faithful, they held on to secure a return

to the premier league after three years in the second tier of english football and an estimated windfall of £170 million. the cricket world cup is almost upon us — it all starts on thursday morning when england play south africa at the oval. and that‘s where england signed off their preparations with a thumping warm—up win over afghanistan today. austin halewood was watching. a chance to put one last listener before the world cup, hnc to once again justify before the world cup, hnc to once againjustify his before the world cup, hnc to once again justify his selection. once again, he did. first wicket and then again, he did. first wicket and then a second soon after. england were on their game with the ball and in the field. the captain run outjust addicting. the start of an afghanistan collapse. four wickets in eight balls forjust two runs. it

was not good to watch. the fans finally did have something to cheer about. 44, dragging them to 160. escort that england fancied chasing. the first ball, first four and that set the tone. jason roy and his brilliant, brutal best. 50 from him. withjonny brilliant, brutal best. 50 from him. with jonny bairstow brilliant, brutal best. 50 from him. withjonny bairstow never too brilliant, brutal best. 50 from him. with jonny bairstow never too far behind. england raced to a nine wicket victory. the wait is almost over now and england have never been better prepared. one man that england were happy to have part of the squad today was bowler marc wood. he was struggling with a foot injury, but has been passed fit for that world cup opener. british number one, johanna konta is through to the second round of the french open for the first time ever. she beat antonia lottner of germany in straight sets. it‘s the first time in five attempts that konta hasn‘t been knocked out in the first round. petra kvitova meanwhile has been forced to withdraw

from the tournament, with an arm injury. in the men‘s draw, defending champion rafael nadal beat german qualifier yannick hanfmann in straight sets to reach the second round. the second seed is chasing a record—extending 12th roland garros title. he beat the world number 180 in just under two hours. the spaniard will face german qualifier yannick maden next. mo farah has won the vitality london 10,000 for the seventh time. the olympic champion was the honorary starter for the race, before finishing ahead of fellow britons andrew butchart and nick goolab. farah said he‘d lost track of his winning streak. i honestly thought this was going to be my sex but even better it is the seventh one. it is so nice to come out here and win the race. those are

two strong athletes. and he was putting on early on. to push at the end, i knew that was what it was going to take. ste p h twell retained the women‘s title, as she continues her bid to make the british squad for next year‘s olympic games in tokyo, while daniel sidbury and three—time paralympic medallist shelly woods won the wheelchair races. that‘s all the sport for now. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. that‘s bbc.co.uk/sport we can speak now to two newly elected meps representing the south east region. they‘re from very different parties, but share the same name. the brexit party‘s alexandra phillips joins us from westminster and the green party‘s alexandra phillips joins us from brighton.

alexandra phillips who is a brexit party member, could you raise your hand now so we can be absolutely clear as mike that makes you the green party in brighton. why did this happen, why didn‘t one or other of you change your name? have you discussed this? we both also acknowledged our middle names also begin with the l. i don‘t know how the post room will cope with this but democracy throws up some interesting results. this is a very interesting results. this is a very interesting one as it means the south—east had more meps called alexandra phillips than it has meps that are labour conservative. other alexandra phillips, the green party, how do you distinguish yourself, other than policies? there is a

clear divide between the two of us because we are on polar opposites of the clinical spectrum. the green party are april remain party but we are also anti—austerity and we want to fight i'm a change that we on these elections on that platform and we've done very, very well. we had a phenomenal evening last night. apart from party politics, does the fact you both share a name mean there is any possibility you can actually wedge this divide in any way between your political stances, does it help? i think we are going to have to bridge the divide because we‘re going to have to deal with each other everyday, just to exchange envelopes and say, i have an e—mail thatis envelopes and say, i have an e—mail that is meant for you. i am looking forward to it because there is a lot we will have in common like stopping the travelling circus to strasbourg every month. the brexit party is

going to be very broad in terms of our policy and we want to respect the referendum result but i am looking forward to working with my namesake. i am looking forward to working with my namesake. | am sure looking forward to working with my namesake. i am sure you looking forward to working with my namesake. | am sure you are looking forward to working with my namesake. i am sure you are keen to get your political agendas around. what about mistaken identity? i am concerned the voters may have voted for one or other of you while thinking they were voting for the other one stop you think there‘s any risk of that? yes, i think this is an election where people have voted for it political parties and that is where they put their effort. there we re where they put their effort. there were ten names next to those names of parties so we were just lucky with the system that people did not get confused but had it been a general election or local election, thenit general election or local election, then it would have caused a lot of confusion, i am sure. the green party alexa nd ra confusion, i am sure. the green party alexandra phillips, do you share the other one is a

determination to work at a practical level together so you can make sure you both get the right post?” level together so you can make sure you both get the right post? i am sure there will be some things where constituents e—mail one of the other and that is already happening and we have exchanged conversations on twitter, we've spoken to each other face—to—face and i'm sure that will continue, yes. brexit party alexandra, d think has been any confusion over identity and will there be any future? who knows? definitely on the pure attic front and administration front, there‘s going to be lots of confusion. i‘ve already worked in the european parliament and they will go into meltdown about this. as for politically, thing is about being from such different parts of the prodigal spectrum, i think it would be unlikely that people are going to mix as up when it comes to policies and will be represented but i think

it‘s a wonderful narrative and let‘s see what we can do together in this crazy situation to bring a little humour into the job. excellent idea. alexandra phillips and alexandra phillips, congratulations to both of you for your victories and good luck in your new rules. as you been hearing, the brexit party topped the polls. northern ireland is still left to declare but we have been crunching through all the numbers looking at other results. this has been an election of struggle contrast with the brexit party putting in a very impressive performance but strong performances as well from the liberal democrats and the green party and a real disaster for labour and the conservatives. let‘s take a look at some of the details. castle point in the east of england, this was one of

the east of england, this was one of the brexit party‘s strongest results. 59% of the vote here. a very strong performance, leaving all the other parties behind there. the brexit party also coming out on top in windsor and maidenhead. that is theresa may a‘s constituency, her own backyard. they came out on top in st helens here in the north—west, beating the labour party in their own heartland. for the liberal democrats, it was also a very good night. here in elmbridge, they topped by a 39%. this is an area that had been conservative for the last three european elections and if we ta ke last three european elections and if we take a little look at the change in the share of the vote, look at that, the conservatives plummeting by 31% to the benefit of the liberal

democrats. for the lib dems, it was a great night in london, they topped the poll in london and that included islington which isjeremy corbyn‘s constituency. that tale of labour will was reproduced in scotland where the snp took almost all the area‘s local authorities. labour also suffered at the hands of the brexit party. 0ne also suffered at the hands of the brexit party. one word for the green party who came tops in three areas, and that included bristol as well and that included bristol as well and they will be very happy with their performance at this election. i think the takeaway from these elections is the result for the conservative party who are 9% of the vote share, they came for in the table and it is one remarkable fact for the governing party which is in

the whole of the united kingdom, they failed to top the vote in any single local authority area in this entire election. we have word from jeremy corbyn? he has written a letter to all labour mps. the new he has been coming under huge pressure to be more explicit about labour backing another referendum in all circumstances, not just to stop what he calls a bad tory deal. now he has written to the parliamentary labour party saying it is clear the deadlock in parliament can now only be broken by going back to the people through a general election or a public vote. we are ready to support a public vote on any deal. this chimes with what emily thornbury was saying last night, she said she was talking to voters in her constituency in london who are saying they were voting liberal democrat. the welsh labour party coming out and saying, we are going to go down this road as well and

those in scotland two. huge pressure. the shadow chancellor has been clear to the bbc about what he thinks. some will say this is too late. if you look at what might happen in the next few weeks, we will have a new tory leader, who will have a new tory leader, who will maybe go down the road of the new deal brexit. that is hard to achieve a second referendum. there may be more legislation to amend to get all of this and they will only beat to weeks of parliament sitting between the new prime minister and the exit date october 31. labour mps will be saying, thank goodness, it is clearer, but it is too late. is there anything he can data make it happen? he is talking about getting another deal but i think some will say that theresa may tried all of that and it didn‘t work. is it possible that a conservative leader can come back, change the dynamic? sometimesjust can come back, change the dynamic? sometimes just having a different person there can change the dynamic

but if you look at leadership contenders at the moment, they are talking more about getting out the end of october. jeremy corbyn is talking about can treat referendum that others are talking about earlier, not about a second referendum which is a new deal brexit or a no brexit. it is not entirely clear from this and that is the first question we will want to ask him when we see him. how would labourcampaign, what ask him when we see him. how would labour campaign, what with the question be, would it be deal or revoke ? question be, would it be deal or revoke? it becomes very complicated at that point but i think some mps will say, this is at least a first step but he has to be pushed into doing it. the brexit party is top the pools. northern ireland is still left to

declare. let us talk now about what the brexit party might mean for the way the european union operates. we have not had a lot of detail about nigel farage. what are they likely to be pressing for? it is interesting they do not have a ma nifesto. interesting they do not have a manifesto. it is very little detail on their website about detailed policy priorities. obviously we knew they want to leave the european union but how they want to do that is another matter. 0ne union but how they want to do that is another matter. one of the things that nigel farage has said repeatedly during this election campaign is that he wants a clean break brexit. that is the term he uses and it is interesting, he‘s as this term rather than no deal. in press co nfe re nce this term rather than no deal. in press conference he had, he said there is no such thing as a new deal. clean break sounds more optimistic. the fact is, it still means if it happens, there would be a fairly sudden rupture with the

european union and a lot of the laws that govern our relationship with the eu and have done for over 40 yea rs the eu and have done for over 40 years would sadly disappear. what else would it mean? 0ne years would sadly disappear. what else would it mean? one of the things that he has said in a pledge ca rd things that he has said in a pledge card which the brexit party produced during the referendum was £39 billion that was part of the withdrawal agreement that the government agreed to pay the eu, nigel farage says they will not pay that altogether. that will not create a congenial atmosphere with the european union time when he says, the main thing we want to do is leave the eu under what he describes as a world trade organisation terms. the term has been used by exit here is in the conservative party as well, even in the labour party take a view that we can look away, we just have a fullback, is that a fair way to

describe it in international terms? get used to this term because we will hear a lot about it in the tory leadership campaign as well. what is it mini mean? in many ways, not very much because the basic rules of the world trade organisation is either very basic line, the building blocks of international trade in which you then construct other things. enable playing field on which he then can build? at the most basic level. the brexit party says it is fine, there is something called article 24 which means we can continue to trade with the eu without any tariffs or taxes on goods going across—the—board. the trouble with that is, to have an agreement under article 24, you need both sides to agree under the same time, the brexit party are saying we have to leave it out. that is a problem. then of course you have to say, if you leave without a deal, you do need to start talking sooner rather than later about what comes next. nigel farage says the eu will come running for a trade deal but if

you look at the eu‘s own priorities, the things the other 27 countries have agreed upon as their priority in the event of new deal brexit, they are quite familiar, the things they are quite familiar, the things they say they were undertook about first, the divorce deal, the irish border and citizens‘ rights, precisely those things which are contained and formed the heart of the withdrawal agreement, negotiated by theresa may‘s party. the withdrawal agreement, negotiated by theresa may's party. you were out there watching. nigel farage was there. for all the kind of rhetoric and performance policies, is he a man who at times has done deals, has been able to work with people even though there might be shouting across the chamber, to make the system work when it can be an advantage to the uk? he would be

fine with me saying no. he doesn‘t go to the european parliament looking to make deals, that is not what he has done. his attendance record is not great on committees, he used european parliament as a bully pulpit. he has said that as a result of the brexit party‘s performance, that the uk government should involve the brexit party in the next stage of negotiations. he once meps to be part of the negotiating team for a deal that he doesn‘t want to do. that‘s not going to happen. if there not in government, brexit party meps will not take a role in negotiations, the only real they were public play is a withdrawal agreement ever got the house of commons, it would then go to the european parliament to be ratified and brexit party meps would be faced potentially with voting against a form of brexit which they don‘t like.

against a form of brexit which they don't like. one result is the first of the three northern ireland seats has been won by the dup. two other seats are likely to to the alliance party. the rest of the elections we have had the results of. sirjohn curtice — from the university of strathclyde. i got his take a little earlier. there were two contests, one was the conservative party battling amongst leave voters. the question was to what extent would leave voters frustrated by the government be attracted to the brexit party? the answer was, rather a lot. well over half of conservative voters switched to nigel farage‘s party. with 32% of the vote it got

what the opinion polls thought, and the conservatives at 9% if anything doing slightly worse. very clear that voters on the leave side of the argument were strongly punishing the government. not least because many of them thought that leaving without a deal would be preferable to the endless extension. they accepted nigel farage‘s argument? yes. the other battle going on was more on the remain side of the debate. it was between labour and both the liberal democrats and the greens for the remain vote. the opinion polls were uncertain. all of them were detecting that during the campaign the liberal democrats and the greens seemed to be pulling away remain votes from the labour party. the question is, was the clearer, "we want a second referendum," of the greens and the liberal democrats and change uk, would that

attract voters from labour? it seems that it did, not to the same extent that the brexit party drew away votes from the conservatives, but because this was a much less anticipated result, it has perhaps come as more of a shock to the labour party, and perhaps surprised liberal democrats in particular. it does mean that on the one hand the conservative party will have the debate — should the next tory prime minister embrace the idea of leaving without a deal? equally, should the labour party move more clearly to saying that it is in favour of a public vote on whatever deal emerges in order to shore up a remain vote, which has always been the largest share of its vote but now seems at risk of being lost. borisjohnson wrote this morning that the results were clear, and what had to happen was the government had to deliver on brexit. are they that clear? no. it is true that 35% of people voted for parties that were saying

they would have no deal, and those represent a majority of leave voters. but 35% is rather less than 50%. it is difficult to argue that this means a majority of the public is in favour. and this is what we know from opinion polls as the proportion that is in favour of no deal. but on the other side, some want to add up the numbers to say that more people voted for pro—referendum parties than for no deal parties, therefore this was a mandate for a second referendum. we can argue about the extent to which the snp vote is a remain vote. it is predominantly, but not completely. if you take them out, it is 35 and 35. but in any event, it is still less than 50%. the honest truth is neither side can claim on the basis of these results that voters have sent a clear signal it should be one thing or another. the signals the voters have sent

on both sides of the argument is that many of them are now sufficiently polarised as to which choice they prefer that the two extreme options of leaving without a deal, and having a second referendum, as the polls are suggesting, the two most popular options, and options about which voters feel sufficiently strongly that many a person who would otherwise vote conservative or labour, switched to a smaller party. how worried should the conservative party be by the result? we know from opinion polls that not as many people would vote for the brexit party in a general election. but we also know that around 16—18% would. maybe that number would come down a bit, except that brexit is not going off the agenda any time soon. this may be a european election that gets remembered by voters rather more. the conservative party cannot afford the brexit party running at 18%,

because the opinion polls at the moment for westminster voting intentions have the conservative party behind the labour party with no prospect of being able to form another administration. to that extent, yes the conservative party have to worry. it is unlikely that the brexit vote is going to disappear unless and until the conservatives deliver brexit. a second note that says, we are better placed to deliver this than nigel farage is probably not going to work. therefore, the next tory prime minister is probably going to have to try to work out a way to deliver brexit within the arithmetic of the current house of commons, because the option of going to the country is unlikely to look attractive. coming up, a full summary of all the

news. you can find on the results whenever you want them on the bbc news website. thank you for your company the weather is next. mixed weather was to be expected today. we had blue skies and sunshine for some of the time but also some shower clouds. this was the scene in norfolk. some of these clouds did produce outbreaks of rain. quitea clouds did produce outbreaks of rain. quite a scattering of showers across the uk. heavy ones in parts of northern ireland, southern scotla nd of northern ireland, southern scotland and wales and the midlands. as we go through this evening and night, we continue to see some of the showers drifting through at times. some clear spells as well. where the winds for lightest across scotland, it will be relatively chilly by the first part of tuesday morning. temperatures between two and 6 degrees. as we go into

tomorrow, it is another day at the sunshine and showers. the showers are perhaps focused across eastern parts of the uk for a time at least across the south—east of scotland. also showers pushing into scotland as the day wears on. in between, sunshine but with the wind is coming down from the north—west, it is not going to be a warm feeling day. highs of ten to 17 degrees. tuesday night is like a to be chilly with a touch of frost. as we move into wednesday, here is the next change. this will introduce outbreaks of rain into northern ireland, wales and parts of the south—west. ahead of that, some early sunshine but things will cloud over. showers across the far north of scotland but here, the best of the sunshine in between those showers but to the south and south—west, we start to see some warm humid air coming in.

as we move to thursday, these frontal systems still wriggle around across central and northern parts of the uk. to the south of these weather fronts, we draw the air up from the south—west. this will be mild and humid air and it is likely to bring us some high temperatures as we head towards the week. mixed towards next weekend. part of the south into the middle 20s. further north and west, likely to be some rain at times.

today at six — a stunning result for the brexit party in the european elections, as conservatives and labour are heavily punished by voters. nigel farage and his new party emerged with more than 30% of the vote — he‘s now saying he‘s ready to take on a general election. if we don‘t leave on october the 31st, then the scores you‘ve seen for the brexit party today will be repeated in a general election, and we are getting ready for it. but it was also a great night for the liberal democrats — they say it gives hope to all people who want to stop brexit. it was the worst—ever result for the conservatives — they came in fifth place, giving new urgency to the search for a new leader. and labour is also nursing heavy losses —