As the Manchester results were announced, Asian Lite can confirm the racist British Nationalist Party and its chief Nick Griffin will be ousted from the European Parliament.
The North West region of England elected 8 MEPs including Afzal Khan, the former Lord Mayor of Manchester. Along with him two Labour, two Conservative and three UKIP members were elected. Labour grabbed the third seat from coalition-partner Liberal Democrats.
As the results are coming out, UKIP appears to be on course to top the poll in the UK European elections. Across the UK as a whole, 73 MEPs will be returned to sit in the 754-member European Parliament.
Lib Dem president Tim Farron told BBC that his party, which has come fifth behind the Green Party in every region so far, faced losing all 11 of its MEPs.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage said his party was on track to win the European elections, which “will be an earthquake because never before in the history of British politics has a party seen to be an insurgent party ever topped the polls in a national election”.
Conservative party chairman Grant Shapps said the results were acting as “a command for Britain to get a better deal” in Europe – but he rejected calls by Tory grandee David Davis to bring forward the in/out EU referendum to 2016, saying negotiations on this could not be rushed.
Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman said UKIP had tapped into people’s disaffection with politics, adding that it was important to her party that Labour beat the Tories into second place.
Pressed on the likelihood of the Lib Dems returning no MEPs, Mr Farron agreed: “It does look like we could have none.”
He claimed the Lib Dems had been the only party to stand up to UKIP and anti-Europeanism, but said that policy “may have cost us votes”. He told BBC News: “Nick Clegg has fought and led our campaign bravely … we took the unpopular side of the argument, and we have been punished. But I tell you what, I would do it all over again.”
BNP leader Nick Griffin apparently conceded he would no longer be a MEP in the North West in a tweet from his Twitter account nickgriffinmep.
He wrote: “If anyone can tell me how to change my Twitter title without losing the account I’d be obliged:)”
Anti-EU parties from the left and right are expected to gain significant numbers of MEPs across all 28 member states in the wake of the eurozone crisis and severe financial squeeze.
The far right anti-EU National Front was forecast to win in France, according to exit polls.
In Denmark, the anti-immigration Popular Party is also reported to be ahead in exit polls.
Pro-EU parties are still expected to hold the majority in parliament. Turnout across the EU is up slightly at 43.1%, according to estimates.
In total, 30 parties are contesting the European elections, including the SNP, Plaid Cymru, Sinn Fein, the Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Unionist Party which all won seats in 2009. The way seats are allocated within each European constituency uses theD’hondt system, which is a form of proportional representation.