I would like to extend my thanks to everyone who came to help us fight the EU elections in Liverpool. I would like to congratulate Theresa Griffin and Julie Ward, our hardworking MEPs who were re-elected and commiserate with Wajid Khan, who lost his seat because of our poor performance. 

On the positive side, EDL thug Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself “Tommy Robinson”, lost his deposit and received a derisory 2.24% of the vote. In Liverpool, he got only 1.8% of the vote. The Tory vote plummeted to only 7.55% and was almost entirely absorbed into the Brexit Party but the LibDems and Greens took big chunks out of our vote here in the North West.

In Liverpool, Labour topped the poll on 40% but that result was 10% down on the last EU elections. In recent cross city elections, such as the mayoral elections, we polled at 60% of the vote, so this is significantly down. In Liverpool, the Brexit Party was second on 18.37%, the LibDems third on 16.70% and the Greens fourth on 15.33%  Labour also topped the poll in Knowsley with Brexit second, Greens third and LibDems fourth.

As I have said since the current Tory Government lost its majority in 2017, we must have another vote on the terms of the Brexit deal with remaining in the EU an option on the ballot paper. Anything less is accepting an economic catastrophe for working people and they deserve a chance to have another say.

Many Labour voters on the doorstep were telling me they could not support Labour because we were not promising a referendum on Brexit and they were voting Green or LibDem because they were unequivocal in their support for another referendum on Brexit.

The results nationally were catastrophic for Labour with us receiving only 14.6% of the vote nationally and with the Greens and LibDems taking many of our remain supporting voters from us. We came a catastrophic fifth in Scotland, third in Wales behind Plaid Cymru and third in England. These results are the worst national election results we have had since 1910.

I am pleased to see some movement from the Labour Leadership towards supporting another referendum. I think if we had committed to this ahead of these elections, we would have won them and really put the Tory Government on the ropes. Instead, our equivocation on Brexit has annoyed everyone and the story has been “Labour and Tories in crisis” instead of “Tory meltdown”. We must swiftly learn the lessons of this extremely poor performance so we can come back and start winning elections again.