The breakdown of how North Hertfordshire and South Cambridgeshire voted in the European Parliament elections has been revealed, with the Brexit Party and Liberal Democrats seeing huge gains from 2014.
Across the East of England as a whole, the newly formed Brexit party secured three MEP seats with Richard Tice, Michael Heaver and June Mummery heading to Brussels.
The Liberal Democrats now have two MEPs, Herts county councillor Barbara Gibson and Lucy Nethsingha. The Greens and Conservatives also secured one seat each, being represented by Catherine Rowett and Geoffrey van Orden respectively.
These results - determined by proportional representation - represent a big change from the region's 2014 result, where UKIP and the Conservatives took three seats apiece and Labour secured one.
Based on the 2016 EU referendum result, 2019's European Parliament results which saw the Lib Dems the most popular party in our area comes as no surprise - both South Cambridgeshire and North Herts had strong remain votes three years ago.
North Herts councillor Sam Collins, the Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Hitchin and Harpenden, sees these results as a clear message to Britain's two-party system. He said: "This is a big fat bollocks to Brexit, bollocks to tribal voting and bollocks to the two main parties."
South Cambridgeshire MP Heidi Allen's Change UK party struggled to gain a foothold in the election, finishing with 3.65 per cent of the total vote in the East of England region.
Despite the new party failing to secure a seat, yesterday she tweeted: "Always positive! We have unleashed serious energy in these elections - onwards!"
Turnout for the Eastern region was 36.4 per cent, a marginal decrease from the 36.6 per cent during 2014's previous European election. But North Herts and South Cambridgeshire both saw much higher than average turnout in each local authority area.
The full voting results for South Cambridgeshire and North Herts is shown below:
South Cambridgeshire District Council: (48 per cent turnout)
Liberal Democrats - 20,975
Brexit Party - 13,174
Green Party - 8,351
Conservatives - 4,685
Change UK - 3,906
Labour - 2675
UKIP - 1,018
English Democrats - 214
Independent - 102
North Hertfordshire District Council: (41 per cent turnout)
Liberal Democrats - 12,595
Brexit Party - 10,719
Green Party - 6,149
Conservatives - 4,324
Labour - 3,261
Change UK - 1,640
UKIP - 924
English Democrats - 236
Independent - 132
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here