Do Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband know who they’re dealing with?

The fractured continent: How the EU’s electorate has been rewriting the map

The EU’s democratic earthquakes in two revealing maps

For Andy Burnham to achieve the best result for the UK from his upcoming Summit with the EU, he may first wish to check the political temperature across the bloc. Or rather, temperatures – in the plural. At national level, the EU is a very different beast than it was when Sir Keir Starmer took office.

In another exclusive for GB News, Stand for Our Sovereignty (SOS), together with colleagues at The think-thank Facts4EU and The Campaign for an Independent Britain (CIBUK.Org), have analysed the trends across all 27 EU member countries and produced two contrasting and highly illuminating maps.

Next week we will challenge the Prime Minister to support his empty words with facts. He will be unable to back his statement that “Brexit has done more harm than good” with any evidence, as we shall demonstrate. In the meantime, below we deliver a lesson in the EU he will now be dealing with.

Those halcyon days for Labour in 2024…

However, map out the European Union’s political complexion on that summer day in 2024, and you find a landscape that bears almost no resemblance to the volatile, fractured continent confronting Andy Burnham today.

Our first map captures the EU as it stood when Sir Keir Starmer entered Downing Street

The map below reveals a sea of coalitions dominated by traditional centre-right blue and centrist pink alliances trying to maintain a predictable, pan-EU status quo.

Aside from isolated nationalist holdouts, the EU’s centre held. This was a Brussels the Labour government broadly understood.

Our second map shatters that baseline assumption entirely

The visual shift since Labour came to power is immense.

Some of these changes are ‘locked in’ because elections have taken place. The other changes in the map below reflect polling ahead of elections coming up during this Labour government’s tenure. Whilst the latter are only the latest snapshots of the electorate’s mood in those countries, and elections themselves may produce different results, the views of their electorates will be influencing the governments in those countries.

The traditional, moderate centre has crumbled, giving way to a wedge of nationalist ‘dark blue’ slicing directly through the traditional engine rooms of the EU, only partly counter-balanced by radical shifts to the left and centre elsewhere.

The collapse of the Western engine for Mr Burnham

If polling is to be believed, several key EU member states will either go right-wing at their next elections or their government’s policies will be being influenced by the right-wing threat. In Germany, the populist, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) leads national polls at 27% and has now started winning regional elections.

The increasing right-wing influence in the power blocs

This rightward shift has fundamentally altered the diplomatic and political arithmetic for London. As Chancellor John Healey must surely have noted following engagements with European finance ministers, the emerging right-nationalist bloc is more transactional.

Rather than engaging in broad, idealistic treaties, these capitals view the UK through a protectionist lens – as evidenced by the ongoing row over the EU’s “Made in Europe” procurement barriers, as reported here on Tuesday.

Likely dates for national elections across the EU27

The following table shows the approximate dates for elections to national parliaments in the EU’s 27 member countries. Naturally these are subject to change and some will doubtless occur sooner.

The Nordic counter-surge

In the Netherlands, the collapse of the recent right-populist-influenced coalition government has produced a social-liberal counter-surge.

For a Labour government, these northern capitals are more receptive to shared environmental standards, synchronised labour laws, and integrated energy grids. Navigating this means London must learn to play a double game: managing a relationship with a nationalist core in Paris and Berlin, while forging ‘progressive’ alliances with the far-North.

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Observations

The implications for Labour’s Re-Set

For Downing Street, the final takeaway from these two maps is that the stable, moderate EU that existed when Labour won power in July 2024 is gone. Many elections have not yet taken place but the mood of the electorates is clear. In its place stands a more transactional, volatile continent split into fragments.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer John Healey prepares his upcoming budget, commentators are saying the UK can no longer afford to harmonise with a shifting European rulebook. By the time of the UK-EU Summit, pencilled in for December, Mr Healey might expect a hardening of EU attitudes to the point where deals become too expensive even for this free-spending government.

If the government is determined to continue with its “Re-Set”, as it most definitely seems to be, then it must go into the coming EU-UK Summit with a sharp, sophisticated strategy capable of navigating a continent divided against itself.

As things stand, this looks increasingly improbable.

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[ Sources: EU Council | EU Commission | EU Economy Commissioner X feed | OECD | SMMT | House of Commons Library ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.