Rolling coverage of the 2014 European election results being announced in Britain and the rest of the EU
11.04pm BST
As expected, the mainstream, pro-European Social Democrats and Christian Democrats maintain their comfortable majority but the anti-federalists, Eurosceptics and far right have made major advances. Courtesy of AFP's graphics department.
INFOGRAPHIC: The new European Parliament #EP2014 @AFPgraphics pic.twitter.com/U61sodUkB7
11.00pm BST
My colleague Severin Carrell has tweeted this from Scotland.
17 #EPScot councils declared: @theSNP 210,091, @scottishlabour 180,602, Tories 130,613, @Vote_UKIP 74,173, Greens 57,922, LD 46,724 #EP2014
Ukip might edge the race for the sixth Scottish seat, Peter Kellner suggests. Looks pretty tight to call that either way
10.59pm BST
Here are more snap results from the Press Association.
In an early declaration for a Welsh council area, Tories narrowly pipped Ukip in the votes for Pembrokeshire with 9,250 to 8,965. Labour had 6,808 and Plaid Cymru 3,824.
Ukip came top at South Derbyshire in East Midlands with 8,406 votes, Conservatives second with 7,092 votes, Labour third with 5,675, Green Party fourth 1,064.
10.54pm BST
Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, has said his party is on course to win and that this 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." AS
10.48pm BST
The full results from the UK: East of England have now been posted on the blog. AS
10.48pm BST
Courtesy of Le Point, which notes that only in the country's Ile de France and Western regions did Marine Le Pen's party fail to finish first JH
#LePointLive La carte des résultats en France. En marron, les victoires du #FN. #EP2014 pic.twitter.com/jRgFIZNUeU
10.43pm BST
Nick Griffin has used his Twitter account to concede that he has lost his seat in the European parliament.
If anyone can tell me how to change my twitter title without losing the account I'd be obliged! ;-) #we'renotgoingawayyouknow
Only real change is a paycut in 6 months time and that I'll have more time to spend campaigning in Britain. #BNP
10.40pm BST
Here are more snaps from the Press Association.
Ukip are topping the poll in constituencies all over England, they show.
Ukip topped the poll in Rotherham - where the party had success in Thursday's local elections - with 27,949 votes. Labour were second with 23,299. The Tories were on 7,472 and Lib Dems were on 1,343, behind the BNP and Greens.
Ukip came top at North West Leicestershire in East Midlands with 7,955 votes, Conservatives second with 6,180 votes, Labour third with 5,234, and Green Party fourth with 1,140.
10.38pm BST
This is significant.
Ukip was ahead of Tories in Newark and Sherwood District which covers much of the Newark constituency where a parliamentary by-election is pending. A council source said the party was first with 10,027 votes against 9,641 for Tories and 6,601 for Labour.
10.36pm BST
I'm posting the UK results as they are announced on TV. But I've now updated the North East results with the full details from the Press Association. To read them, you may need to refresh the page.
As the night goes on, I will continue to post the full details as they come in in the block where I posted the snap findings. This will make it neater. But you may have to refresh the page to get the updates to appear. AS
10.33pm BST
Maddy French, the Guardian's correspondent in Vienna, has the Austrian results:
The race to top spot between the two major parties in Austria was won by the conservative Austrian People's party (ÖVP) who got 27.3% of the vote, beating their coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPÖ) who ended with 24.2%.
But as predicted, Heinz-Christian Strache's far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) made significant gains, ending on 20.5% (+7.8 on 2009) despite changing their top candidate just weeks before the election following a scandal over racist remarks.
10.32pm BST
Here are the results for the East of England region
BNP 12,465
10.24pm BST
AFP reports that the Front National's success in the European elections is:
a personal triumph for Marine Le Pen's attempts to detoxify the image of the party and remove the taint of racism and anti-Semitism. But polls also suggest that many voters remain profoundly suspicious of the party and it is hard to calculate the 'protest' element of Sunday's vote.
Pundits in Paris are saying the main lesson of the vote is that France is moving towards a three-party system in which the FN will go toe-to-toe with the centre-right, opposition UMP and President François Hollande's Socialists. Marine Le Pen meanwhile has summed up her analysis of what the result means: "Our people demand only one type of politics - a politics of the French, for the French and with the French" JH
10.22pm BST
Here are some PA snaps from the UK. Results are counted locally, but the regional results do not get announced until all the results in the region have been collated.
Leeds - the first council result to be announced in the Yorkshire and Humber region - had Labour topping the poll with 60,483 votes. Ukip came in second with 50,627, the Tories 34,626, Greens on 17,231 and Lib Dems fifth with 11,756.
Conservatives came top at East Cambridgeshire council in Eastern region with 6,692 votes. Ukip were second (6,553 votes), Labour third (2,552), Liberal Democrats fourth (2,303) and Greens fifth (2,106).
10.17pm BST
Here are the results for Britain's North East constituency.
BNP: 10,360 - 2% (down 9 points)
10.17pm BST
Lizzy Davies in Rome reports that the polling booths have finally closed in Italy and the first exit polls are out. Unlike many other European countries, Lizzy warns, exit polls in Italy are "notoriously unreliable", so much so that SkyTG24, the rolling news channel, has said it is not running any, preferring to wait for projections. All that said:
An exit poll for Rai has prime minister Matteo Renzi's PD on 30.5%-33.5%, ahead of the Five Star Movement on 26-29%. Berlusconi's Forza Italia is on 16.5%-19.5%. Another exit poll, for La7 has the PD on 33%, the M5S on 26.5% and the FI on 18% JH
10.12pm BST
Ian Traynor, the Guardian's Europe editor, says British Conservative Struan Stevenson has told him the party "has already passed the seven-country threshold for keeping the ECR bloc" and is "confident of increasing it". But David Cameron's main ally in the parliamentary group, Poland's PiS, is likely to supplant the Tories as the dominant force in the bloc with 19 seats JH
10.09pm BST
Ukip have won in Canterbury, the Ukip Canterbury account claims.
10.07pm BST
This is from ITV Wales's political editor
Senior Labour figure predicts Welsh vote share as Labour 32%, UKIP 29%, Conservative 19%, Plaid Cymru 17%
10.06pm BST
Rather belatedly, I'm afraid Greece's radical leftist, anti-bailout and anti-austerity Syriza party has won the country's EU election by a margin of nearly four points over prime minister Antonis Samaras's New Democracy party, Reuters reports quoting official exit polls:
Syriza took 26.7% of the vote, ahead of the conservative New Democracy which took 22.8%, the interior ministry predicted. The Socialist PASOK party's Olive alliance secured 8.1%, with the far-right Golden Dawn finishing third with 9.3%.
The EU ballot marks the first major electoral test for Samaras since he came to power two years ago and has turned into a de facto referendum for his fragile right-left coalition, which is clinging to a two-seat majority in parliament JH
10.04pm BST
Phil Taylor, a former Labour special adviser, isn't impressed by the Labour spin.
@politicshome: Labour source says it is looking as if UKIP is ahead, but party has "exceeded expectations> 2nd is exceeding expectations?!
10.00pm BST
It's 10pm. And the BBC is now reporting the results of the exit polls on the continent.
9.59pm BST
But Labour is also briefing that its result is "up significantly" on the 15.7% it achieved in 2009, according to the Press Association. AS
9.58pm BST
Nick Robinson on the BBC says Labour are privately saying they think Ukip has won. AS
9.57pm BST
The European parliament has produced a projection for the make-up of the parliament. European parliamentary groups must be made up of 25 MEPs from at least seven member states, and there will be a great deal of horse-trading particularly among the newly reinforced Eurosceptic parties, many of which will struggle to work together before things settle down in the new parliament. But as things stand, the parliament could look like this:
EPP: European People's party (Christian Democrats) 211MEPs, 28.10 %
9.57pm BST
The last time a party other than Conservative or Labour won the most votes in a national election was 1906 - Michael Thrasher #skyelections
9.56pm BST
I posted the GB polling figures earlier so we can see later which polling organisation got closest to the result.
We'll also be able to see how accurate predictions made by punters were. AS
Here were the closing betting lines on European election vote shares: UKIP 28% Lab 26% Con 23% LD 8% Green 8%
9.54pm BST
Helen Pidd has sent me this from Manchester.
The Green party is hopeful of sending its first MEP from the north-west region to Brussels. In 2009, their lead candidate, college lecturer Peter Cranie, lost by 0.3% to Nick Griffin from the British National party. Five years ago, I lost to Nick Griffin and the next day I was made redundant. It was the worst 24 hours of my life, said the 42-year-old on Sunday evening in Manchester town hall.
The Greens made impressive gains in the north-west in last week's local elections and hope they can replicate the success at a European level. Ten out of 60 councillors on Lancaster city council are now Green (a gain of two); in Liverpool they are now the official opposition to Labour after winning two more seats to add to their existing two; and they won their first seat in the Wirral on Thursday too. That's in addition to their one councillor on Lancashire County Council. The party is keen to point out it now has more councillors in the region than Ukip.
9.46pm BST
Turnout in the UK was 36%, according to the European parliament.
That is up from the 34.7% in 2009. But it is behind the 38.52% figure for 2004, which is when turnout hit its highest in the UK for a European election. (All-postal voting was being piloted in some areas then, I seem to remember.)
The turnout tomorrow will be the highest weve ever seen for a European election. Why? Because people who have not voted for years or never voted in a European election will go out tomorrow and vote Ukip.
@AndrewSparrow Turnout was artificially inflated in 2004 by the all postal voting experiment in 4 English regions.
9.44pm BST
The victory of Marine Le Pen's anti-immigrant, anti-European Front National the party's first in a national election has shaken France's political establishment to the core. Kim Willsher in Paris sends some reaction:
Manuel Valls, the Socialist prime minister, described the result as a very serious moment for France and Europe ... This result is more than another warning: its a shock, an earthquake.
The opposition UMP president Jean-François Copé sought to put a brave face on the result: "It's above all a huge disappointment, but it's also the expression of the French's people's immense anger and exasperation over François Hollande's politics," Copé said. "We (the UMP) were more divided in the European elections. This worried some of our voters."
9.38pm BST
My colleague Philip Oltermann in Berlin sends this on Germany's recently-formed anti-euro party, Alternative für Deutschland:
AfD, which is calling for the common currency to be dissolved, performed strongly in its first European elections, though not quite as strongly as previous polls had indicated: with between 6.8% and 7.1% of the vote, they should end up with up to seven MEPs.
Bernd Lucke, the head of the AfD said tonight he wanted to sit with the Tories in the alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, a move that would put strains on David Cameron's relationship with Angela Merkel. In an interview with German news channel ZDF, Lucke said he would not enter an alliance with Ukip, because their idea of European politics is completely different to ours.
9.35pm BST
Exit polls show Eurosceptics on both sides of the political divide seeing gains in the Swedish European elections, europeonline magazine reports.
The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats are on track to win their first seat with 7% of the vote, while the the radical Feminist Initiative party also captured one of Sweden's 20 parliamentary seats with 7% of the vote, the SVT exit poll said.
9.27pm BST
My colleague Severin Carrell has sent me this from Scotland.
The key question in the Scottish region for the European elections is whether the Scottish National party can win a morale-boosting three seats out of the six up for grabs, only a week before the official campaign period for the independence referendum starts.
The SNP, which comfortably won the most votes in the 2009 European elections with nearly 30% against 21% for Labour, currently holds two seats, with Labour also on two, and the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on one apiece.
9.24pm BST
At 43.11%, turnout across the continent this time around has barely changed from the last elections five years ago, the European parliament has announced.
As in 2009, too, the highest turnout was highest in Luxembourg at 90% where voting is obligatory and lowest in Slovakia (13%) JH
9.17pm BST
On the continent, they've got exits. But in the UK we are still reliant on the opinion poll conducted before the election.
There is a full list of all those polling reports at UK Polling Report.
Pollsters' Final Euro Calls Round Up [CHART] http://t.co/w8B5GbHeD9 pic.twitter.com/p4a6LyQogJ
9.12pm BST
The Guardian's correspondent in normally sensible Germany, Philip Oltermann, writes with news of Europe's only purely satirical party, Die Partei,
which has gained a respectable 0.5% in some exit polls. Run by journalist and comedian Martin Sonneborn, the party's full title is "The Party for Work, Rule of Law, Animal Rights, Support for Elites, and Basis-Democratic Initiatives". Its motto, promoted in a series of absurdist videos, is "Yes to Europe, No to Europe" JH
9.07pm BST
The reason we have to wait until 10pm for the UK's results is because polling booths in Italy do not close until 11pm, Rome time. As the Guardian's Italy correspondent, Lizzy Davis, writes:
So, as we all know, the Italians are still voting. The country is waiting to see who will win out in the two-horse race between prime minister Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement led by Beppe Grillo.
One voter for the latter appears to have done what you're definitely not supposed to, and taken a video of his vote inside the booth. (La Repubblica reports that, having put it on Facebook, the Grillino has since removed it.)
"To change this country, the first thing to do is this," he says, crossing the circle of the M5S and writing the names of his preferred candidates. "This is not a protest vote," he declares at the end, "but a vote for honesty and legality."
In a few hours we'll know how many other Italians did the same JH
9.00pm BST
I have not got the names of the candidates elected yet, but here's a Democratic Audit chart from earlier naming the candidates.
8.58pm BST
There was a suggestion on Twitter earlier that Lord Ashcroft would be releasing an exit poll at 10pm.
But he isn't.
@JamieMcBastard @MrHarryCole I am not releasing an exit poll
8.55pm BST
The Guardian's Ireland correspondent, Henry McDonald, says early tallies from the count in Dublin suggest Sinn Fein will top the poll in the Irish capital, making it a successful weekend for the party in the Irish Republic. The ruling party Fine Gael should also secure a seat in Greater Dublin. Irish Labour, which has had a torrid couple of days having seen its vote more than halve in local elections, is also set to lose its European seat in the city.
Henry adds:
In the Republic the elections are far less about European issues than simply giving the government of the day a kicking at the polls. This election has been about anger over austerity cuts (albeit imposed by the IMF and the bankers at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt), the imposition of new taxes including water rates and the widespread belief that Irish bankers have not paid the price for their greed during the Celtic Tiger boom years.
8.54pm BST
My colleague Helen Pidd is at the count in Manchester. She's sent me this.
Outside Manchester town hall, a dozen or so protesters are waving "Nick Griffin must go" placards and shouting "Nazi scum" at four people wearing the British National party's red, white and blue rosettes smoking cigarettes in Albert Square.
Griffin is widely expected to lose the seat he won in 2009 after polling 132,094 votes (8% of the total) in the north-west region. He has applied for accreditation for the Manchester count, but has not yet arrived.
8.50pm BST
Angela Merkel's conservatives are topping the exit polls in Germany with a projected 36%, Reuters reports. The Social Democrats (SPD) who share power with the CDU in a 'grand coalition' in Germany, but oppose the centre-right at EU level, were projected to take 27.5%, the poll by public broadcaster ARD suggested. The new Eurosceptic party Alternative for Germany (AfD) was on track for 6.5%, an advance on the 4.7% it scored last September in parliamentary elections JH
8.49pm BST
My colleague Helen Pidd is at the count in Manchester. She's sent me this.
Outside Manchester town, hall a dozen or so protesters are waving "Nick Griffin must go" placards and shouting "Nazi scum" at four people wearing the British National party's red, white and blue rosettes smoking cigarettes in Albert Square.
Griffin is widely expected to lose the seat he won in 2009 after polling 132,094 votes (8% of the total) in the north-west region. He has applied for accreditation for the Manchester count, but has not yet arrived.
8.47pm BST
For the record, here are the GB European election results from 2009.
Conservatives: 27.8% (25 seats)
8.42pm BST
8.33pm BST
A Danmarks Radio exit poll in Denmark indicates the populist, Eurosceptic Danish People's party is in course to beat prime minister Thorning-Schmidt's ruling Social Democrat party, winning 23.1% of the vote against the SD's 20.5%. The Liberal party is third with 17.2%. The Danish People's party has confirmed talks with the UK conservatives on forming joint a political group in the EP, euobserver reports JH
8.18pm BST
The Guardian's Remi Adekoya in Warsaw has just sent provisional exit polls from Poland: the pro-European ruling party Civic Platform looks ot have won the day with 33% of the vote, while the more euro-critical, conservative Law and Justice party is in second place on 32%. (The fiercely anti-EU New Right, whose leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke has said that if his party won seats in the European parliament they would put the parliament building to better use by turning it" into a "whorehouse", won 7.2%) JH
8.13pm BST
Marine Le Pen has appeared on stage in front of cheering Front National supporters and given an initial reaction to her party's victory:
The people have spoken. Our people demands one type of politics: they want French politics by the French, for the French, with the French. They don't want to be led any more from outside, to submit to laws. The sovereign people have proclaimed loud and clear...that they want to take back their destiny into their own hands. We must build another Europe, a Europe of free and sovereign nations and freely decided cooperation. Tonight is a massive rejection of the European Union. What is happening in France signals what will happen in all European countries; the return of the nation.
8.09pm BST
The Guardian's Paris correspondent, Kim Willsher, has sent this from the jubilant headquarters of the Front National just outside Paris:
From the beginning of the European election campaign Marine Le Pen was insistent that Sunday evening would finally see the Front National emerge Frances number one party. Election pundits scorned her pretentions; the opinion polls confirmed them.
As the first exit polls were announced at 8pm on Sunday, cheers and a rendition of La Marseillaise broke out among the party faithful gathered at the FN headquarters in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, appeared to prove Le Pen right.
8.09pm BST
With two hours to go until the British results start coming out, there's time for some background reading.
Here are three particularly useful items about the elections.
8.04pm BST
All eyes will be on the performance of a bewildering array of parties from right, left and centre lining up to welcome the votes of all who feel, for whatever reason, disaffected, disillusioned or otherwise fed up with the European Union and/or its present policies.
Polls ahead of the vote suggest these anti-Brussels mavericks who range from progressive socialists through nationalist populists to unreconstructed neo-fascists, and from hardcore Europhobes (who want out of the EU altogether) to much softer "eurocriticals" (who are merely campaigning for a looser, lighter bloc) may win up to 30% of the 751-seat parliament.
7.47pm BST
You won't have seen an exit poll from the UK European elections, even though polls closed on Thursday night. That's because under UK law publishing them before voting has finished in the rest of the EU is not allowed.
But in other European countries they're not so scrupulous. People are still voting in some countries, but a series of exit polls have already come out.
#EP2014 - Ireland - RTE exit poll for Dublin: SF 24% FG 14% GRN 14% FF 12% Childers (independent) 11% LAB 8%
#EP2014 - Germany - the Infratest dimap projection in seats: pic.twitter.com/R3WeCF7NHs
#EP2014 - France Ipsos projection: pic.twitter.com/VLQyXeXNW1
Exit polls being reported in Germany but UK media can't report them until all polls close. Looks like classic bit of UK gold plating
The far right anti-EU National Front was forecast to win a European parliament election in France, topping a nationwide ballot for the first time in a stunning advance for opponents of European integration.
Critics of the European Union, riding a wave of anger over austerity and mass unemployment, gained ground elsewhere but in Germany, the EU's biggest member state, the pro-European centre ground held firm, according to exit polls.
In France, Marine Le Pen's nationalist movement which blames Brussels for everything from immigration to job losses, was set to take about 25 percent of the vote, comfortably ahead of the conservative opposition UMP on about 21 percent.
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