UKIP topped the polls in Yorkshire and across the UK in the European elections.

The party won three out of six seats in the Yorkshire and the Humber region, three went to UKIP, one to the Conservative party, and two to Labour.

The region has followed the national trend of heavy losses for the Liberal Democrats, and the two UKIP gains in Yorkshire are part of 11 gains for Nigel Farage’s party nationally.

The election results for the Yorkshire and the Humber region were announced from Leeds Town Hall, where the count took place, late on Sunday evening.

UKIP’s MEPs are Amjad Bashir, Jane Collins, and Mike Hookem.

Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope and Labour’s Linda McAvan have been reelected. Labour’s second MEP is Richard Corbett, who served between 1996 and 2009.

The Liberal Democrats lost the seat they held since Yorkshire and the Humber became one constituency in 1999.

The BNP lost its Yorkshire seat, as well as one it held in the North West.

Among those to lose their seats in Yorkshire and the Humber was Liberal Democrat Edward McMillan-Scott, previously a senior Conservative MEP and vice president of the European Parliament, who has been in the European Parliament for 30 years.

Turnout across the region was 33.63 percent.

In York, that figure was just under the regional average at 30.91 percent.

While UKIP topped the polls in the York area with 11,294 votes, the city bucked the wider regional and national trend by bringing the Conservatives into second place with 10,953 votes, beating Labour into third with 10,645.

The Green party came fourth in York with 7,456, and the Liberal Democrats fifth with 4,924.

The rest of the results in York were An Independence from Europe – 672 votes, Yorkshire First – 598, the BNP – 349, the English Democrats – 312, NO2EU – 97.

Across the UK, Labour gained seven seats and the Greens gained one, while the Conservatives lost seven and the Liberal Democrats lost 10 leaving them with just one MEP.

At the last elections, in 2009, Yorkshire and the Humber elected two Conservative MEPs, as well as one Liberal Democrat, one Labour, one UKIP and one BNP representative to the European parliament.

 

Call for Clegg to resign as leader

JUBILANT UKIP leader Nigel Farage said his “people’s army” was on its way to Westminster .

Mr Farage said that the eurosceptic party will “give it its best shot” in next week’s by-election in Newark – an area where it finished top over the weekend despite trailing the Tories by 25,000 votes in the 2010 general election – and was hoping to secure “a good number” of MPs when the country goes to the polls in May 2015.

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg insisted he would not resign, despite pressure for a change in leader after from activists horrified by a disastrous night for the party, which lost all but one of its 12 MEPs and trailed in fifth in the national vote and sixth in Scotland.

Former MP Sandra Gidley said the Lib Dem brand had become “toxic”, while Lib Dem MP John Pugh said he wanted Business Secretary Vince Cable to take over as leader, warning that a fundamental cause of the Lib Dems’ “abysmal” showing was the fact that voters were no longer willing to listen to Mr Clegg.

“If we carry on as usual, we are like the generals at the Somme, because these losses are horrendous,” the Southport MP told the BBC News Channel. “Given the scale of the losses, to call for business as usual is frankly ludicrous.”

Speaking at Lib Dem HQ in central London, Mr Clegg said the results in local and European elections were “gutting and heartbreaking”, but insisted he would not resign, vowing to “finish the job”.