Many congratulations to the South West’s new Labour MEP, Clare Moody, who worked tirelessly during the campaign (including several visits to Exeter) and who will make a great representative for our region in Europe.

Congratulations too to Exeter Party for ensuring our city was one of a very small number of places in the region where Labour topped the European poll.

I am also pleased that instead of UKIP gaining any seats in the South West it was the Greens who were the other winners, with the Tories and Lib Dems losing out.

In a region where renewable energy is vital for our future prosperity and to deal with dangerous climate change, and with a Prime Minister who claimed he’d run the greenest Government ever, but talks now of “cutting the Green crap”, having a Green MEP is far preferable to any other non-Labour alternative.

But elsewhere, with the exception of London, these election results were not as good as I would have liked to see for Labour.

I wrote a blog on Friday after the local election results (which can be read here) on how Labour can replicate the successes we’ve had in Exeter elsewhere and don’t really have anything to add. It’s quite simple really, but essential if we’re to have a hope of winning next year’s general election and getting rid of this dreadful Government.