Noted commentator and Washington Examiner columnist Daniel Hannan narrowly won reelection to the European Parliament, making him one of just four Conservatives to survive as the new euroskeptic Brexit Party made huge gains.
Hannan, a top backer of the ‘leave’ campaign in the 2016 Brexit vote, had warned that his party faced losing all of its seats. It had lost 15 as of Monday.
Hannan thanked voters for “falsifying my prediction and having me back – not, I hope, for too long!”
The Brexit Party, created this year and lead by the populist Brexit promoter Nigel Farage, gained 29 seats, out of 73 total for the U.K., many at the expense of the Conservative Party.
Hannan attributed his party’s collapse to its failure to follow through on the 2016 referendum. “It’s been a very bad night and in way understandably, you don’t need to be any kind of expert on politics — people voted ‘leave,’ and we haven’t left,” he said in an interview on Sky News.
Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May resigned last week over her failure to pass a deal to leave the EU.
Hannan has represented South East England in the European Parliament for South East England since 1999 and has been a columnist for the Washington Examiner since 2014.
