The Labour Party is in a strange position. Gordon Brown started his counter-attack before his party knew how bad Thursday’s election results were. And they are truly dreadful, Labour has suffered its worst national results for at least 90 years.

The last European elections in 2004 were bad enough, with a 22.6 per cent share of the vote. But early results suggest that Labour’s final share will be well below 20 per cent.

Labour leaders were last night blaming the MPs’ expenses scandal, and that clearly adversely affected the performance of all three main parties. But Labour did very much worse than the other two parties, who held their own.

The Tories, in clear first place, did only slightly better than five years ago when until five or six weeks ago they might have hoped to do much better.

Times Archive, 1931: Labour Party rout

Labour was swept completely out of the large cities and what were regarded as some of its strongholds were captured

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As in previous European elections, the Liberal Democrats did much less well than they had done in the local council elections.

The main beneficiaries were the various other parties: the Scottish Nationalists north of the border; and the UK Independence Party and, to a slightly lesser extent, the British National Party and the Greens. The BNP has done well in Labour's industrial heartlands and gained European representation for the first time.

The various smaller independent protest groups, which have sought to exploit public revulsion over MPs’ expenses, such as the Jury Team and anti-EU groups, made no impact at all. Overall, it looked as though the three main parties would gain at most three fifths of the total vote.

The European results are, of course, no guide to what will happen in the general election. At previous European elections, alternatives to the main parties have done well only to fall back at the subsequent general election. For instance, UKIP won more than 16 per cent of the national vote in 2004 but just 2 per cent less than a year later.

None of that is any comfort for Labour. It is in a dire position however defiant Mr Brown and other ministers have been over the weekend.

Labour MPs will return to Westminster today in a very gloomy mood. Their choice is whether to challenge Mr Brown now or to acquiesce, however reluctantly, in the reshuffle and leadership counter-attack. The odds are that the plotters will get nowhere this week and Mr Brown will survive in the short-term. But that will not end the complaints or doubts about his leadership. The European results underline just how unpopular Labour is.

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