From Portugal to Poland, EU citizens cast their votes last week – and when they were counted up the results were not pretty.
Joining the diminished majority of mainstream right and left blocs in the European Parliament are a hotchpotch of anti-EU populists, quasi-fascists and other fringe parties who benefited from a continent-wide protest vote.
In Britain it was Ukip that topped the poll, with Nick Clegg's pro-EU Lib Dems pushed down into fifth place. The poor showing cost the party 10 of its 11 MEPs and led to questions over Clegg's leadership – as well as a bungled attempt to oust him from an influential peer and sometime ally of Vince Cable.
Joining Anne Perkins to discuss this are Guardian columnists Hugh Muir and Martin Kettle.
Also this week, we hear from Kim Willsher how the results were received in France where Marine Le Pen's Front National topped the national poll; from Lizzy Davies in Italy where Matteo Renzi's centre-left Democrats bucked the Europe-wide trend to win most seats; and from Philip Oltermann in Germany where Angela Merkel's CDU party held on to win despite its worst ever results in EU elections.
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