Yes it did.
What the pro-EU commentary is forgetting is that the Conservative Party's official position on Brexit is Leave, albeit with a deal. Indeed, up until only very recently, Labour's position was the same, albeit arguing over the deal - Labour's position has only recently become more ambiguous.
So take the share of the hard Brexit vote (Brexit Party + UKIP) and one arrives at 34.9%, but add the Conservative share (9.1%), and you arrive at 44% for Leave. There is also an argument for adding in Labour's share of the vote (since their manifesto commitment of less than 2 years ago was to honour the result of the 2016 referendum), and Leave has 58.1% - that's a pretty clear majority, and up 6% on the 2016 referendum.
Compare the equivalent for the Remain parties (LD, Green, SNP, PC and Change UK) and you have only 40.4%. (41.9% if you add in all the other smaller parties and independents - which, btw, are not all Remain.)
This can, indeed, be considered an indicative "2nd referendum" or "Peoples' Vote", and if you are to do so, you have to consider it along the following lines. Indeed the Remainers I have discussed this with agree this approach would be fair, so as not to split the Leave vote:
The choices are:
Leave with a deal
Leave with no deal
Remain
The caveat is that if the combined Leave vote exceeds Remain, then it is accepted that the UK still wants to leave the EU, and then the choice is between Deal or No Deal.
On the results from last week, this would be:
23% Leave with a deal (Combined Labour and Conservative vote)
35% Leave with no deal (Combined Brexit Party and UKIP vote)
42% Remain (Combined Remainder)
Leave wins, and Leave with no Deal wins.
Another, undeniable fact about these results is that there is a clear advance in hard Brexit support since the last EU elections in 2014: then UKIP scored 27% of the vote, but the combined UKIP and Brexit Party vote in 2019 reaches 35% - an increase of 8%.
Any other construction on this is a continuation of the attempt by Extremist Hard Line Remainers (EHLRs) to overturn the 2016 result and pervert democracy to serve their own interests. The spin put, by EHLRs on these EU election results is, in itself, evidence that they will employ selective, subjective statistical analysis and renege on prior assurances to honour the process and outcomes of a public vote.
The anguish, chaos, divisiveness and uncertainty that has prevailed since June 2016, it not the fault of Brexit, nor the fault of Brexiteers. It is, partly, a problem of the inevitable delay from the decision to Leave being made to being implemented. But that situation has being exploited by EHLRs in their flat refusal to accept the outcome - using a shopping list of inconsistent excuses that they only suddenly decided to cite after the event, when they had ample opportunity to address them beforehand.
EHLRs did not accept the 2016 referendum result (despite saying they would). Given that, and this latest spin, there is every reason to believe their reaction to a Leave win in a 2nd Referendum or "Peoples' Vote" would be repeated.
2019s EU election results in the UK clearly demonstrate both that leaving the EU still has a clear mandate and that, no matter how many votes we have on the issue, there is a extremist agenda that will stop at nothing to overturn it.
