It was the best of results, it was the worst of results. It was a question of how you looked at it and where you stood. If you were looking for reasons to be cheerful, there was one for everybody in the audience.
The biggest shock and the greatest psychological blow to the anti-agreement camp would have been for the Rev Ian Paisley to lose his position at the top of the poll, which he held in the previous four European elections.
Early figures leaking out from the count showed him ahead of John Hume, but the SDLP leader soon overtook him and remained in front for most of the day. Old hands know that the show ain't over till the last boxes are counted and Paisley made a late rally to pip Hume by 2,031 votes. A win is a win is a win and even a one-vote margin would have had "The Doc" in high good humour. Over-eager critics in the media and elsewhere might have written his political obituary but he had won the day in the end. "All five-in-a-row people this way," said the DUP's Gregory Campbell as Paisley's people marched into the hall for the declaration.
The DUP leader made considerable play with his claim that the "majority of the majority" had indicated opposition to the Belfast Agreement. If one accepted that the European poll was the equivalent of a second referendum, his argument was sustainable. There are others who regard the European poll as a type of sectarian census, a record of the number of Protestants and Catholics who are prepared to get out and vote along traditional lines, but without much immediate political significance.
John Hume and Gerry Adams were pointing to the overall majority for pro-agreement candidates which was 68.5 versus 31.5 per cent, roughly the same as the May 22nd referendum last year. The SDLP scored its highest vote ever, Sinn Fein came within a whisker of the Ulster Unionists on first preferences, the overall nationalist vote was over 300,000. Meanwhile, the Progressive Unionist Party was cock-a-hoop over beating Robert McCartney, claiming they had "put him in his place".
The UUP's Jim Nicholson avoided the ultimate political disaster of losing his seat to Sinn Fein. The UUP vote was an unimpressive 17.6 per cent, although given the conduct of key party figures who failed to show the solidarity and support normally displayed by political leaders during election campaigns, Mr Nicholson was lucky to be getting even a second-class ticket back to Strasbourg. In the wake of the Belfast Agreement negotiations and the subsequent referendum, some observers thought they detected an emerging cross-community consensus, a dynamic force for change which would bring Northern Ireland into a new era of harmony and co-operation between two previously warring traditions.
There was little sign of that in the figures produced at Balmoral yesterday. Instead, there was a disturbingly strong sense of two sides marshalling themselves into opposing battalions. The peace process faltered and those war clouds which have never completely dissipated seemed a little closer and more threatening than before. The Alliance Party, which has sought to develop a cross-community base within the existing constitutional order, saw its vote plummet to almost 2 per cent. It was a long way from the 13.6 per cent which Alliance scored on its first electoral outing in the district council poll of 1973.
It was a good day for anybody who wanted continuing conflict, an end to messy compromise and fudge, and a clearcut victory by one side over the other. It was a good day if you thought the Balkans were a proper model for Northern Ireland and put little store on the notion of people setting aside age-old differences and making the kind of painful compromises and halfway-house settlements necessary to live together in peace. It was a good day for recalling Seamus Heaney's line when, coming across a relic of bitter and ancient conflict in Scandinavia, he felt "lost, unhappy and at home".
The debate over implementing the agreement has shifted somewhat in the wake of yesterday's vote. Previously more or less even, the balance of forces within the unionist community appears to have shifted against the pact. Paisley's assertive anti-agreement approach has paid dividends over the half-hearted stance of the UUP, which will now have to make clear whether it supports the Belfast Agreement document or was merely accepting it on a tactical basis with a view to undermining the agreement later.
The British Prime Minister is expected in the North this morning to make a keynote address. If his unionist friends were troops in Kosovo, they would still be treading their way across the border from Macedonia, fancying every dip in the road a hidden landmine and knowing every third member of their contingent supported the other side. Meanwhile, the nationalist camp has consolidated itself and become more politicised and assertive than ever. Unionist support for the agreement is eroding, nationalist support probably greater than before. Unless Mr Blair can persuade pro-agreement unionists to rally, he runs the risk of being caught between two increasingly hostile factions.
There are suggestions that the Prime Minister may feel obliged to acknowledge the shifting balance of forces within unionism and there is speculation also that the "absolute" June 30th deadline could now start to slip. "Trimble can't deliver," was how one observer put it last night. However, Mr Blair may decide to take a fairly sanguine view of yesterday's results. "European elections are always different; it's always a personality contest," an old Northern hand said. "It could have been a lot worse; Jim Nicholson is still an MEP and support for the agreement still roughly 70-30."
Meanwhile, the UUP leader has to absorb yesterday's result and decide his next move. There has been talk of a John Major-like "back me or sack me" ploy to flush out the dissidents and pin them up against the wall of political reality. With less than three weeks to go to a possible major confrontation over Drumcree, some kind of decisive action is needed.