Brits - Who are you voting for in the European Elections?

whether the not-interested-in-politics brigade carry on as if nothing's happened, or whether a couple of them perk up and think: "Shit."

It'll be the latter, but it will be precisely two people.

None of this is helped by interviews like Harriet Harman's on Today this morning, continuing to insist this is a protest vote over expenses. It's exactly that sort of attitude, that the Government are as knee-jerk as the would-be voters that would be influenced by those sort of media storms, that turns off voters for two reasons; firstly, those who expect more and better of our politicians and secondly those who, on that basis, are upset because said politicians haven't knee-jerked with them on whatever their particular issue is this week.

I still think, however, the fundamental issue with voter apathy is the almagamation of NuLabConLibDem into one identikit conglomerate - with nothing to choose, essentially, policy-wise between them it's difficult to criticise people for failing to make that choice. (I'd argue also that this is why Cameron is perceived to have no policies: he probably does, but they're not sufficiently different to NuLab to amke an issue of.) It's also the key, arguably, to mobilisation of the minority electorate just because they're saying something different and do represent and actual choice as opposed to a different shade of the same.

Yeah essentially people will snatch at crass, hateful solutions for their problems rather than "everything's going fine the public just don't realise that yet".

Last years of the Major government was also full of ministers incapable of analyzing what was wrong beyond "stupid people just don't get it the policies are fine".

Which is made more ironic by the real possiblity that if the disaffected voter could specify what policies he'd like the gov to pursue he mightn't actually want them to be different. Perhaps a big chunk of the electorate is like a fractious child who's gonna keep throwing his tantrum until he falls asleep, no matter what solutions mom and dad offer him.

But still surprising that career politicians haven't worked out that it's not good to show contempt for the voters, no matter how justified that contempt might be.

I think I'm in sympathy with the sentiments of Tom Ewing today. People don't like being told what not to do, stop investing the BNP with such a "horrible mystique" and just treat them like any other fringe party.

I'm certainly not sure about the general worth of the "shock people into facing up to the enormity of what they have done (directly or otherwise)" line.

This is part of what I'm getting at I think. The BNP didn't poll all those votes from people who think of themselves as racist, calling the voters idiots after the fact = DOES NOT HELP

I'm afraid I shall be showing contempt for people who think that voting BNP is any kind of solution to anything. Sorry. 30 years of arguing the toss with these people has worn me out. I used to think I could win them over with reasoned argument but fuck it. Let them see how effective their BNP councillors are.

xpost

The situation for Brown is even worse than it was for Major, though. Throughout Major's tenure, he had to contend with a razor-thin majority which made it almost impossible to govern. Brown has a significant majority and yet he still can't manage any semblance of authority. I predict Brown will survive for the moment, because no one wants to risk a general election now, but that he will ultimately get pushed out in the autumn, when election fears become moot.

As for the BNP, all major European countries have managed to deal with situations where racist parties got double what the BNP got.

All key points by NV, but the reason the disaffected voter can't express what he would like to see is because he doesn't know. Worse still, he doesn't care. And I think the saddest part of it all is I can't think of a way in which politics can actually recapture that ground and involve people or excite them any more.

Completely agree with that but...I suspect most people don't want things to be very different. They'd like to be a bit better off, a bit more secure at work and in their homes and mostly in their heads. A political system that requires the unrealistic, like say an electorate full of philosopher-kings who read a broadsheet cover to cover every day, has got problems as a system. And I think it ought to be easier to adjust the system than adjust the electorate.

Great failures in politics begin with this: "if only people thought and acted differently to how they do". The horrible totalitarian successes of the 20th Century were based on a much more acute understanding of how people actually behave.

someone's probably said it already, but the lack of lib dem bounce is in a way the "bigger story" in terms of the next election.

quite chilling what ewing says re. flow of funds to the bnp from brussels. i don't get how we treat them as a fringe party when they have just won two seats in the european parliament. it'll probably make it just that much more 'acceptable' to vote bnp -- sure, not for nice chaps like us, but still.

i'm usually blase about the bnp, especially when they're used by labour as a bogeyman, like "if you don't vote for us it'll be 1933 all over again" bs. obviously it isn't 1933, and there's not that much you can do about the hard core of racists who will always be with us, but there's a danger they will gather momentum, and it... "diminishes us in the eyes of the world." rly tho.

There's been a massive element of complacency among all three parties that has allowed the BNP a way in. Mostly Labour's fault, they took their core support for granted, they assumed there would always be a working class power base in the North of England and that appears to have collapsed. It's difficult to see what Labour can do to fill that void.

But the other main parties haven't really been able to fill that vacuum, the Tories haven't quite got there, partly because they've been sitting there waiting for Labour to lose. The LibDems have been the de facto party of protest votes for so long they don't seem to know what to do now they aren't.

Who should people vote for, in ILX's opinion?

Geese

I had kind of braced myself over the days since polling for a BNP MEP, though it's still grim reading, and two is worse. I hadn't braced myself for UKIP being the second biggest party. UKIP + BNP + Conservatives = possibly most of the MEPs we're sending to Europe don't believe (we should be) in Europe. Which seems a bit sad and point-missing, somehow.

Greens were robbed with their twice as many votes gained as BNP and no new seats thing. Well, obviously not, that's just how it works, but interesting to be reminded that these things happen even under PR.

ah, here we have a bad use of the bnp's successes to score political points:

"A mess of stuff explains that insane drop, from the expenses imbroglio to Brown's failure to explain what he's in government to do. But make no mistake: if Labour were to follow the path favoured by his current opponents [i.e. Purnell et al], that disconnection would either remain, or get even worse (and elsewhere, needless to say, the BNP would continue to prosper)."

the article gets considerably more complicated after that, but still, not very helpful.

xpost

my region was: 3 con, 2 ukip (ffs), 1 lib dem, 1 lab.

i voted lib dem, out of no conviction whatsoever, but because it's a PR system, and better them than the tories. i have a lot more sympathy with labour in the abstract, but you know, but like indiana jones at the end of temple of doom, they need to be burnt in order not to be evil.

UKIP are going to be a massive pain in the arse for Prime Minister Cameron, aren't they? Assuming they don't disintegrate between now and then of course.

Tories bringing the mad lolz:

In an interview with Nick Griffin, BNP leader, the Today programme's John Humphrys called the BNP a "far right" party. It is not. It is "Labour With Racism", as Lord Tebbit memorably said recently. I fear the BNP may be here for a few years now. The BBC needs to find a more accurate way of describing them.

UKIP do nothing between European Parliament elections, really, and as an MEP you basically have to do a David Carradine if you want to get your name on the TV news.

Or make a speech quoting Dr Seuss.

Or be a fascist.

The day after the results doesn't count. Let's see how much airtime Griffin and the other tit whose name I've already forgotten get in 6 months time.

Also if this means they get some EU money to make more awesome Junior BNP Histor's Eye puppet shows then I can see an up side.

In fact yes, the best way to undermine these twats is to get them speaking in public debate (NB rallies of pissed-up weebles don't count) as often as possible.

What's the closest thing to a proper labour party you guys have, is what I'm actually asking? Politics is boring in a good way over here at the moment, and I'm wondering if UKIP/BNP are really the only option for so many workign class people.

Labour at grassroots is still reasonably working class, as much as it's ever been. The spin-off parties like Arthur Scargill's Stalinist Labour Party are mostly working class I'd guess, but Gulags and comb-overs not really winning hearts and minds on a broad spectrum. The BNP are no more working class than Labour re. membership I'd imagine - plenty of petit bourgeois and disgruntled aging Empire nostalgists. Whether they represent a credible voting option for white working class people as opposed to suits at Westminster, well, there is probably something in that.

What's the closest thing to a proper labour party you guys have, is what I'm actually asking?

I would argue it's the Labour Party, or parts of it at least. One of the reasons I'm against the idea of them getting rid of Brown now is that whoever replaces him would probably stay on after the election. And the party REALLY needs the bout of soul-searching and ideological argument that will follow defeat.

^^ this is why i increasingly think mandy should be caretaker before handing over to whoever. sure it'd be divisive, but the guy has star quality.

I think the Labour Party has stopped reaching out to working class people, too. The semi-skilled and skilled working class has declined as a proportion of the UK's population over the last 30-plus years. Union membership has decreased. Both of these things make local parties less accessible than they were, or at least less accessed by the unfanatical/uncareerist. The game is all about winning points on TV now, not doing the legwork. I don't know what kind of activists the BNP have but jeez it wouldn't take a lot to be in front of the main parties.

What are the downsides to compulsory voting?

There are always going to be fringes and nutters in any political system -- if they weren't getting some votes, something would be wrong. But it breaks down when the vast majorities don't turn out -- that's when the nutters actually win things.

xp I'm not sure who the Labour Party is actually reaching out to at all any more.

Australia has compulsory voting but it also has xenophobic nutters like Pauline Hanson who at times has got a larger percentage of the vote than the BNP in England, so that argument doesn't necessarily work.

^^ this is why i increasingly think mandy should be caretaker before handing over to whoever. sure it'd be divisive, but the guy has star quality.

― FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Monday, 8 June 2009 06:24 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

First PM from the Lords since Salisbury, a perfect epilogue or even epitaph for new labour.

xpost

xpost to stet

Yeah I think in a broader sense I meant Parties don't seem to be doing grassroots activism, but my imagination of the Tories has been that they've never been hugely about that whereas there was a point when Labour assuredly was.

labour've had to concentrate on the south, which pretty much doesn't identify itself as 'working class' on a collective level, whatever its 'real interests' might be. meanwhile they've taken the north for granted, just as they did scotland, which should have been seen as a straw in the wind, maybe.

^^ this is why i increasingly think mandy should be caretaker before handing over to whoever. sure it'd be divisive, but the guy has star quality.

This may be true, but Mandy isn't an MP and isn't that a prerequisite of being PM. It may be possible constitutionally, but the complaints about having an unelected PM would dwarf anything which has happened with Brown and would negate any possible advantage he could bring.

Tories were pretty good at grassroots activism I thought? In rural areas at least.

Incidentally, having government and opposition in the upper, revising chamber, and a lower legislature with strong inquisitorial powers is not a bad model.

Listening to Griffin on Today right now, I feel he is a creature of the Blair years, very smooth operator. (I will let out a primal scream of rage if he says "sikhs and hindus" again)

I feel with the Tories it was a social network, I don't think they actively sought members from the lower orders except for novelty value.

This may be true, but Mandy isn't an MP and isn't that a prerequisite of being PM. It may be possible constitutionally, but the complaints about having an unelected PM would dwarf anything which has happened with Brown and would negate any possible advantage he could bring.

― DJ Angoreinhardt (Billy Dods), Monday, 8 June 2009 06:33 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It is only custom that says the PM should come from the Commons, although the last PM from the Lords was in 1902.

A strong social network sure but the way the Conservative Party was structured until very recently shows that it wasn't unduly worried about maximizing democratic powers of its members.

Yeh, given the way the people who bothered to show up were voting on this one, I'm not sure that getting more of them to vote is a great thing results-wise, but it does at least mean that the results are truly representative, rather than lucky flukes for extremists.

Can't abide this pox-on-all-of-them-I'm-not-voting bullshit. Uncast votes count for something too, especially when fascists are out and voting.

Hadn't thought of it before, but somehow like the idea of Mandy as PM. Will his cupboard have many more mortgage-paying skeletons to drag him down, though?

Can't abide this pox-on-all-of-them-I'm-not-voting bullshit.

Yeah, but it's tough to expect people to vote for something they radically disagree with just to keep out something they even more radically disagree with. I had to vote in the knowledge that in some small way I was registering support for a bunch of clowns who imo should be out of politics. Doesn't exactly feel like Yay Democracy either.

If we're looking to the Lords, they'll only have to wait a few months before parachuting Alan Sugar into the top job.

The bold thing to do would be something like this, Brown steps down, caretaker PM takes over and sets an election for 6 months time. Labour puts every constituency up for re-selection and the invite all comers to public meetings to set the policy agenda, select candidates and choose a new leader, possibly from outside the commons.

Call it a political Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Mandy could probably be tolerable as PM if the only thing he were to do was to call an election. If they don't ditch Brown this week, and cling on for October, that'd be possible. Not a great platform for fighting an election, mind

I feel with the Tories it was a social network, I don't think they actively sought members from the lower orders except for novelty value.

This sort of ties in with the decline of the skilled working class thing - the skilled working class are increasingly self-employed and I can see why it would then be in their interests to vote Tory. But in the areas where the BNP gained most of the manual jobs, where they exist, are less secure and worse paid than they were 20-30 years ago, and guess who it is who gets the blame?

Unless a government is seen and believed to be actively tackling that problem I don't really see how to arrest the decline in both Labour support and wider participation.

xpost

Bold but kind of unworkable in terms of bottom-up/top-down policy setting? If the PLP's failure is at least in part a result of its detachment from the broader party and the general Labour support base beyond that then how much influence can you allow the PLP? And then who's gonna marshall the troops?