European Elections

[elfin_odalisque]

For our local county council the average was about 36%.

Unfortunately that is a normal turnout for an election that isn't for MPs.

Og

That is the problem. i've just read that a quasi-nazi party has won a seat in the European parliament with less votes than he scored 4 years ago and coming fourth.

What kind of democracy are you playing?

 

[oggbashan]

That is the problem. i've just read that a quasi-nazi party has won a seat in the European parliament with less votes than he scored 4 years ago and coming fourth.

What kind of democracy are you playing?

I think that our politicians underestimate the intelligence of the electorate:

1. We know that the European Parliament is toothless. The Commission runs Europe and the Members of the European Parliament have little influence.

2. The UK's Labour Government promised that the UK would have a referendum on the Lisbon accord - and broke its promise because it was fairly clear that the UK would vote "No!".

3. We don't trust the European institutions that can't even produce accurate accounts.

4. We are unhappy about proposals to give a federal Europe more powers when the current arrangements are neither democratic nor transparent.

5. We use the European elections to send a rude message to the current government that doesn't seem to listen even to its own supporters.

6. We are unhappy about increasing regulation that is apparently Europe-driven (even when it is not and Europe is just used as an excuse for control freakery).

7. And lastly - we don't think of ourselves as European.

Og

 

[neonlyte]

4. We are unhappy about proposals to give a federal Europe more powers when the current arrangements are neither democratic nor transparent.

7. And lastly - we don't think of ourselves as European.

Og

A little Global, Ogg!

Some of us Brit's like Europe. Hell I even live in Europe, and there are many Continental European countries I'd swap (have swapped) for the UK seven days a week. I'm perfectly content living in the communist republic of Barreiro, Portugal... just as long as we don't get around to actually practising 'Communism'.

 

[Liar]

What kind of democracy are you playing?

The national kind. Voter turnout between 80 and 90% there usually.

 

[oggbashan]

A little Global, Ogg!

Some of us Brit's like Europe. Hell I even live in Europe, and there are many Continental European countries I'd swap (have swapped) for the UK seven days a week. I'm perfectly content living in the communist republic of Barreiro, Portugal... just as long as we don't get around to actually practising 'Communism'.

My list was not meant to be "everybody thinks that" but each item is a reason for a UK somebody not to vote in a European election, or to vote for parties they wouldn't support in an election for Westminster.

"Protest" voting in the UK's European elections is commonplace. What is depressing is that the turnout is getting smaller each time. Some people are too disillusioned (not necessarily with Europe but with our own politicians) even to bother to protest.

Og

 

[SimonBrooke]

What was the percentage of voters who actually voted?

Scarily low. In the United Kingdom, one voter in three (34%) voted.

Og is right about some of the reasons. The European Parliament is corrupt - even more corrupt than Westminster. It has little real power, power in Europe mainly vesting in the (unelected) Council of Ministers and the (unelected) Commission. And what happened in the UK as a whole seems to be that the traditional Labour voters sat on their hands and didn't vote (the same applies, though to a lesser extent, to Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters).

All the politicians - all the UK politicians of all parties - completely underestimate the degree of public disconnect between politicians and electorate, and how radical the change must be before the public will trust them again. We have 'opinion formers' posting pieces in national newspapers saying that now that politicians aren't going to be able to cheat on their expenses any longer, they need to be paid bigger salaries. Bollocks! The standard MPs basic salary is already three times the national average salary. Part of the problem is that Britain's democracy has become government of the poor, by the rich, for the rich. While it's fair enough that MPs who represent large constituencies far from London need travelling expenses and need somewhere to stay while in London, we cannot have a situation where the people's representatives are systematically richer than the people who elect them.

We also need to break the power of the whips, so that representatives can represent the electorate and not simply obey the orders of their party's apparatchiks, but that's a whole other argument.

But if we cannot sort out democracy in this country so that it actually works without stinking, turnout in democratic elections is going to continue to plummet, and the attraction of other forms of government, to grow.

For what it's worth, as a card carrying SNP member, I voted Green. Reason being, I was confident we'd get good SNP representation (as indeed we did), and getting a bit more eco consciousness in there would mean that it might make politicians (including of my own party, with our ludicrous fishing policies) sit up and take more notice of the fact that we can't go on wrecking the planet, if we want to leave something habitable to the upcoming generations.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

What I don't understand is why the people who refuse to vote for the European Parliament because of the "disconnect" between politicians and electorate and because of the European Parliament's de facto lack of power, are so often the same who are more radically against any reform treaty that would give the European Parliament more relevance.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

...power in Europe mainly vesting in the (unelected) Council of Ministers and the (unelected) Commission.

By the way, the Council of Ministers if made of national ministers for specific areas, officials from elected governments from each member state.

 

[Pure]

comments

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5526H020090604?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews {holland}

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371044035&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull {britain}


is there a trend? i gather the far right did *not* do so well, in France, however.

 

[oggbashan]

What I don't understand is why the people who refuse to vote for the European Parliament because of the "disconnect" between politicians and electorate and because of the European Parliament's de facto lack of power, are so often the same who are more radically against any reform treaty that would give the European Parliament more relevance.

If the reform treaty was written in understandable language, and IF it had been revised following its rejection in the only referendum held about it, then there might be more support for "reform".

Unfortunately the UK media has presented the reform treaty as exactly the same as the rejected treaty and too stuffed with changes that reduce national governments' powers.

It appears that the European leaders were told "No" and yet carried on as if the "No" has never been said.

I don't think the UK electorate is against ANY reform, only against the complicated and convoluted reform that was rejected, was the only one offered and hasn't been changed as a result of the rejection.

The simple question is "What part of NO don't you understand?"

Personally I believe that the European system has to be changed to make it more responsive to the European Parliament but that National Governments should have more control over what European policies/rulings to implement.

The European Court of Human Rights, for example, appears to have more authority than the highest court in the UK. I think that is wrong. There should be a method of establishing principles about Human Rights that are pan-European, but not a court that seems to grant dubious "human rights" to criminals at the expense of their victims.

Og

 

[Lauren Hynde]

The European Court of Human Rights, for example, appears to have more authority than the highest court in the UK. I think that is wrong. There should be a method of establishing principles about Human Rights that are pan-European, but not a court that seems to grant dubious "human rights" to criminals at the expense of their victims.

Like the section of the reform treaty that would make that would make the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union legally binding and therefore enforceable by the courts of any member? I do believe that the UK has opted-out of recognizing the authority of the Court of Justice of the European Union in the Treaty of Lisbon, rendering that particular concern moot.

 

[neonlyte]

The European Court of Human Rights, for example, appears to have more authority than the highest court in the UK. I think that is wrong. There should be a method of establishing principles about Human Rights that are pan-European, but not a court that seems to grant dubious "human rights" to criminals at the expense of their victims.

Og

It does, Ogg. A case can only be referred to Europe after it has been through the House of Lords, or at the specific request of the Lord Chancellor if a point of law requires clarification. Whilst I agree with your criminal/victim comment, European Law tries to level the playing field so that individuals are treated equally in the eyes of the law across Europe. It is the individual countries who misapply EU Law and cause cases to be referred up to the higher court, usually with good reason. I've become intimate with EU social security law as a result of paying contributions in two countries and then finding the UK was not applying EU legislation that has been in existence since 1971. The EU has nothing to say about how each country administers its Social Security, but it does require the individual nations to recognise that a person who has paid Social Security in one member state is entitled to receive benefit in another member state - subject to certain residential status requirements - and it starts from the fundamental principle that if you have an accident in another European country, you are entitled to medical treatment. This might mean in some countries paying nominal sums for treatment and reclaiming the cost from the NHS when returned to UK, it depends how an individual countries rules work, but the treatment is available at source for all Europeans.

This what Europe means to me, equality of 'treatment' across all of society, something the English in particular are not keen to share largely as a result of a xenophobic media machine speaking for 20% of the UK population but with an 90% share of media penetration.

 

[Lauren Hynde]

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5526H020090604?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews {holland}

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371044035&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull {britain}


is there a trend? i gather the far right did *not* do so well, in France, however.

Far-right parties in the European Parliament:
2 MPs - Freedom Party of Austria
2 MPs - Vlaams Belang from Belgium
2 MPs - Attack from Bulgaria
2 MPs - Danish People's Party
3 MPs - National Front from France
2 MPs - Popular Orthodox Rally from Greece
3 MPs - Movement for the Better Hungary
9 MPs - Lega Nord from Italy
1 MP - For Fatherland and Freedom from Latvia
4 MPs - Party for Freedom from Netherlands
3 MPs - Greater Romania Party
1 MP - Slovak National Party
2 MPs - British National Party

If they could ever get organized together, they have 35 Members of Parliament, out of 736. The two largest forces in the Parliament are the European People's Party (moderate right) with 265 MPs and the Party of European Socialists (moderate left) with 161. Even if they are a bad sign and shouldn't be ignored, in practice, the far-right is little more than a nuisance, and would have been even less of it if the turn-out had been decent.

Personally, I think that all the countries in Europe should make voting a duty rather than a right, as happens in Belgium and Luxembourg (turn-outs of 91%)

 

[Liar]

A question to other Europeans (or consumers of European media):

Do you know what the election result in Hungary is? Or Greece? Or Finland? Or Poland? Spain? France?

I just realized one (more) reason why people in Sweden don't give a damn about this EU election. It's not covered by Swedish media as a pan-european event. Ever since election night, I have been purging the news sites, magazines and news shows on TV for information about EUROPEAN election results, not just the silly little competition for the 15 Swedish seats I got to vote for. How did my Nordic neighbours vote? Did the Big Five move left or right? Which are the "red" and "blue" countries? Did the green fraction of the parlament gain big overall, or was it just a local Swedish thing? Did EU expansionists or decentralizers gain a foothold? Is the Lisbon treaty fucked?

Nothing. Just the same local yap yap yap reflecting national politics squabble, a prequel to the next local election.

I go to the Swedish Election Authority's website. They must have all relevant results, or at least a list of the new mandates, party group by party group.

Not a word. From the official election organizers. Not one.

I do however get the Swedish vote broken down by region, county and down do each election urn, and a list of every single write-in vote. Which I, or anyone with a brain and a life, don't give a flying donkey fuck about.

This is supposed to be a EUROPEAN election. But noone puts anything about it in a EUROPEAN context. Because the journalists and political know-it-all in Sweden are too fucking stuck in the 80's and about as knowledgable about the EU as my pubes are about quantum physics.

God damn amateurs.

 

[SimonBrooke]

What I don't understand is why the people who refuse to vote for the European Parliament because of the "disconnect" between politicians and electorate and because of the European Parliament's de facto lack of power, are so often the same who are more radically against any reform treaty that would give the European Parliament more relevance.

Au contraire, I'm entirely for reform of the EC (as presently proposed) and would like in future to see the parliament supplanting the Council of Ministers. Yes, the Council of Ministers are indeed selected from elected governments but that's pretty indirect.

I think that generally it's the case that being for or against reform of the EC is orthogonal to concern about the health of domestic politics - at least in the UK. Our domestic politics are extremely sick and urgently need reform, and this is obvious both to pro-europeans and gibbering xenophobic loonies.

 

[Pure]

comments? note to lauren

why the center right is doing well

http://www.slate.com/id/2220010/


thanks for the numbers lauren; i agree (with what i think you're saying) that having the far right IN a parliament has benefits.

as the old arab saying goes, 'better to have the camel inside the tent, pissing out, than outside the tent, pissing in."

yes, i can see the merit of mandatory voting; it's in australia, i think. i'm a little scared at [what i can imagine as] the results in the US red states, however!

 

[SimonBrooke]

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5526H020090604?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews {holland}

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371044035&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull {britain}


is there a trend? i gather the far right did *not* do so well, in France, however.

OK, lets break this down a bit.

The Conservative Party (who claim to be a sane right-wing political party; you may view this as a contradiction in terms) have decided to sit in the Eurpean Parliament with the Union for Europe of the Nations, which is to say the loonie-tunes crypto-fascist bring-back-the-death-camps brigade. This is going to cause them some embarrassment now that the British National Party (who genuinely are crypto-fascist bring-back-the-death-camps gauleiters) also wish to join the same group. Meantime the UK Independence Party (frothing-mouthed xenophobic bring-back-Maggie-Thatcher-and-the-British-Empire euroseptics) sit in the Independence/Democracy Group (when they're not actually in prison for fiddling expenses).

So a total of 44 out of the 75 UK seats are occupied by parties sitting on the goggle-eyed right. All this looks very bad.

Is it really?

Errr... no, actually.

In Britain as a whole:

The Green Party got 1,303,745 votes, and two seats.

The BNP got 943,598 votes, and also got two seats.
The UKIP, who got 2,498,226 votes or less than twice as many as the Greens, got thirteen seats.
The Conservatives, who got 4,198,394 votes, or less than four times as many as the greens, got 25 seats.

So as usual the wonderful British muddle of voting systems managed to do something fairly dramatically unrepresentative. The Greens got one seat for every 651,872 votes, while the BNP got one for every 471,799 and the UKIP one for every 192,171. Across the piece, the left got one seat for every 222173 votes, while the right got one seat for every 193503 votes.

Overall, by my count, 8,127,147 voted for parties of the right, while 6,665,217 voted for parties of the left[1] - it's bad, but it isn't a disaster. And although the UK Conservatives plan to sit in the European Parliament with the heil-hitler whackos, they are not really that crazy over all.

[1] counting Liberal Democrats as 'left', which may be contentious. Also counting the Labour Party as 'left', which may be downright dishonest.

 

[oggbashan]

A question to other Europeans (or consumers of European media):

Do you know what the election result in Hungary is? Or Greece? Or Finland? Or Poland? Spain? France?

...

Yes. My newspaper (The Times) gave the summarised results of all European Countries this morning.

Graphic pdf

Og

 

[neonlyte]

A question to other Europeans (or consumers of European media):

Do you know what the election result in Hungary is? Or Greece? Or Finland? Or Poland? Spain? France?

I just realized one (more) reason why people in Sweden don't give a damn about this EU election. It's not covered by Swedish media as a pan-european event. Ever since election night, I have been purging the news sites, magazines and news shows on TV for information about EUROPEAN election results, not just the silly little competition for the 15 Swedish seats I got to vote for. How did my Nordic neighbours vote? Did the Big Five move left or right? Which are the "red" and "blue" countries? Did the green fraction of the parlament gain big overall, or was it just a local Swedish thing? Did EU expansionists or decentralizers gain a foothold? Is the Lisbon treaty fucked?

Nothing. Just the same local yap yap yap reflecting national politics squabble, a prequel to the next local election.

I go to the Swedish Election Authority's website. They must have all relevant results, or at least a list of the new mandates, party group by party group.

Not a word. From the official election organizers. Not one.

I do however get the Swedish vote broken down by region, county and down do each election urn, and a list of every single write-in vote. Which I, or anyone with a brain and a life, don't give a flying donkey fuck about.

This is supposed to be a EUROPEAN election. But noone puts anything about it in a EUROPEAN context. Because the journalists and political know-it-all in Sweden are too fucking stuck in the 80's and about as knowledgable about the EU as my pubes are about quantum physics.

God damn amateurs.

Use this link, you can see how all the countries voted.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/flash/html/eu.stm

 

[Lauren Hynde]

A question to other Europeans (or consumers of European media):

Do you know what the election result in Hungary is? Or Greece? Or Finland? Or Poland? Spain? France?

I just realized one (more) reason why people in Sweden don't give a damn about this EU election. It's not covered by Swedish media as a pan-european event. Ever since election night, I have been purging the news sites, magazines and news shows on TV for information about EUROPEAN election results, not just the silly little competition for the 15 Swedish seats I got to vote for. How did my Nordic neighbours vote? Did the Big Five move left or right? Which are the "red" and "blue" countries? Did the green fraction of the parlament gain big overall, or was it just a local Swedish thing? Did EU expansionists or decentralizers gain a foothold? Is the Lisbon treaty fucked?

Nothing. Just the same local yap yap yap reflecting national politics squabble, a prequel to the next local election.

I go to the Swedish Election Authority's website. They must have all relevant results, or at least a list of the new mandates, party group by party group.

Not a word. From the official election organizers. Not one.

I do however get the Swedish vote broken down by region, county and down do each election urn, and a list of every single write-in vote. Which I, or anyone with a brain and a life, don't give a flying donkey fuck about.

This is supposed to be a EUROPEAN election. But noone puts anything about it in a EUROPEAN context. Because the journalists and political know-it-all in Sweden are too fucking stuck in the 80's and about as knowledgable about the EU as my pubes are about quantum physics.

God damn amateurs.

Over here, we have been getting plenty of "EU-wide" information, with several different national results being talked of (although not specifically the result of Bulgaria, Cyprus or Estonia). Mostly, it has been about the balance of power in Parliament, and what it means that the EPP continues to be the largest group (the current Commission will have the Parliament's support for a second term).

 

[oggbashan]

Our Conservative Party has opted out of European groupings of parties but is likely to vote with the centre-right.

Og