European Elections on June 4 (in the UK, other timings may vary)

[Ted Max]

Can someone explain this one to me. The election is by PR nationwide - returning 70+ UK MEPs that we vote for on a party political basis, but who then join larger, federated groups of like-minded parties within the EP. It's pretty much impossible for any grouping to have an outright majority within the EP, so the result is always either broad consensus or atrophy?

If I've got this all wrong, please advise.

My main reason for asking is, what difference would it make to us (apart from domestic political tally-keeping) whether the UK returned a majority of Labour, Con, LibDem or Green MEPs?

[????]

Non-Nein-Nix-Nyet-etc

[snorky]

zero

we are all disciples of the middle ground now

Voting is more pointless than at any other point in our history

[Ted Max]

Turnout is around 50% in EP elections. So it looks like Herr ???? and Monsieur Snorky are winning this one. Does anyone intend to vote, and for what reasons.

Let's say you wanted to do something other than "give Gordon/ Posh Dave/ Clegg a bloody nose", or express your nihilistic antipathy, do you know what the aims of the different parties in the EP are, and does that affect how you would vote?

[mockney piers]

If a politician is given a bloody nose and nobody cares enough to bother to reporting it, does it effing matter?

Well, unless it's a man with a mullet punching John Prescott.

[Ted Max]

I don't get you.

[snorky]

I sat opposite that UKIP leader MEP fellow at St John once

the rat faced eternally punchable fascist twat was chewing down litres of cheeky French red - hes obviously go into the swing of things out in Bruuxelles

[Ted Max]

Oh aye, UKIP - the party that was going to protest at the culture of subsidies and corruption in Europe and then dived headfirst into the trough like a returning squaddie visiting his favourite brothel.

[mockney piers]

just saying that it's difficult to give Gordon a bloody nose in an election that nobody cares enough about to even bother voting.

Can't say as I have the foggiest what the issues are in this election except that most parties are eurosceptic, whatever that means, but it's only a matter of time before we're going to Europe cap in hand, asking for investment and/or subsidies which we'll be unable to provide having spunked all our money (and our children's) on the bail out.

[Ted Max]

Anyone think there is any relevance in how you use your vote on 4 June? Or prepared even, to make a case for voting one way or the other?

Perhaps, when and if we go cap in hand for our handouts, it will matter whether it is the Forza Polski Nationalists Alliance that hold the key votes, or the Goat-Rearing Socialist Union. And maybe we could and should have voted with the party aligned to one or the other.

I am a feather for each wind that blows, people. Whoever blows me hardest, as it were, has my vote on 4 June.

[PeckhamRose]

I do intend to vote. My Great great Aunt was a suffragette; the fact it's all rather soft means we need to change things from within and we are all not suffering enough and together to do so (I mean really suffering!). But I will still vote.

As for which party, probably Labour.

Listened to Glynis Kinnock on Radio 4 the other day and it was heartening to know there are people in it for the right reasons.

[Ted Max]

What was Glynis' drift, then?

[mockney piers]

My vote was 1 of something like 64 for the Partido No Fumar in the Madrid Ayuntamiento elections a couple of years ago.

So I do have a track record of voting lost causes in weird elections.

[red devil]

Perhaps the thought of a BNP elected member of the EP will awaken the apathetic can't be bothered to vote brigade, no vote is a wasted vote in a PR election...

[tommy]

red devil Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Perhaps the thought of a BNP elected member of the

> EP will awaken the apathetic can't be bothered to

> vote brigade, no vote is a wasted vote in a PR

> election...

Agreed - I read the leaflet that was handed out at Peckham Rye station this morning from Unite Against Fascism.

It was pretty powerful stuff and mentioned amongst other things that a recently leaked BNP manual labelled Black and Asian British people "racial foreigners" - and called for repatriation. It also reminded readers that the BNP could get a seat at the Euro elections with as little as 8% of the vote

Enough relevance to vote, I think. Hopefully giving the mainstream parties a "bloody nose" won't allow the extremist parties in though the back door.

[????]

I'm going to spoil my ballot...

Theiving Scum will get my vote at the moment