Stop the BNP!
Obviously, European Elections will take place across the EU, but my remarks are primarily about the UK. Actually, primarily about Britain (Northern Ireland has different parties and a different electoral system). However, some of the broad points are by-and-large applicable to other countries, too, but please forgive me for not addressing specific local issues elsewhere.
We have a confluence of events, with the 'credit crunch' and ensuing recession, coupled with the scandal of MP expenses. Both of these issues are making people turn away from the mainstream parties.
In case you haven't noticed, I am a member of the Labour Party. I joined when I was 16, during the miners' strike, which obviously was a major issue in Altrincham and Sale ;-) I am not currently/no longer active, for all sorts of boring reasons which can be briefly summarised as Iraq and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. But I am and always will be a democratic socialist, who believes in a helping hand from cradle to grave, fairness and equality. (Big themes, too long for this post).
I shall be voting Labour on June 4 and of course urge everybody else to do so, too. However, I am mindful that even if I write screeds and screeds, and try and explain the purpose of the European Parliament, I am simply not arrogant enough to think that anybody will pay attention.
I dislike the fact that local and European elections are somehow seen as an opinion poll on the outcome of the next General Election. I think it's a corruption of democracy, and is there any wonder that politicians are not seen as being accountable when we wilfully refuse to hold them to account? So I assume that a few people will vote on relevant issues, a few more will go out and vote for Party loyalty or as a protest, and quite a lot of the rest will stay at home.
The details of how we will elect MEPs is here and other articles should also be of interest. In a nutshell, we will vote for a party, and assuming that a party exceeds a threshold, they will get an MEP elected. As Greater London will have 8 MEPs, I expect that threshold to be 12.5%; other regions will vary accordingly.
If people who would normally vote decide to stay away, this reduces the total number of votes cast, and thus requires far fewer votes to reach the 12.5%. I would dearly love the Labour Party to win all 8 seats, or even 5, or 4, but I am also a realist.
What I fear is that the BNP will get MEPs elected as a result of protest voting and disaffected non-voting.
What I want is for people who are normally voters of the three main parties but refuse to give their votes in the current climates to go out and vote nevertheless. Don't stay at home and let yourself be represented by the BNP.
If you can't stomach voting Labour, Conservative, or Lib Dem, what about the Greens, or the Christian party, or Arthur Scargill's Socialist Party? I suspect, and in the context, hope that The Greens will benefit from this, I would be surpised if the Christians or the Socialists will.
But, depending on your inclinations, voting for any one of those parties and reducing the BNP's share of overall vote has got to be a better moral choice than staying at home in protest. (If you do stay at home and protest, how will anyone know; they'll just assume you don't care).
Local elctions are more complicated, involving a tactical assessment of who is most likely to beat the BNP, and trying to avoid spreading the anti-BNP vote too thinly and letting them through by default.
This is only one of the reasons that I support PR for local elections, although I am at best agnostic and perhpas tending to the 'anti' for UK Parliament elections
