European Parliament and Local Council elections on 22nd May

[T_i_B]

As we are having elections for the European parliament and some local councils so I thought it best to start a thread about that. The date for both of these is 22nd May

Please feel free to comment on any local elections in your area and the situation with local politics where you live. There are no local elections for me until next year so the nearest local elections to me are in Sheffield, where no doubt the Liberal Democrats will continue their decline outside of the wealthiest corners of the city.

Please also feel free to comment on the likely outcome of the Euro elections. These are the elections where you choose from a party list rather then choose a party's candidate. These are also the elections where UKIP tend to do best, in spite of their many faults.

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/

[DetlefK]

1. In Germany, too.

I received my election-notification in the mail yesterday.
"In order to vote, present this letter and a photo-ID. Your polling station is ... (normally a school or church in your neighbourhood), open Sunday, May 25th, 8 am to 6 pm."


I never cease to be astonished how unprofessional elections in the US, the motherland of modern democracy, are.

[T_i_B]

4. Hello DetlefK!

Feel free to let us know about the campaign in Germany, the parties standing, the issues for these election in Germany and how much campaigning is going on.

I got my polling card in the post last week.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Euro-election in the South East constituency has the usual long list of parties...

Of our 10 MEPs, one is UKIP (Nige himself!); one is ex-UKIP switched to the Tories; 4 more are Tories from the start, including dear Dan Hannan; 2 LibDems; 1 Labour; 1 Green.

Not sure what's going to happen, but it won't end up as a long line-up of left-wingers.

By contrast, Oxford City Council, which has half its seats up, has not a single Tory councillor. The current line-up is 30 Labour, 12 LibDem, 5 Green, 1 Independent, 1 vacancy (former Councillor was LD).

I will be voting to re-elect my Labour councillor. I don't think that massive changes are likely. Issues as usual include the local Covered Market, and building in various parts of the city. Rubbish collection is not as central as sometimes. Speaking of rubbish, I got a UKIP Euro-election leaflet this morning!

[non sociopath skin]

3. Anyone who has any remaining doubts about UKIP's racism ...

.... would just have to look at the leaflet we got this week.

Nothing about the EU till you get inside. The headlines are all "Send 'em back!".

BNP in blazers? Sure thing!

The Skin

[T_i_B]

5. There are UKIP adverts on this very website...

....right next to this post as a matter of fact. I wonder if the DU admins know that they have the UK equivalent of the tea party advertising on here?

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Likely outcomes under the D'Hondt method

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method

The basic way the seats are allocated is: divide the parties votes by (number of seats the party has won + 1) and compare with the other parties ; then repeat until all seats are allocated. So the 1st round is just 'compare the votes all parties have; highest gets the seat'. next round is 'divide that party's votes by 2, while keeping the others the same - see who comes on top now', and so on.

How this works out, and whether your vote is likely to affect the outcome, depends on the number of seats in the region. Taking the smallest - North East England (for which we have some UK DUers), with 3 seats, we see the 2009 result was:
Labour: 25.0%
Con: 19.8%
LibDem: 17.6%
UKIP: 15.4%
(others)

I'd say this is almost certain to end up this time with 1 Lab, 1 Con and 1 UKIP MEP; for any party to get 2 seats, they have to get more than twice as many votes as the 3rd place party, and I don't think that's going to happen. It won't take much of a swing for UKIP to beat the LibDems, and that looks very likely given the overall feeling since 2009. Who beats whom of Labour, Tory and UKIP doesn't really matter in the end - it's the race for 3rd place that matters. If you're a LibDem supporter, it's worth turning out, just in case they could hang on; if you're Labour, you might consider lending your vote to LibDem for the day, just to fuck with UKIP, because Labour should be pretty safe is retaining their one seat.

South East England (for me, and others here) is the largest region - 10 seats. While the eventual threshold for the last seat in North East England was about 17%, in SE England it was about 7%:
Con: 34.8% 4 seats (last won with 34.8/4 = 8.7%; next seat would have had 34.8/5=6.96%)
UKIP: 18.8% 2 seats (last won with 18.8/2 = 9.4%)
LibDem: 14.1% 2 seats (last won with 14.1/2 = 7.05%)
Green: 11.6% 1 seat
Labour 8.2% 1 seat

So we see that the LibDems just got their 2nd seat over the Tories getting a 5th one. This time round, I'd guess the LibDems will drop below the level needed for 2 seats, so will lose 1; I doubt the Greens or Labour will be able to get above that level, so they'll remain on 1; so I think there will be 7 seats to divide up between Tory and UKIP, with the one that comes 1st getting 4, and the other 3. My suspicion is that will still be the Conservatives, but it could be UKIP - in 2009, the national split between them was Tory 27.7%, UKIP 16.5% - Tory lead 11.2%, and current polls show roughly Tory 22%, UKIP 28%. Going by those polls, I suppose there should be a chance of Labour picking up a 2nd seat too - if their national Euro vote is really going to go from 15.7% in 2009 to around 30% this time, they might be able to change that 8.2% into 14 or 15%.

But this means there's more chance of your vote affecting the result in SE England than in a smaller region - whatever the parties you might feel able to vote for.

The good news is the BNP vote has collapsed, so Griffin's gravy train is coming to an end - I don't think they'll get anywhere near a seat in any region. The country has finally agreed on something - We Hate The BNP.

[T_i_B]

7. Ah, tactical voting...

...at the last European elections I saw a number of parties all arguing that you should vote tactically for them as the only way to stop the BNP. You soon realise that with so many parties making the same claim about themselves they cannot all be right.

As you say, the BNP vote appears to be collapsing but now a large proportion of the knuckledraggers appear to be lining up behind UKIP. And most of the minor parties standing appear to be UKIP splinter groups. In fact I would go as far as to say that this European election is starting to resemble a right wing version of the "Peoples Front of Judea" scene from Monty Python's Life Of Brian.

As to the Lib Dems, they are the only genuine option left for people who are all in favour of all things EU. However, as much as I want Britain to stay in the EU, there is a lot about the EU that I do not like and would want to see reformed. As such I have never considered the Lib Dems at European elections, even in the days when they were half decent under Charles Kennedy.

[non sociopath skin]

8. Well said!

I'm waiting for a mainstream party to tell me that they'll work towards a democratically-accountable EU which works for the ordinary person as well as the Fat Cats.

The Greens are the nearest but their policies are too hedged-in with esoteric small state ideas to have much purchase IMHO.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

9. Agree with you both

[T_i_B]

14. Indeed.

The Greens may well be the only party on the ballot paper in this region with any integrity, but they have a number of policies I don't really agree with at all.

I had a leaflet from Labour last night, but Labour seem to have forgotten that these are the European elections, and the leaflet was much more about national issues, with barely any mention of what Labour intend to do in Strasbourg. Talk about missing the point!

Last time we had European elections, there were 4 half decent options from the minor parties I could have happily chosen. This time round the choice is very poor, unless you are a far-right ideologue.

[LeftishBrit]

10. I'm voting Labour this time...

I had mostly voted Green for the EU-elections in the past; but it was for specific individuals - the sadly late Mike Woodin, and then Caroline Lucas -rather than the party as such. Also, I think that a Labour vote might be slightly better for combatting UKIP. We shall see.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. North East England: Labour 2, UKIP 1

I recommend no-one listens to me again (if anyone ever did).

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Got a strange flyer today: Laurence Stassen, a Dutch woman who wants to take UK out of Europe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Stassen

She was in Geert Wilders party until March 21st, apparently, when he said something nasty about Moroccans. She's now standing for "An Independence from Europe", which was founded by Mike Natrass, an MEP who was elected for UKIP in 2004 and 2009, but apparently failed an exam they set in 2013. After almost joining the English Democrats, he set up the new party. He had previously been in the Referendum Party, the New Britain Party, and the Judaean People's Front.

Very odd for an independence party to be running a European with no apparent connection to the UK until at most 2 months ago, and you have to wonder how the people previously lined up on the list feel about her parachuting in (though I presume they didn't expect to get elected anyway), though anything that splits the UKIP vote must be a Good Thing.

[LeftishBrit]

12. Got the same one. Most bizarre.

Last edited Sat May 17, 2014, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Not the first time, though, that a non-British Europaean has sought to represent the South East on an anti-Euro ticket. Marta Andreasen, who replaced the ineffable Ashley Mote as our UKIP MEP, is an Argentinian-born Spanish accountant, with no discernible connection to the UK, other than having worked for Price Waterhouse Cooper. She has since switched to the Tories.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Yeah; she seemed to vaguely fit with UKIP because she had been EU Chief Accountant

and had said it was wide open to fraud (and a lot of people agree with her on that - I think it's one of the worst aspects of the EU). I actually thought she gave UKIP a bit of credibility; when she switched, that was the final evidence that you had to be a nutter or a bigot to be in the party, to me.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Vote Match for the EU

http://uk.votematch.eu/

(it has separate sections for England, Scotland etc.)

I came out agreeing with Labour slightly more than the Greens, and in turn slightly more than the Lib Dems (all just under two thirds agreement). Then the Tories (about one third), BNP (4 out of 30), and UKIP (3 out of 30).

[T_i_B]

16. My results came out with the Lib Dems!

Given that I don't vote Lib Dem at European elections as I consider the Lib Dems too uncritically pro-EU, and that I answered "Neither" to many of those questions due to my view that a lot of that stuff should be decided at national level, I can only conclude that this test is slightly flawed.

[LeftishBrit]

17. I got exactly equal agreement for Labour and the Greens (about two thirds)

and LibDems very slightly below. Then 8/30 for the Tories, and 6/30 for BNP and UKIP. I'm a little worried at sharing any views with either of the latter; but it may come from a few 'neither' choices.

In fact, Labour and Green are the two parties for whom I have voted at EU elections; and I have voted LibDem for some other elections, though never for EU ones. So it's fairly accurate as regards my voting preferences.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. It's very hard to be wrong all the time

I think I agreed with the BNP that we need more controls on fracking, for instance.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

18. I had Greens, Labour then the Lib Dems

UKIP were last.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

19. I voted Green in my postal ballot for European Parliament

I live in the South East electoral region these days. I would have supported the far-left No2EU - Yes to Workers' Rights slate if they had fielded candidates here.

My decision was between Labour and Green and I voted Green. I'd like them to keep their MEPs and perhaps even gain another.

Next year in the General Election and the local council elections I'll be voting Labour to get the Tories out of power, both in Westminster and the council chamber.

[T_i_B]

21. Polling day tomorrow

How much campaigning has there been in your area? Round here it looks like some of the parties have been concentrating on those areas with local elections as well, so I haven't seen too much campaigning where I live.

Also, it is very notable that I haven't seen a single leaflet from the Lib Dems since their terrible local election drubbing in 2011. Even if I think their present leadership are a disaster, we do still need the Lib Dems keeping the other parties on their toes, and they aren't doing enough of that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. 2 or 3 leaflets from Lib Dems, Tories and UKIP

1 each from Greens, Labour and the 'An Independence from Europe' UKIP splitters mentioned above. I even got a phone call from a Lib Dem today, which I think is the first time I've had a call from anyone asking me to vote for them the next day. We do have local elections (borough and parish - the latter is Lib Dems or Tories here).

[LeftishBrit]

23. I've had a few leaflets from the LibDems, both about the local elections and the Euro-ones

Also several leaflets from Labour and Greens. A couple from the Tories, together with one of those glossy 'Look at all my government's and my own wonderful achievements' leaflets from my unwanted MP Nicola 'Tory twit' Blackwood. One from UKIP; and one each from the Socialist Party of Great Britain (far left), LibertyGB (far right) and An Independence from Europe (UKIP spin-off and bitter rival).

[T_i_B]

24. The Tory message seemed rather contradictory...

...one minute they were talking about EU trade and investment, the next an EU referendum that would put all that trade and investment at serious risk. Plus they have stumbled on the novel trick of recruiting a vaguely attractive blonde candidate for the East Midlands whose image was liberally plastered over as much space as possible in their election literature.

Voted this morning. Not much of a choice at all really, and it was noticeable that the many far right factions are very keen on taking up as much space on the ballot paper as possible with shitty slogans.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. YouGov's projection from their final poll - Greens to overtake Lib Dems:

http://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/05/22/ukip-and-labour-neck-and-neck/

[T_i_B]

26. Looks like UKIP have done very well in the local elections

Perhaps it's just as well local elections where I live are not until next year. European election results yet to be declared.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/vote2014

[T_i_B]

28. With results from Scotland and Northern Ireland to come...

Last edited Mon May 26, 2014, 05:21 AM - Edit history (1)

We have 23 UKIP MEP's, 18 MEP's each for Conservative and Labour, 3 MEP's from the Green Party, 1 from Plaid Cymyu and 1 lonely Lib Dem MEP.

The media will focus on UKIP, but the big surprise is how well the Greens have done. No doubt aided by how dreadful the other options on the ballot paper are.

[LeftishBrit]

29. The South East now have...(don't look if you have a weak stomach)

4 UKIP (yes FOUR, including the great Farage himself); 3 Tories (including Dan 'British Teabagger' Hannan); I Labour; 1 LibDem; 1 Green.

And I thought it was bad before!

Ugggghhhhhhhh!!!!

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. The scary thing is Tories and UKIP got 63% of the South East vote between them

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics/eu-regions/E15000008

(and the Independence from Europe/English Democrats/BNP lot got another 3% between them).

Even in Eastleigh, where the borough results were (of the 'big 5'):
Lib Dem 44%
UKIP 26%
Con 21%
Lab 10%
Green 0 (none stood)
the Euro results were:
UKIP 37%
Con 25%
Lib Dem 21%
Lab 10%
Green 7%

[non sociopath skin]

31. Whatever the media may say about "uniform swings," the North-South divide has never looked greater .

... and London has never looked less like part of the South.

The Skin

[T_i_B]

32. In East Midlands we ended up with....

...2 Tories, 2 UKIP and 1 Labour MEP.

It would be nice not to have Roger Helmer as my MEP but as he was top of the UKIP list his election was inevitable.

I don't like UKIP doing well in the slightest, but we have to understand that this is happening for a reason. There is a lot wrong with the EU, and the 3 main parties are not engaging with the electorate as they should.