June 10th will mark the European and Local elections in England and the Times has published a poll which shows massive voter dispersal. It’s like Italy for the EU Parliamentary polls with voters moving away from the main parties and instead voting for the likes of the UKIP and the Greens. The overall analysis is that, to put it bluntly - the Tories are gonna get boned.
However the poll also shows something else that’s particularly interesting:
This is not, after all, a general election. Indeed, around 70 per cent of those planning to back one of the smaller parties this week admitted to Populus that their choices now would not be repeated in a Westminster contest. This is the statistic that all in the main parties, and, in particular, the Conservatives, should keep in mind when they react to what is destined to be a wild vote in weird circumstances. If not, there could be unfortunate consequences when the real polling day finally arrives. Taken from this Comment.
So although Labour and the Conservative party will be losing votes in the european election, the same result is apparently incapable of serving as a prediction of a general election outcome. The Times does not go any further into why this might be the case, there are undoubtedly a great many reasons. However I’d like to venture one.
The European Parliamentary Elections are a joke. To be quite honest if I wasn’t using all my votes for Labour I’d question even bothering to vote. The Parliament’s power is supposedly being increased under the draft constitution which still hasn’t been agreed on, and shan’t be so agreed upon until at least November. At the moment if you want something done, you ought to vote for the Commission and the EC Commission is constituted by means of governmental appointment.
In effect I’m only voting because someone else is going to vote - ie: the UKIP voters and the dreaded ‘RESPECT’ (Galloway Undivided). Not because I think I’m going to change anything. Do I really think that even after my Labour vote has been diluted by people voting for domestic fringe parties it’s going to count for anything in this parliament!? It’s a body comprising of similar votes from all around Europe. Hell! My vote is being diluted by the frikkin’ Communist party in Italy, Jacque Chirac’s UMP and all manner of other feeble parties from all the convoluted political systems of the EU member states.
That pain that you get when you realize the Socialist Worker’s Weekly reader in the queue ahead of you is going to cancel out your vote is only multiplied if you’ve seen the sheer idiocy of politics in Italy.
Worse still - because they are ubiquitous by existing in every member state’s political system, the Greens could outnumber most other parties in the parliament if they all just voted as a block. How utterly bizarre is that!? A Green party with legislative power over Conservatives or Labour party members.
I’ll cast my vote anyway on the 10th, but I can’t say I’ll be eagerly staying up to receive the results.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at June 8, 2004 09:38 PM | TrackBack