Bye bye Brown?
I think it’s fair to say that if nothing else, my fellow British bloggers and I have established two points in recent weeks:
1) Any interest in the Euro elections in this country has yet to get off the ground
2) Any sudden surge of enthusiasm will emanate from political concerns specific to the British political scene, not any actual interest in the EU.
The exposé of British MPs’ scandalous expenses claims has dominated the weekend’s news agenda and isn’t set to go anywhere any time soon. This means that any attempt by politicians to start setting out their stalls for the June elections has been well and truly nipped in the bud. The expenses scandal (that affects all parties here) and Gordon Brown’s increasingly dire political position has obliterated nearly every other political issue, at least for the time being.
However - in line with point 2 above - this could have an all important impact on the results of the European elections, and vice versa.
First of all, and it is incredibly worrying, the racist BNP could profit hugely from what is now not just a massive mistrust, but utter contempt, for our mainstream parties and for parliament itself.
Secondly, Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, has been launching his party’s campaign across the country’s media. And he has declared today that it could be the European elections, and more specifically UKIP, that could finish off Gordon Brown.
Brown’s Labour Party is predicted by many to come third in the elections, and perhaps even fourth, behind UKIP - what is otherwise an entirely fringe party.
He said this morning:
“I think we have a chance of beating Labour into fourth place.
“Maybe it will be UKIP to get rid of Gordon Brown- and it would serve him right for not giving us the referendum.”
It would be a crushing and humiliating defeat to add to his woes. But I suppose it’s a prospect that would mean that the EU elections actually start making headlines here.
(2 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
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Etan,
Your posts are real contributions to Think about it with regard to the British electoral scene.
They raise serious questions about how the quality of the debate translates into quality of policy.
Thanks a lot Ralf.
Remarkably, the only reason smaller parties like the BNP and UKIP have any chance at all of getting a significant number of seats is because the UK uses a proportional representation system for European elections (unlike the first-past the post National elections system). They should be thanking the EP elections for giving them a platform to become relevant they wouldn’t otherwise have. Trust the EP to improve the quality of democracy in the UK! (Not a point the Telegraph is likely to make!) Now if they would only agree to a written (European) constitution as well we could move British politics into the 21st. century!