EU Election

by Nick Seaton

The recent European Parliamentary election sent a clear message to British politicians, but it is one the leaders of the biggest parties have chosen to ignore.

The Conservatives said they would reform the European Union (EU) from within. But unwilling to threaten withdrawal if they were ignored, many voters think this is unrealistic. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) advocated getting out of the European Union altogether. Labour stood on a platform of closer integration with Britain ‘at the heart of Europe’. For the Liberal-Democrat Party, the EU can do no wrong.

Although only 45% of those entitled to vote did so, the Conservatives gained the largest proportion of votes (27%), Labour the second largest (23%), and UKIP (a comparatively new and supposedly fringe Party) came third with 17%. UKIP knocked the usually well-supported Liberal Democrats into fourth place with a miserable 15%. So taken together, the Eurosceptic vote (i.e. Conservative and UKIP) outnumbered the pro-European Union vote.

Nevertheless, within a few days, Prime Minister Blair dashed off to Brussels and signed the draft European Constitution on behalf of Britain. Under immense pressure from all sides to offer the people a referendum on the Constitution, he has now promised to do so – but only in two years time, after the next general election!

Whether or not Britain should be a member of the EU is an issue over which most Members of Parliament are fundamentally at odds with those they are supposed to represent. Most MPs are in favour whereas most of the general public are ambivalent or against.

Voters in England are in the unfortunate position of having both their major political parties (Conservative and Labour) hoping to bury the European issue in all forthcoming elections. This is because both parties are deeply split on the issue and neither wants to expose its internal divisions to public view. The media tends to exploit such divisions among Conservatives, but even as Tony Blair was on his way home, more than 100 of his MPs had joined a new Parliamentary group, ‘Labour against a Superstate’.

With every successive election in Britain, fewer and fewer of those entitled to vote actually do so. Hoping to counter this apathy, the government decreed that around a third of the country should vote by post this year, instead of in polling booths. But there were numerous instances of manipulation and cheating.

A Sunday Times opinion poll has shown that, if people were given their say, the European Constitution would be rejected by a majority of more than two to one. With justification the leader writer noted: ‘Voters have peeled away from the main parties because they felt they were not being offered enough of a choice on Europe.’

All this, of course, is deeply damaging to democracy. But that, perhaps, is exactly what international socialists and their puppets in the EU want?