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election, selection, rejection
Jun. 4th, 2009 03:06 pmThe EU elections are today. I'm not voting mostly because generally I am against party-based democracy, although equally because I'm not currently on the electoral roll at my address. I went to www.votematch.eu which quickly demonstrated to me that the various parties basically differ in terms of which things the EU should have control over and to what degree. Since my answer in most cases is generally "none" it's not surprising that it recommended that I vote for the 'Independence and Democracy' bloc, which in the UK is represented mostly by the UK Independence Party.
I think the 'independence' term is a deliberately emotive one that isn't entirely fair, however. Sovereignty is a sliding scale and being inside the EU doesn't necessarily lose you any sovereignty any more than being outside the EU would free you from trade agreements and the like. It's more about which individual aspects you choose to allow yourself to abide by.
I don't think it's surprising that the major parties are all pro-EU to some degree and the minor parties tend not to be - not just right wing ones like the BNP (warning: possibly offensive content) but also left wing ones like the Socialist Labour Party (warning: possibly offensive visuals). I think that people tend to vote to support their peers and coworkers, which for the British 'working class' will be parties that seem to represent British workers in some way, whereas top politicians spend a lot of time with politicans and influential figures from abroad and are more positively inclined towards them.
Anybody have any thoughts on the European election?
I think the 'independence' term is a deliberately emotive one that isn't entirely fair, however. Sovereignty is a sliding scale and being inside the EU doesn't necessarily lose you any sovereignty any more than being outside the EU would free you from trade agreements and the like. It's more about which individual aspects you choose to allow yourself to abide by.
I don't think it's surprising that the major parties are all pro-EU to some degree and the minor parties tend not to be - not just right wing ones like the BNP (warning: possibly offensive content) but also left wing ones like the Socialist Labour Party (warning: possibly offensive visuals). I think that people tend to vote to support their peers and coworkers, which for the British 'working class' will be parties that seem to represent British workers in some way, whereas top politicians spend a lot of time with politicans and influential figures from abroad and are more positively inclined towards them.
Anybody have any thoughts on the European election?
