A really rather good rant about the lack of any discussion of the actual issues in the UK’s EU election campaigns. Many good points made.
Meanwhile, I’ve still not received any election material from Labour, the Conservatives or the Lib Dems (or the Greens, for that matter, but the part of London I live in is a Tory/Lib Dem area, so I guess they reckon there’s not much point – still, that didn’t stop the BNP, UKIP, NO2EU or the Christian People’s Alliance from bunging their more or less anti-EU literature through the letterbox…)
There’s also still hardly anything on the EU elections in the mainstream media, except for the occasional “think” piece about the likely impact poor results will have on the domestic fortunes of the major parties. The last thing anyone (press or politician) wants to discuss is the serious *European* issues that these elections are meant to be about – I’ve yet to decide if this is through fear or ignorance, but am leaning heavily towards the latter. I simply don’t think anyone in the press or any of the big names in Westminster politics understands the significance of the EU and European Parliament well enough to try and explain it to a cynical, politics-hating public.
May 27, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Thanks for the link Nosemonkey!
May 27, 2009 at 1:18 pm
It is outrageous that Europe continues to be left out of the debate; whether you are for or against Britain’s membership and it’s role within Europe, the importance of European elections have never been greater. People have no idea the significance of the Tories planned pulling out of the EPP – or even what the EPP is! They have no idea even what Europe does or its relevance.
Usually these things are a two way street – people need to make their business to know and politicians need to get people more involved. In the case of Europe though, the electorate does not stand a chance. The main parties refuse to talk about it, the Euro-focused parties only want to talk about getting away from it and the media haven’t the time, intelligence or business model to sell papers off the back of it. Result: democracy and the electorate suffer.
May 27, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Garbo and Nosemonkey, good to see British bloggers becoming active before the UK has lost too many friends and too much influence.
May 27, 2009 at 6:17 pm
@NM: You should at least have had one leaflet from every party, they all get one delivered-by-the-postman leaflet, and I know that the Lib Dem one went out in London.
On a purely personal note, the #2 on the Lib Dem list in London was someone I got on with and had a lot of contact with while I lived in London, really nice guy and bloody good on the issues. Based purely on the results from last time, London’s the only place where the Lib Dems are close to getting another seat, so if you fancy looking up Mr Fryer he’s been blogging for ages (and all about Europe policy and the campaign recently as well).
@Garbo: I’m guessing it depends where you look and what media you pay attention to, there was an activist and Lib Dem MEP on the Radio 4 lunchtime news today talking about european policy, and they made a conscious decision this time to actually play it up with the slogans instead of try to ignore it.
How well that’s actually going in all the campaign literature I don’t know, I only watched the local election PEB, and that was, for some reason, all about how nice Cleggy is. He is nice, but he’s not a local politician.
I do think they should be putting Watson and others a lot further forward in the campaign stuff, but Clegg at least is strong on Europe and thinks it’s important.
Cameron can’t campaign on European issues, he hasn’t got an actual european policy that his party can agree on. Which is a shame, because Hague’s been quite good in some areas when he’s been allowed to be.
May 27, 2009 at 6:19 pm
D’oh, the crucial bit of the first part is let someone official in each party know—you should’ve got the leaflet, if you haven’t, Royal Mail have messed up.
May 28, 2009 at 7:34 am
I don’t know if you have seen these, but I also received the BNP leaflet (as well as many others) and while they didn’t make any good points they did make a few good cock ups. Firstly, the logo of the Spitfire is a picture of a Polish squadron (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5845768.ece) and secondly, on the back there was a picture of an elderly couple and a quote endorsing the BNP, the picture however was purchased on-line and was actually an elderly Italian couple (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/local-elections/5331700/British-pensioners-on-BNP-election-leaflet-are-actually-Italian-models.html)
It is weired to say this, but thank god for UKIP, otherwise we would have the people who cant even make a leaflet without screwing it up getting around 15% of the vote. Still it would be nice if the British population were a little more informed and less xenophobic or Racist.
May 28, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Dr Jeff,
If you go to EUReferendum website you will become more informed.If the British people are Xenophobic or racist how come people from all parts of the world want to come here ?
May 28, 2009 at 1:47 pm
OK, I admit I don’t have any survey evidence to hand… so yes the I may have exaggerated the levels of xenophobia in the UK.
Of course the fact that in 2001 16% of people in Oldham West voted for Nick Griffin, that 16.1% in Barking and 13.9% in Dewsbury voted BNP in 2005, and that there are currently around 56 elected BNP councillors nationally. Not to mention that as someone who is strongly pro-EU, that in the last EU elections 16.1% of people who voted cast their ballots for UKIP is, for me, an appalling reflection on the UK.
The reason people want to come here is because the UK is a nice place to visit as a tourist a good place to work for someone from a poorer country. Macro economics and the global labour market are complex things, but I understand them far better than the people who are voting for the BNP and UKIP.
I hope my ill informed comments meet your approval Robin.
May 28, 2009 at 2:44 pm
So so, Dr Jeff.
We cannot be a nation of racists and xenophobes if people from all parts of the globe come and settle here.Unless you are saying they are coming just to work and have nothing to do with the British, which is a bad reflection on them.Why is it a nice place to visit as a tourist – the weather ?
Disregarding the BNP, 16% who voted for UKIP like myself have very good reasons.Of course, we wont vote for a withdrawalist party if you can give good reasons why the UK should stay in.
May 28, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Sorry Robin, that logic doesn’t make any sense. “People from all over the world moving to the UK” and “the British people being racist/xenophobic” may be interconnected, but to state that the British people CAN’T be xenophobic/racist because non-Brits want to live here is not something that follows. Even in overtly racist regimes like that of apartheid South Africa, there will always be willing immigrants if the economic upside is right. (Now that the pound has crashed in value against the Euro, little wonder that many economic migrants from the new EU member states have started to head home, for example.)
However, I think it’s only fair to UKIP (and their voters) to strongly point out that UKIPs rhetoric on race/religion/immigration and that of the BNP is worlds apart.
And as someone who spent several years working on a British tourist magazine (and still occasionally writes for the Tourist Board), I could give you a list as long as your arm why non-Brits would want to come here. The major one at the moment is the exchange rate (buying sterling is very cheap at the moment, so great for cash-strapped tourists wanting a credit-crunch conscious foreign break) – but you can add onto that any number of historical and cultural attractions, and even the food. Not to mention the fact that we still (though God knows how) have a reputation for being civil and polite hosts.
May 28, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Nosemonkey,
It ill behoves EUrophiles and the left/liberals to paint British or English people as xenophobic and racist when we have a huge influx of immigrants coming here. The first question we ask is; why are they coming if they dont like us ? The fact is they probably do like us. It`s the ones here who revel in self abasement who add fuel to any xenophobic flames as it`s not nice to think we have loads of people coming here with a couldn`t care less attitude towards us.
So far the BNP have a handful of councillors and will do better as a protest vote. Let`s worry about racism when there really is something to worry about.
May 28, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Tell that to the large numbers of people who are victims of racially motivated assault every year in this country. Tell that to the Lithuanian kid hospitalised after being kicked in the head with steel-toe-capped boots by a thug in Torquay shouting “Go home you fucking kraut” a few years back.
You don’t think racism is a problem in this country. I can assure you that it definitely is. You might not be aware of it, and it’s definitely a minority of the population, but it happens (and yes, awareness of it does hurt the tourism trade, bookings to my old employer fell off drastically from both Lithuania and Germany as a result of that assault).
Denying there’s any problem whatsoever makes your point so easy to rebut it’s silly, generalising and denying is a bad debating tactic. There are many racists in this country, and many of them cause significant problems for the minorities and tourists they attack or insult. Not all of them vote BNP or UKIP either.
May 30, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Mat GB,
I take your point about criminal attacks (although strictly speaking the Lithuanian did not suffer a racist attack unless it was someone of another race ) the point I was making was about the political process.
Those attacks occur all over Europe, not just in the UK. I think more racism is prevalent in other countries than here.
A racist party cannot make any headway in this country. It`s significant that the BNP are playing down race in politics.
May 30, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Robin, I’m afraid you’re wrong. The police, correctly, treated it as a racist attack, the (local, English) attaker thought the kid was German, and attacked him for that reason.
Remember that the definition of racism under English law was specifically written to include anti-Irish racism, which was very common at the time.
You may be correct to say it’s more common in some other countries. That doesn’t mean it’s not a problem here. You may think that the BNP are playing down their racism, and they are in their media campaigning, but I can assure you they’re not in their on-the-ground campaigning in white areas. My area has a BNP Cllr, and one of the largest concentration of BNP members, I see what they’re up to regularly.
I also speak to people who are affected by racism regularly, and have seen it in action in some local community events. I grew up in an area that didn’t have a strong BNP presence, and was utterly confused to know other areas did. You may be lucky in not living in such an area or noticing such a problem. I’ve moved to an area where it is a serious problem.
You’re not aware of it. I am, every day. I’ve campaigned against BNP candidates, met avowed BNP supporters while knocking doors and delivering, and met people who’ve been attacked by racist thugs. Please don’t try and tell me this is not a problem, it tends to make me annoyed.
June 1, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Mat GB,
I did say I give you that racist attacks have and do take place,but the theme was mainly about the political parties and whether a racist party will get into power. The BNP did play up about racism when they started a campaign about whites being attacked by other ethnic groups (they called it Racisn cuts both ways or something like that ) but I dont think that helped them except with hard core racists.
The problem about racist attacks is due to the breakdown of law and order. For example those thugs that killed that legal student up in Liverpool area were well known thugs who should have been in jail at the time they carried out that attack.