Voting for the European elections ...in the UK [Gaganymede]

Voting for the European elections
...in the UK

18 May 2009 at 18:53
Politik Pop

The European elections are coming up and as a European, I'll have the occasion to vote here, in London, for a British constituency's MEP. (It'll be my first time actually!) Yes, Europe is beautiful and I'm very enthusiastic. But, voting in Great Britain...

There are three main parties here: the Labour Party ("center-left", at power), the Tories (conservatives, right-wing) and the Liberal Democrats (center). I will obviously not vote for Labour that is not a left-wing party, that followed Bush in Iraq, that expulses gay Iranians asking for asylum, and so on. I will not vote for the Tories wither, who are of course even more right-wing than Labour. I could vote for the Liberal Democrats who have been the only ones in Parliament to object to the war on Iraq. they also got a strong environmental charter, and are the most pro-european party in Britain (they want the euro). Unfortunately their economic policies are completely pro-free market: their first proposal is to "extend the single market" to energy, finance and transport. They also want to "extend free trade" to "cut prices down", which I find suspicious ("let's let poor countries produce for even cheaper!") and not credible (isn't free trade the main cause of offshoring?). I wonder if they understood what's going on with the current crisis of neoliberalism.

In the London constituency, two other parties managed to get one of their members elected to the european Parlement: the United Kingdom Independence Party whose only policy is to get the UK out of the EU, which is the exact opposite of my beliefs (even though I think the UK clearly lacks solidarity with the rest of the continent) and the Greens. I will clearly vote for the Greens. It's the only left-wing party in Britain, which by the way includes the LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell.

Now the problem is that a parliamentary seat has been taken off my constituency, and it is possible that the Greens suffer from it and lose an MEP, since they got narrowly elected last time. But it will only happen if their voters defect. Besides, the expenses scandal that is currently enraging people here, push voters to consider fringe parties, so I think the Greens can still make it. But hey, since I bring bad luck, it is very likely that they get kicked out with a ridiculous score. Courage.