155 Responses to “South East European”

1. Pete Whitehead

   The MEPs for this region are well represented on BBC Question Time at the moment.
   Daniel Hannan is impressive and his talent should be employed at Westminster where there are likely to be many more vacancies arising. As far as I can tell he is not a candidate for any Westminster seat nor has he ever been, but I wonder if anyone who follows these kinds of things (eg Matt) could tell us if Mr Hannan is likely to pursue a (Westminster) parliamentary career?

   May 28th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
2. Andy Stidwill

   Caroline Lucas will be hoping her appearance on Question Time will just put her over the top once again. It’ll be quite exciting to see whether she wins or loses.

   May 28th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
3. Pete Whitehead

   I’m afraid the anti-’mainstream party’ mood is likely to have secured her position anyway and I doubt many people will have picked up on her basically saying she didnt disagree with any part of the manifesto of the Communist No2EU, except their refusal to take up any seats should they win.

   May 28th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
4. Andy Stidwill

   The difference between Labour and Green in 2004 was only 5.8%. As you say with the current mood I can see that gap closing quite dramatically. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that she might beat Labour, especially if the Telegraph have some especially bad news regarding troughing Labour MPs in the last few days before the election.

   May 28th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
5. Peter Crerar

   Tomorrows Times has put UKIP 3 points ahead of Labour -

   Tory 30%
   UKIP 19%
   Lab 16%
   LD 12%
   Green 10%
   BNP 5%
   Nat/ Others 8%

   “The Conservatives drop four points to 30 per cent, compared with the poll three weeks ago. Labour drops nine points to 16 per cent, and the Liberal Democrats fall eight points to 12 per cent. UKIP are the beneficiaries, rising 13 points to 19 per cent, ahead of Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The Greens rise to 10 per cent, and the BNP is up three points at 5 per cent.”

   May 30th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
6. Frederic Stansfield

   Andy, after the late swing to the Greens it would now be a big surprise if Caroline Lucas lost her seat. Although in this big seat the last couple of places are likely to be sufficiently messy that one would be unwise to be 100% about such things.

   Whilst generally bad territory for Labour, this seat contains enough pockets of Labour seats in the 2005 election – North Kent, Southampton etc. that even given the dire last opinion polls Labour would be disappointed not to hold their one seat in one of their last places. Indeed, after the next General Elecion, Skinner may be the only full-time Labour representative in the South East. If Labour do lose their MEP, which whilst unlikely is not inconceivable, it really will look like the end for them. The South-East is such a large area that a party which cannot get 8% of the poll here won’t have credibility as a major party.

   June 3rd, 2009 at 6:54 pm
7. Andy Stidwill

   Frederick, a few weeks ago I did think Lucas might lose her seat but now, as I said in my previous post, not only should she hold on easily but she might have an outside chance of beating Labour. I think Labour voters in the SE may be particularly susceptible to defecting to the Greens especially in places like East Sussex. The BNP in this region will be interesting to watch on Sunday night because it is their weakest English region so a good performance by them here would mean a lot of seats elsewhere. I can’t see them winning a seat in the SE however.

   June 3rd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
8. Frederic Stansfield

   There’s been little, I think no, sign of the BNP where I am. Just the one token County Coucnil candidate in a seat they have fought very unsuccessfully before.

   June 3rd, 2009 at 7:14 pm
9. Neil

   My final prediction:

   Conservative – 4
   UKIP – 2
   Libdem – 2
   Labour – 1
   Greens – 1

   For the Conservatives to get the 10th seat (ahead of Libdem(2)) would require a vote in the region of 40%, which does not seem achievable.

   June 4th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
10. benjamin

    Looking at some of the huge drops in Labour votes and seats in the local elections I wouldn’t be shocked to see them lose their MEP now. The temptation to register a protest for a minor party will have been that much stronger even than for councillors – It’s been a rout for them.

    June 5th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
11. Andy Stidwill

    Labour will probably do worse in the Euro elections because at least some voters will have supported their local Labour councillor but this obviously wouldn’t apply to the Euro elections.

    June 5th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
12. Frederic Stansfield

    The Greens were consistently ahead of fourth placed Labour in the County Council elections in Canterbury, where I live, except in the seat where the Greens were not standing but UKIP were – Labour still came fourth.. This in a seat Labour had hopes of winning in 2001.

    It is disgraceful political censorship that the papers etc. cannot extrapolate from the County Council results to predict those in the European Election. But it is clear that Labour is now in effect a minor party over much of the South East.

    As I have not done the calculations, perhaps I can have a hunch. Labour will probably limp over the finishing line to get an MEP, but Skinner will be lower placed than Caroline Lucas. It is a strong objection to the obnoxious party list system with such big constituencies that a party can be trounced in the polls without any practical effect on the outcome for them.

    Andy, wavering Labour voters could in theory be giving personal support to Peter Skinner. After all, I posted before the election that I was thinking of voting Green because Caroline Lucas was at the top of their list.. But I doubt if more than a couple of electors in a hundred could mention Peter Skinner as having been an MEP here. Dan Hannan, Nigel Farage and Caroline Lucas have had a much higher profile than any of the other outgoing MEPs, at any rate in East Kent.

    June 6th, 2009 at 11:27 am
13. Luke

    I reckon Greens will come very close to the two seats needed. Looking at the County results it seems that both Labour and Lib Dems have lost out on a swing towards the Greens.

    Across Kent, where the Greens did no campaigning for the locals and all candidates were paper ones, they took an average of 15%. In Whitstable, the Green candidate took 2000 votes and 20%!

    In Canterbury West, where the University is located, there was a push by young activists to get the vote out on campus (I believe something like just under 500 students voted compared to only 96 voting in the City Council elections in 2006), the Greens polled over 700 votes and were 200 votes short of beating the Lib Dems into second. They took 17.5% of the vote.

    Quite amazing, and very encouraging given that we did not come near to standing a full slate of local candidates in the region. I suspect, as many others have said, that a lot of split voting has taken place between the locals and the Euros. I do expect the Greens to be on 15% in this region tomorrow.

    June 6th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
14. Andy Stidwill

    There is a small chance of C – 4, UKIP – 2, LD – 2, Green – 2.

    Given that Labour could only poll 18% in a county such as Staffordshire I wouldn’t like to predict just how low the Labour vote will be in the SE region. I expect Labour’s recent strength in the Brighton and Hove area for example to take a bit hit from the Greens.

    June 6th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
15. Luke

    Last weekend I was campaigning in Brighton, and I failed to come across a single Labour voter. Looking at the results across Kent and Sussex Labour have taken a big hit from the Greens, the Lib Dem share is also down and UKIP and the Tories quite a bit up. Also I suspect the English Democrats have taken a big chunk out of possible BNP support down here.

    June 7th, 2009 at 9:15 am
16. Andy Stidwill

    Labour must have just held onto their one seat by the skin of their teeth. About the only good piece of news for Gordon tonight. I doubt it will help him much though.

    June 8th, 2009 at 12:34 am
17. Pete Whitehead

    Because of the low threshold needed in this region they would have had to go a lot lower to lose that seat. I dont think getting 8% of the vote in this region is exactly good news.

    June 8th, 2009 at 12:37 am
18. Warofdreams

    With this being such a large seat, Labour held their seat without too much difficulty, but their vote did drop badly, and they ended up behind the Greens, who polled well and were the largest party to increase their share. Despite these moves in vote shares, no seats changed hands.

    June 8th, 2009 at 12:46 am
19. Andy Stidwill

    Labour may end on 15% if the results in the North West and Scotland are similarly appalling.

    June 8th, 2009 at 12:59 am
20. Neil

    Great results, no?

    June 8th, 2009 at 7:45 am
21. Frederic Stansfield

    Luke, from the County Council results in my part of the world, Canterbury, the increase in the Green vote is too big to have come entirely from disaffected Labour supporters, although it may look that way in terms of the swings in the Euroelection. You yourself suggest student Green support, which is in effect that party recuriting the new voters.
    It would be interesting to have an analysis as to where in the South-East the swing to the Greens was strongest and where it was weakest, but I am not sure where I can find the necesary data on the internet.

    June 10th, 2009 at 10:08 am
22. Frederic Stansfield

    Anthony, do your biographical details really mean that Steve Harris was an ex-United States serviceman? It could be far from irrelevant if Nigel Farage wins a UK seat in Buckingham and therefore has to be replaced for Strasbourg.

    When a vacancy occurs for an MEP it is deplorable that there is not a by-election, if only to select an MEP from the Party concerned (as happens at present in the House of Lords for hereditary peers). In practice, for the smaller parties European elections are foughtly largely in terms of the profile of the candidate heading the list. So anybody can be put on the list lower down, with little consequence for voting behaviour. And times change in the five years lifetime of a European parliament. People in 2010 might not want the same person as in 2009.

    I introduced this point in relation to UKIP, but it would also apply to the Greens if Caroline Lucas won Brighton Pavillion.

    This point relates to vacancies for MEPs, but there is an associated issue that Closed Lists are deplorable because they do not allow voters to chose between individuals to represent them. E.g. now that Dan Hannan has made some controversial statements it is quite conceivable that there are voters who would like to vote for Conservatives like Richard Ashworth, but not Dan Hannan. And conversely there might well be non-Conservatives who would like to vote for Dan Hannan, but would not by so doing like to elect as more mainstream Tory further down the list.

    September 3rd, 2009 at 3:24 pm
23. Liberal Neil

    “When a vacancy occurs for an MEP it is deplorable that there is not a by-election”

    It may be deplorable, but the cost of a by-election across a region, particularly the South East, must be huge.

    September 6th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
24. Andy Stidwill

    It depends how much one thinks having a democratic vote is worth I suppose. On a slightly different topic, it’s interesting that at one time candidates used to have to pay for everything associated with elections themselves, such as the cost of renting ballot boxes, voting booths, vote counting, etc, which wasn’t a great encouragement to ordinary people to stand as candidates.

    September 6th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
25. Frederic Stansfield

    If there were by-elections for the Ruropean Parliament, the EU’s budget, and the auditing thereof, would come into the public spotlight more often. I suspect the cost of a European by-election is far less than the savings that would accrue from greater electoral scrutiny of EU matters.

    And it need hardly be said that the South-East Region EU seat is far too large, given that it is larger than, say Yorkshire and the North-East combined.

    September 6th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
26. Andy Stidwill

    Yes, surely the regions should be equalised as much as possible just as parliamentary constituencies are. It’s not as if the regions are particularly sensible at the moment, with for example Banbury being part of the SE region whilst Rickmansworth is part of the Eastern region.

    September 6th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
27. Ray Finch

    @Frederic Stansfield.
    Steve Harris was born in the UK (Aldershot IIRC) and is a British citizen. He was partly educated in the USA and served three tours with the US Navy in Vietnam. He retired with the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He has lived in the UK for many years.

    Ray Finch.
    UKIP SE EU candidate number 10.

    October 8th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
28. Andy Stidwill

    Paul Waugh’s blog (Evening Standard):

    “Dan Hannan quits his post as the Tories’ legal affairs spokesman in Strasbourg. He prefers to describe it as simply returning to the backbenches, so he can campaign for a referendum.”

    November 4th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
29. Andy Stidwill

    Quote from Iain Dale’s site:

    Farage Goes Ballistic Over Commons Ban
    Iain Dale 4:31 PM
    Nigel Farage has thrown his toys out of his pram, and accused the House of Commons authorities of being “fascistic”, after the Commons decided to withdraw Commons passes from serving MEPs.

    Labour’s John Mann had tried to get Nick Griffin banned from holding a pass, but it was felt the only way this could be achieved was to withdraw passes from all MEPs. In an interview with talkSPORT’s Sean Dilley, Farage declared…

    “It’s absolutely monstrous! Over the last ten years I’ve used my Palace of Westminster pass a lot. I’m here all the time and to be denied access to this place because a bunch of yobbos [in reference to the BNP] get 6.2% of the vote, because of the Government’s failed policies on immigration, is absolutely ludicrous. For goodness sake, we’ve had convicted murderers, we’ve had Sinn Fein IRA who’ve had passes to this place. I’m absolutely furious about it. Those that campaign most vociferously against fascism are nearly always fascistic in their own tendencies and always seek, like Peter Hain, to ban free speech. They’re not living on the same planet as the rest of us.”

    The UKIP Leader slated his colleagues in the European Parliament for their apathy and failing to lobby the Westminster Parliament into returning the security passes to MEP’s. “They haven’t got the courage to do it,” he said. “Oh no, if we did that we’d be seen to be supporting the BNP.”

    I have to say I have never quite understood why MEPs had passes to the building in the first place, so I can’t get as excited as Nigel Farage about this.

    November 6th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
30. Frederic Stansfield

    Can anybody remind us who the MEPs for the South East Region currently are?

    I gather from the Brighton Pavillion thread that Keith Taylor will now be the Green MEP here because of Caroline Lucas’ election to Westminster.

    I voted Green here last time not least because I thought Caroline Lucas was a very good MEP. But I know very little about Keith Taylor, and I doubt whether many people away from Brighton, where I understand he has stood in the past for Westminster, do either.

    It all goes to demonstrate why party list systems (which I believe the Greens support – one of their worst policies) are so objectionable.

    July 5th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
31. Kieran W

    Surely it was pretty obvious to anyone who voted Green here in 2009 what might happen re Lucas going for a Westminster seat in 2010. Given that fact I don’t really think it made an awful lot of sense for anyone to vote Green mainly because they wanted Lucas as an MEP for the region.

    July 5th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
32. doktorb

    As long as the Greens are better at communicating across the whole region what has happened than they were targeting Westminster seats outside Brighton Pavillion!

    The very worst thing about list systems , Frederic, is surely what would happen if an MEP elected as an independent were to resign or die. Anyone fancy a region-wide by-election at all??

    July 5th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
33. Frederic Stansfield

    Positioning Caroline Lucas so that she would be in a good position to get a Westminster seat was a reason for voting for her. The greens may have done badyly at the General Election, but they do have a message that wants some representation.

    Although whether Caroline Lucas will have as much opportunity to get noticed, and to influence decisions, at Westminster as at Strasbourg is far from clear. Any comments on this?

    July 5th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
34. TonyOtim

    @ Frederic Stansfield

    Your last point is an interesting one. You could argue that the Greens potentially have more influence at Strasbourg than the Tories as they are part of a grouping with enough weight to achieve things, whilst the Tories have marginalised themselves with their alliances. However, I still think that the symbolic value of having a Green MP at Westminster makes up for it and have no doubts that Caroline Lucas will use the position to the full and be extremely effective both as a constituency MP and party’s sole representative.

    July 5th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
35. Joe James B

    It’s a very good thing for the Conservatives if the Greens eat into the LD vote.

    July 5th, 2010 at 11:17 pm
36. Barnaby JL Marder

    Liberal Neil –
    It may be deplorable, but the cost of a by-election across a region, particularly the South East, must be huge.

    So much, then, for the Liberal Democrats’ much-trumpeted commitment to extend democracy. It’s all about party advantage, isn’t it.

    July 6th, 2010 at 7:40 am
37. doktorb

    We’ve only got Labour to blame for the Party List rules, Barnaby.

    Whoever is next on the list gets the seat. That’s been the case since 1999.

    July 6th, 2010 at 7:55 am
38. Kieran W

    “Whoever is next on the list gets the seat.”

    That’s fine unless the outgoing member was an independent standing alone rather than as part of a list. In that scenario I would rather have the seat remain vacant until the next set of elections than have the absurdity of a region wide by-election. Ridiculously the winner of such a contest in the SE would be able to claim a personal mandate greater than any other elected politician.

    Under any PR system that involves the use of multi-member constituencies there really isn’t a simple, fair solution to the problem of filling casual vacancies.

    July 6th, 2010 at 11:00 am
39. Votedave

    God forbid that we end up with such a system for general elections. This is how the the connection between MP and constituent weakens, by having a list of names forced upon you. We still end up with seats for life for those fortunate enough to be at the top of those lists – no matter how respected or obnoxious they may be as individuals.

    July 6th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
40. Valenciano

    While I’d support STV as a better system than FPTP for Westminster elections I’d definitely vote against any system involving closed list PR and that includes some of the horrible top up systems proposed from time to time.

    For a look at what a farce is produced under closed list PR look at Spain. Since the last Spanish election in March 2008, 88 MPs out of a total of 350 have resigned, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be replaced by party colleagues. That’s one quarter of the legislature and is equivalent to 81 by-elections a year taking place in the UK!

    Open list PR at least gives people on the list a mandate though does lead to the glaring anomaly that people on one list aren’t elected whereas people on another list who get less votes are due to the list’s overall vote.

    July 6th, 2010 at 6:14 pm
41. Frederic Stansfield

    I’m with Valenciano.

    One of the big advantages of open list STV – but not the closed list version – is that voters get to choose which candidates from a party get selected.

    Actually, closed lists could do the same if, and only if, there are primary elections first to select the candidates and deternine their places on the list. As, to be fair, the Conservatives were beginning to move towards before the election in relation to FPTP, albeit only in selected seats.

    July 6th, 2010 at 6:34 pm
42. H.Hemmelig

    If we have to have PR, I would prefer to accept the closed list system, despite the disadvntage of the parties controlling the ranking on the lists, compared with the much worse disadvantage of STV whereby 2nd and 3rd preferences etc are counted with the same weight as 1st preferences.

    At the end of the day, in our system the parties will always have iron control over candidate selection in any case, and indeed given that in a party system MPs are just voting fodder, it doesn’t matter that much who is representing the party.

    Personally though I would prefer to maintain FPTP and will be voting do so.

    July 6th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
43. Joe James B

    I strongly favour FPTP, and have argued it on several threads, and won’t repeat it in detail.

    Except to say,
    if I had to pick something else, I would choose Additional Member (perhaps 10% of seats being regional top up).

    You would have to make the seats larger (which could be somewhat tricky as we’re already committed to making them larger to fit the reduced House).

    The election would be run exactly as it is now, albeit in larger seats, but you would – from that same vote – tweak it by adding a few seats for parties by region.

    All these choice based rigged fun and games of allowing losers votes to vote again are fundamentally undemocratic and wrong. I will certainly vote against, and for FPTP.

    We should also ask the LDs why PR is their no 1 priority regardless of the country’s other circumstances.
    Almost nobody mentions it spontaneously as a priority in surveys.

    July 6th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
44. Joe James B

    And those added as the Additional Members in regions
    should probably be the best losers in those regions.
    That’s a disadvantage because it means you can lose your seat and walk in on the Additional Member,
    but it’s better than the outrage of people putting themselves forward for constituency based seats aswell as top up seats (like on the GLA) which should be banned (although the effect in many cases will be the same).

    July 6th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
45. Pete Whitehead

    Sounds very like this system which someone flagged up only today in another place.

    http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=154

    July 6th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
46. Frederic Stansfield

    Now that all the regions have been abolished as administrative units by the Coalition Government, shouldn’t the European constituencies be redistributed so that they are of similar size?

    It is glaringly obvious that the currently gerrymandered boundaries lead to the election of more minor party candidates in the South of England than the North.

    A belated reply to H. Hemmelig. It is true that with open list STV the parties still get to choose who goes on their list. They can also cut down electoral choie, and I believe that overseas they often do, by putting up less that a full list. For instance, if they are likely only to get one seat, they may put up two canidates instead of a full list – which has the advatage of making the ballot paper more manageable! But they will still put up more candidates than places, which gives electors the oprion as to which one to put first. Very importantly, there is also the option to vote across lists. For instance, I don’t vote Tory, but if I had ten votes here I would certainly consider voting for Dan Hannan and Nirj Deva, because I think that individually they do a good job.

    For the next election, would it be possible at least to tweak the system so that whilst voting for a list electors could number the candidates within that list in order of preference?

    July 25th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
47. Joseph Brayson

    I’ve got a better idea, why don’t we just abolish the 9 regions which send representatives to the European Parliament and instead replace it with a single England region consisting of 58 members. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will all remain with the same amount of MEP’s. This would be the final step in abolishing the regionalisation of this country and England can be represented as a single region again.

    July 25th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
48. Frederic Stansfield

    Joseph, I don’t think the Cornish would think much of your idea, just for starters.

    What would the ballot paper look like for a 58 member constituency? And on a list system all sorts of weird parties would get MEPs (the BNP would sail in ) with one or two percent of the pole. If you tried to overcome this problem with a minimum threshold (e.g. 5%) you would lock out independents even more conclusively than now.

    Of course, many people would like single member European constituencies back, but the European ant-national sovereignty people would never allow it.

    More generally, England is already outrageously centralised, denying adequate democratic input, compared to just about any other country in the world with anything like a democratic system. And Joseph’s point does nothing at all about the inequitably political treatment that results from the grossly disparate sizes, in therms of population, of the currently recognised countries in the UK.

    July 26th, 2010 at 6:59 pm
49. H.Hemmelig

    Apologies if this post seems a bit eccentric, but this has been irking me for a few weeks.

    I am married to an American and we alternate our Christmases between the UK and the US.

    This year we were in Chicago, where I happened to visit an excellent Barnes & Noble bookstore. Prominently in the Top 10 book shelf was “The New Road to Serfdom” by Daniel Hannan MEP. There was a large publicity garb advertising the book, saying something like “In this book, British MEP Daniel Hannan warns Americans not to Europeanise and turn into a socialist basket case like the UK”. maybe I’m paraphrasing, but that was the jist.

    Am I alone in feeling furious that a member of parliament whose wages are paid for by myself and other British taxpayers is so prominently slagging off his own country in the US?

    One of the best characteristics of Americans in my view is that they do not slag off their own country or people overseas. Those that do, eg Micheal Moore, are detested by left and right alike. I wish we were more like that.

    If I were to be living in the South East region I would definitely never vote for Hannan.

    January 18th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
50. BT SAYS...

    Seems a funny thing to base your vote on HH. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if I were you. He could have been doing something much worse, nor does it sound from this scant detail that DH was saying “British is inherently bad”. Sounds more like a caption to get attention so he can then slag off Brussels etc, his real pet hate.

    January 18th, 2011 at 5:34 pm