Why does next Thursday matter? European Elections – Esme Peters
What are the European elections?
The European elections take place every 5 years with MEPs (Members of European Parliament) elected to Brussels and Strasbourg. The UK will elect 73 MEPs from 12 electoral regions (number of MEPs per region is based on population size e.g. London elect 8 and the North East elect 3). The East of England (that’s us) has 7.
Why are they so controversial?
As recently as the end of March, Teresa May said the public would find it “unacceptable” to have to elect a new group of MEPs almost three years after they voted to leave the EU and the best part of two months after the UK was supposed to leave under Article 50.
However, under terms agreed with EU leaders in Brussels, the UK has been given a Brexit extension until 31 October (Halloween). As part of this deal the UK “must hold elections to the European Parliament” and if it fails to do this, the UK will leave on 1 June without a deal.
The results will almost definitely cause a political earthquake, especially for Labour and the Conservatives (if the local elections are anything to go by both these parties will most likely be obliterated). One MP recently said to the New Statesman that their constituents would “burn my office to the ground” when they received their polling cards in the mail. Or as Damian Hinds put it, the European elections are ‘the ultimate protest vote”.
What are the expected results (as of this week!!)?
Polls on the 13 May suggest the Brexit party has further strengthened its position, with Opinium and YouGov having them on 34% with a big lead over Labour who are in second place.
The anti-Brexit vote is currently split (SNP, Plaid Cymru, Lib Dems, Greens and Change UK are all anti-Brexit). This means the Remain vote will be split, making it more likely that parties such as UKIP and the Brexit party will gain serious ground.
Lib Dem leader Vince Cable says he is in favour of working with other Remain parties to present a “common front” at the European elections, this would mean Remain voters were less split. Mr Cable said the parties “shouldn’t be squabbling” and that he did approach the Green Party and Change UK to suggest joint candidates however this was of very little interest to them.
Some are treating the upcoming elections as a ‘proxy referendum’ as it will be interesting to add together the votes for anti-Brexit parties and compare the result with the combined score of UKIP and the Brexit Party.
The Conservatives and Labour, while not doing disastrously in polls, are faring far below where as ’major parties’ they should be. Prospects for the Conservatives look bleak and they’ve been bumping around in the low to-mid teens. That would be by a distance the lowest share of the vote ever for the party in a national election.
Labour are faring better, although considerably below where they would want to be.
What do I think?
As someone who believes remaining is the best option but that a second referendum in unviable, I think that the upcoming EU elections will have a large and very interesting impact on Brexit. The concept of a proxy referendum is one which I think will be extremely telling and may completely alter the course of Brexit. Whether this is a positive shift in a particular direction or just reinforces the societal split between Leave and Remain is yet to be seen. Sadly, I do believe that due to the large split of the Remain vote across multiple parties, the Brexit party and UKIP will achieve a majority and perhaps appear to do disproportionately well, something I do not wish to see (especially with Nigel Farage back in the mix). Furthermore there is the issue of the UK’s two largest parties being destroyed in the polls compared to where they should be, it will be more of the same seen under the local elections. People on both sides of the argument are angry about Brexit and may use the elections as a protest vote on scales never seen before in political history. The absolute absurdities which will unfold over the next week or so would almost be comedic if they weren’t so terrifying.
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