UK bombers, who did you vote for in the EU Parliament Election?

I hate being reminded that UKIP exists.

@flstyle: So it would be a county ruling itself essentially? I do think that there's way too much power in London and the South but that would be a herculean effort.

@forkboy:

I absolutely agree more people need to get more invested in politics something that only became even more apparent to me the other day when someone changed my outlook on the political system by some.

However, just because you believe your ideology and opinion to be the correct choice shouldn't mean you attack others whose differ, all that will do is isolate these people into abominations like the BNP. At the end of the day if someone wants to discuss immigration and they got shot down each time these fringe parties gain more influence.

And for the record I agree with what your saying I hope UKIP fail but I also hope the core parties if you will at least see how much they are failing some that these alternative parties are gaining momentum.

I think regardless of what your political affiliation, the fact that parties such as UKIP are gaining such traction in national politics is proof that you can't just dismiss the people who vote for them as economic idiots or racist xenophobes. A democracy lives and breathes on the opinion and beliefs of the electorate, and no-one should be castigated for their opinion.

I voted UKIP in the European election because I think the political system in the UK is stagnant, and seriously needs something to shake it up. I don't agree with the vast majority of their policies, but I feel that if enough people vote outside of the 'Big Three', we will start to see the likes of the Conservatives and Labour change their manifestos simply out of political expediency to try and draw back in the fringe voters that can be so critical in general elections.

Locally, I voted for the Liberal Party (not LibDems), because in my area, they seem to be the only party that actually does anything, and has an effect on local affairs.

Admittedly It would take a revolution, power would have to be taken otherwise it won't happen in our lifetime.

To be fair, UKIP is run by a cunt too, he's just a different kind of cunt.

On a side note I was really surprised by how many parties were standing on an anti EU platform this time. UKIP were there, obviously, but there was the fabulously named NO2EU party, the worker's rights party (their picture was the EU flag crossed out) and a couple of others. I hadn't even heard of these other ones before!

I see your point. I was probably a bit too short this afternoon. Partially its an issue of tone; I curse like a sailor in my everyday speech. I use "fuck" & "cunt" to emphasis points, rather than with any particular malice. But a lot of that clarity of context is lost online.

I don't think the immigration issue should be shut down although I do think it is a massive distraction from far more pressing problems. I still believe immigration is a net positive, especially for Scotland where the birth rate is decreasing (this is one part of why I believe Scottish independence is a necessity, because Scotland requires immigration which the English seem to oppose). I think if someone wants to live here and work and pay tax here that they are welcome with arms wide open. I think rather than blaming immigrants for shit being fucked that we'd be better off looking at Nigel Farage's former industry, stockbrokers and other City spivs, the financial industry in this country in general. And I think regulation of that clearly broken industry would be more effective if enforced across an entire continent rather than just one country.

So yeah, maybe I'd catch more flies with honey so to speak but sometimes my forcefulness forgets that some people think tone matters as much as content. But then I read Farage talking about a coalition with Le Pen's French fascists in order to grind the EU parliament to a halt and it's sometimes hard to remain cool-headed and calm. I don't think it makes me childish as you implied, I just think it means I'm human and have passions and give a shit, for all the problems associated with that.

You posted an opinion. I posted a counter-argument to that opinion. Welcome to the internet.

No where did I say "you must obey". Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. But if you put your views out there you need to accept that maybe someone will challenge them if they disagree. No harm intended, opinions just lead to other opinions. It's a risk I'm afraid.

@forkboy: There's a big difference between disagreeing with my opinion and assuming I was "sticking it to the man" by drawing a cock on my paper. And don't try to patronise me.

@forkboy: Man, I just read about that La Pen team-up, fucking Hell. So now UKIP are just straight up doing deals with Fascists?

Not really. What is your motivation for spoiling your ballot if not "sticking it to the man"? And if you didn't draw a cock (a fair assumption on my behalf to be frank, because plenty of people do it, as if it was original or edgy or even funny), dare I ask how you did spoil your ballot?

Also, sorry, I don't really have to try to be patronising, it just comes naturally. And that's not a brag or anything. It's absolutely a negative trait. I am very regularly casually patronising, usually without intent. Thank you for pointing it out and I will try to cut that down in the future. (And now this sounds sarcastic. It's not, really)

@walkmanboy Yeah, it's pretty grim sounding. Especially as Nige was assuring us just a week ago he'd never sit with Actual Fascists™ (despite already sitting with Lega Nord who may not be all the way to Actual Fascist™ but sure waste little time with covering up their racism.

So considering you're voting liberally locally why aren't you voting the green party to give the UK Political system a kick up the arse? The problem is people think UKIP are the only fringe party with any momentum which isn't the case at all.

@yesiamaduck: Unfortunately, the Green Party simply doesn't have the momentum that UKIP has. The average guy in the street doesn't know the Greens. I couldn't even tell you who the Green leader is without looking it up.

@forkboy: @walkmanboy: I have to point out that UKIP is "sitting with fascists" as much as they are sitting with Greek communists, since all of those anti-EU parties with elected representatives have an anti-EU agenda. The "common front" that all these disparate parties share is an ability for a minority blocking vote for EU legislation, thusly vetoing unelected commissioners in enforcing European policy on various countries' electorates who have voted not to have it imposed on them.

"Farage had promised that Ukip would not enter any formal alliance with Le Pen's Front National, which he had criticised for "antisemitism and general prejudice", but his comments suggested he was expecting the two parties to find themselves on the same side of many Eurosceptic battles in Brussels."

Surely it is impossible, unless you are being intellectually dishonest, to jump to a conclusion that UKIP are fascist communists. Or is it just less hyperbolic or not as impactful to call UKIP raving communists?

But voting UKIP for the sake of voting for a different party seems counter intuative, especially if you vote liberally elsewhere. Considering you're swinging from a very left wing and very right wing party it seems like a very confused approach.. i mean are you actually voting for policies you believe in or are you voting for the sake of change? Because a lot of what UKIP is proposing is incredibly illiberal

@yesiamaduck: To be completely honest, UKIP is a protest vote. I don't agree with the policies, or the belief that the UK can survive in its current form outside of the EU. But voting for the big three doesn't change anything and neither does the voting for the greens. You might as well spoil your paper.

Opportunities like this to change the status quo don't come around very often, and new parties with popular support are very rare. So yes, my vote for UKIP is purely for change, not ideological agreement.

The reason I'm voting Liberal (not libdem) locally is because they have a long history of being a party that makes a difference locally and actually helps its electorate. If the conservatives did the same, I would consider voting for them as well, but they don't, so my options are limited.

Fucking UKIP. Slimy lizard racists. That is all.

I think you are all forgetting this is a GAMING Website.

I'm not going to vote in the poll since I'm not in the UK, though I will vote in the EU parliament election on Sunday.

I'll vote for the Swedish Pirate Party (they got two seats in the previous election 4 years ago, and seem to have done alright), because they're the only party around here who even brings up the whole integrity on the Internet thing, and I think EU may be the best place for them to actually do something about it. They are also part of the Green party group in the EU parliament, and voting for the Swedish Green's was probably have been my second option anyway, so I hope in effect that my vote will both help the green parties of EU, while hinting to the politicians that I think the whole surveillance and personal integrity thing should be taken a bit more seriously.

I voted green as I read about their aims with the net in their manifesto and it suited what I feel it should be (the opposite of what the corporations are trying to push through at this moment in time).

I have to point out that I haven't claimed that UKIP are fascist, only that they are willing to work with fascists. I think they are xenophobic and homophobic and contain a larger proportion of racists than any major party, (& this is worst of all I think, they are responsible for that awful crook and entirely unrepentant crook Neil Hamilton being on television right now) but they are not fascists. They are Thatcherites Plus. That's a world away from fascism, and calling something fascist solely because it's racist does a great disservice to the many racists who believe in rampant neo-liberalism. The BNP & Britain First can be fairly accurately labelled fascist, but I wouldn't say UKIP are.

You also didn't address the whole "sitting with Lega Nord" thing. Because they clearly do that. And Lega Nord are, if not actual fascists they are still a party who has a history of seriously dodgy racial statements. Such as Roberto Calderoli's comments last summer on the then new Minister for Integration; "I love animals, but when I see her I can't help but think of an orangutan." Their leader coined the much-maligned phrase Bongo Bongo Land, later co-opted by the delightful UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom. Are racists alright by you if they aren't Actual Fascists™? I certainly dislike all racists, regardless of where they fall in the political spectrum.

Euroscepticism is fine. I'm mildly eurosceptic in that I think the idea is solid and has done a lot for European peace these past 50 years, but it's very wasteful and has some exceedingly stupid laws. And is broadly liberal in outlook and focuses on advancing a free market agenda. But you can be eurosceptic without the scaremongering about Romanians & Bulgarians & them forriners taking our jobs.

Also, just for the record, I mean if you want proper fascist communists then I'd direct you towards the rather repellent National Bolsheviks in Russia. Seriously nasty bunch of buggers.

I'm all for change. But I'd rather argue for positive change than change driven by fear and xenophobia. I'm also not really sure that a party full of bankers, stockbrokers, and people who basically are Tories but like Europe even less will be much of a force for change, except on a couple of issues such as Europe and immigration.

And no, voting for the Greens, who are likely to win multiple seats in this country, is not the same as spoiling your ballot. That's nonsense. If I sound patronising again they sorry, but that's a really hard statement to take seriously. The Greens have representatives in both Westminster and Holyrood as well as Brussels, as opposed to UKIP being a total non-entity in both the House of Commons & Scottish Parliament.

If UKIP win I'll just leave and watch the country go to shit from a distance

@forkboy: The Greens are a complete non entity. I'm sorry if that offends you, but even the Respect party is more of a political force. They become relevant for maybe a week every 5 years, and then fall into obscurity after the elections. They may have members of parliament, but they don't have anywhere near the political support needed to make a difference.

Going from exit polls, UKIP is head to head with Labour in terms of votes.

Can you really imagine the Greens in this position?

UKIP is a ridiculous, one policy party, and that is totally undeniable. In an ideal world, I would vote for the Greens. They are the far superior faction in terms of politics and morality. But as far as I'm concerned, voting for them in this election IS wasting the vote because they are a non entity and voting for them won't change anything.

What do you expect will change if UKIP top the polls in the UK for the Euro election?

Well, apart from increasing the number of people that will be willing to vote yes to the Scottish independence referendum come September (according to polling released by Panelbase a few days ago). That'd certainly lead to change that I could support, though it does reek a bit of accelerationism, hoping the awful party win so that everything collapses and people undergo even worse hardship.

@forkboy: Take this situation for example.

UKIP potentially topping the polls.

The Lib Dems are looking as if they could be decimated at the local level.

The Conservatives have lost a large portion of their core voter to a relatively new party.

Labour significantly benefits from a fracturing of their greatest rivals electorate base, losing a certain section of voters that up until now, they didn't even have to try to woo.

So from one election, thats the taking down a peg of the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives being forced to chase votes (possibly forcing them to form a coalition with UKIP in the future), the rise of a new political party that could establish itself beyond the general election, and Labour in a position to seriously capitalise on it all.

I realise its extremely early to make predictions like this, but they are certainly not out of the realms of possibility. This is change on a scale that the British political system hasn't seen since maybe the 1980's.

Right, so some politicians will be replaced by other politicians. What actual change, in the real world, do you expect to come from UKIP being very successful today? Like what do you want in the end by voting from UKIP gaining widespread support?

I'm not trying to sound like a dick here but voting for a party you don't agree with makes you a huge part of the problem. Stewart Lee said it best 'it's like protesting to a hotel that your bed is dirty by shitting in your bed and now you've got to sleep in a bed you've shat in'

If UKIP are willing to vote with fascists, communists, nationalists, separatists and other euro skeptics against euro bureaucracy and policies that are ruining Europe, then I'm all for that. I'd hardly call that "doing deals" with fascists and racists though - and that was something that you did say. It is more like them all voting similarly to block EU powers. The Lega Nord issue is that that UKIP do sit and share anti-euro policy with their elected Euro MPs. The only other relation I know of between Lega Nord and UKIP is they both joined the EFD group, who are all simply opposed to European Union project. There is also some EFD sentiment over Islamification in Europe, which I feel is a valid concern and should be open for discussion and criticism without resort to calls of racism, Islamophobia or zenophobia. The National Bolsheviks were one of many right wing groups in Europe, although they are not a political party and have nothing to do with UKIP.

I can understand that a growing party will attract undesirables to it like Godfrey Bloom, but these people are soon weeded out - as Bloom was last year soon after making those comments. I dislike Hamilton too (oddly Question Time is coming live from my local village of Radlett tonight) and I disagree on many of the things he said; especially on education, finance and housing. He did make some valid points about immigration though that fit with the current need for additional housing in the UK. I can't see how UKIP supports racists or condones racism when it has a demonstrated record of sacking them from the party as soon as they say something racially controversial.

I would not support racism and I think nationalism is dangerous, but I also think that having immigration controls is not about issues of race or national identity: It's about issues of population growth and infrastructure to support it. The UK is perhaps the most racially diverse country in the world, but we still do have some unresolved issues with integration here. What do you think will restrict the flow of people to this country this time from Bulgaria and Romania, when recent history shows us how much immigration happened when the Baltic states gained similar membership and due EU rights of immigration last decade?

I see this election as a means to protest about our loss of democracy in Europe and the massive rate of immigration this country has seen in the last two decades. After living through all of the Thatcher years, I could say I'm as anti-Thatcherite as they come. Unfortunately I lived though Blair and Brown too. I think our freedom of speech and action is being eroded, the government (in cahoots with the city) is stealing from it's electorate, the idea of a free-market economy is a fallacy that needs multi-billion pound government bail-outs to sustain it, artificially low interest rates are punishing pensions and housing markets, and the need for constant corporate growth and profit increases with associated government sanctioned tax avoidance. Our rail services, energy, education and healthcare systems are failing due to under-funding, over-subscription and mismanagement. Ideas of fairness in access to legal, employment, housing and welfare are moving beyond the reach of the neediest in society.

And yet the electorate are set off against each other on issues conflating genuine concern over the state of the nation with petty name-calling and misuse of emotive terms that polarize people against each other. This results in some topics being banned from discussion (i.e. like criticising Islam and immigration has already been made illegal in Sweden) under threat of punishment or vilification.

I just want to point out that the article you link to have the Swedish reactionary and xenophobic magazine "Fria Tider" as their source. Their interpretation of the law doesn't line up with what any other media outlets in Sweden have written about it, and despite being a place for racists and right wing nuts to hang out and interpret all news as conspiracies by the jews, homosexuals and muslims to take over the world, they have not been taken down - they even get subsidized by the state thanks to our press support system that allows any regularly printed paper with more than 1500 subscribers to get funds. The law they say makes "criticising islam and immigration illegal" isn't doing that at all, it's intended to strengthen libel laws to make them more in line with the laws in the rest of Europe. The law proposal is available here, sadly only available in Swedish, but Google Translate may give you gist of what it's about: http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Utskottens-dokument/Betankanden/201314Nagra-andringar-pa-tryc_H101KU17/?html=true

A summary is also available here: http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Utskottens-dokument/Betankanden/Arenden/201314/KU17/

I heard about the case of Michael Hess from the Swedish Democrats, who was fined 32,000KR for hate speech against Islam under this new law. It is not an issue over publication, or of libel, but over an individual right to free speech. Please don't think that harmonizing libel laws with a place like the UK will make for a fairer society in Sweden. Thankfully the UK has gone the other way (sort of) with a reform "section 5" campaign successfully making it legal to insult again; therefore upholding the right to free speech.

@diz: The new law isn't in effect yet, it will fully be taken into effect in January 2015, with changes to legal fees taking effect in July this year (still two months away), so his case has nothing to do with this law.

@fisk0: There must be another Swedish law that inhibits free speech. I could not accurately understand the law you linked to through the Google translation. I only mentioned that "criticising Islam and immigration has already been made illegal in Sweden". Perhaps this is via a wide interpretation of an existing Swedish law that forbids "insightment to racial hatred", despite any justification of the claim made. Or did this conviction not happen?

@yesiamaduck: Sorry, but you DO sound like a dick. The problem is not UKIP or people voting against their principles. The problem is a political party system that is no longer interested in serving the needs of its electorate. The Greens are at best, a liberal fringe party. UKIP has sent shockwaves through Westminster, and if you think any other party has even the slightest chance of doing the same, you're either naive or deluded.

England council results

Elections were held in 161 local authorities on Thursday 22 May. Results continue on Friday.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/events/vote2014/england-council-election-results

@fattony12000: Currently looking like a relatively strong night for Labour (although that table doesn't tell us where UKIP have made gains and whether any of those have come in areas where Labour have traditionally been strong)...and yet still all the media are talking about (just like in this thread) is UKIP.

It should really look stronger for Labour. Because they are the opposition in the fourth year of a pretty unpopular government consisting of the nasty party and the former natural protest vote party. Now obviously UKIP do better in local elections when they are held the same day as Euro elections, but even taking that into account picking up only 123 seats when these seats last went up for election in 2010 is pretty poor. Because Labour were pretty unpopular in 2010 if you remember.

The UKIP successes are overplayed though. I mean they still have half the councillors of a decimated Lib Dems. Incidentally, watching their punishment for betraying their voters in 2010 has been quite pleasant and long may it continue

36% turnout shows how interested people are in the current politic.

@forkboy: I'm not normally one to celebrate at others misfortunes (or at least i try to not be) but in the Lib Dems case I'll make an exception. If you betray your voters like they did then you will not keep your voters.

Can someone please tell me the results? As asked I don't vote irl so I won't vote in your poll, but I'd like to see about your liberal theory

I'd not really look too hard at that, since 1979 the highest turnout for a European election in the UK was 38%. 36% could put it as the 2nd-4th highest turnout and compares quite favourably to the 24% turnout in 1999.

Conservative.

UK bombers, who did you vote for in the EU Parliament Election? (191 votes)

• The Conservatives 7%
• Labour 21%
• The Liberal Democrats 9%
• UKIP 12%
• Other 50%

Consistently for the past 50 years the average percentage of about Third of the total possible voters actually vote. A significant difference can only be mentioned if the percentage was above 40% (higher turnout) or below 30% (lower turnout). The statistic of 36% actually doesn't tell you anything.

As of the writing of this post, the results in this poll are:

That 36% is for the council elections! I find it astonishing that the vast majority of eligible electorate don't vote, even if you think this is a good number in comparison.

About you idea of results looking strong for Labour: I think people remember the Blair years, then how Brown deregulated the finance industry and paved the way for the our last economic collapse and bailout. I also think that Ed Miliband is not a strong figurehead for the party and that some people resent the union involvement in his selection over his more publicly popular brother.

Greens all the way. Also postal vote makes everything so much easier.

Yes. Do you think there were many people who turned up and refused to vote in one ballot & didn't in the other? Probably a couple of % may have but unlikely to be more than that. The 2012 local election turnout was 31%. 2008 was 35%. This is not abnormal. Local election turnout is higher in years with general elections & Scottish/Welsh national elections.

I don't understand the outrage of trade unions having a say in political parties. Why is their money different from the money of wealthy individuals & companies who fund the Tories and even Labour to some extent? I'd rather have stronger trade unions.

Which one is the most racist/conservative, the news told me ya'll are down with that this time around.

You know what I secretly thought was half awesome at a distance? The London Riots from a few years ago :P