So, that whole UK-EU negotiation thing is almost all wrapped up, right? I haven’t bothered to look at the news over the last week or so, but I don’t need to in order to know that May got the cabinet and the DUP to accept the backstop and now everything’s pretty much on plan for the vote in parliament, happening next month, which should be smooth as silk….
Joking aside, as ever with Brexit, the more no deal looms into view, the more Brexit being significantly delayed or not happening at all does as well. It’s the Brexit yin and yang. Which brings us neatly to the topic du jour, namely the Euro 2019 elections. We have long presumed, because of the timing of the Article 50 triggering, that this was not going to happen in the UK, as in, we were not going to be electing MEPs ever again since we were Audi 5000, Juncker-faces. However, with the possibility of this not being the case come May 2019 looking more and more plausible as the talks falter, it’s worth looking at how they might go were they to take place.
None of the parties would be ready for them, really. Well, except the ones who are obsessed with this topic, namely the Lib Dems and UKIP. Those two parties would also be best placed to campaign for potential votes. The Lib Dems’ positioning as the anti-Brexiteers in excelsis would finally pay off, as voters got to register a pro-EU vote in the simplest way possible without worrying about accidentally electing a government that would legalise drugs, make STV the voting system everywhere and do literally nothing else. Seriously, if this election did take place in the UK, if you were pro-EU why would you vote for anyone other than the Lib Dems? Okay, or the Greens, I guess. But Labour? Why bother?
Likewise, if you’re Brexity as all get out and want to register a protest that these stinking elections are happening on the beloved soil of Albion anew, why vote for anyone other than UKIP? I know they have three and a half members and are run out of the back of a pub in Grimsby now, but they are still the one vote that you can make to send a message that the vote shouldn’t be happening, should they happen. What would voting Tory say instead? It would be their fault the whole thing was taking place and thus not a depository for Brexit votes at that point, not in the Euros anyhow.
The result of all of this would be, hilariously, far and away the largest turnout for a Euro parliament election in British history. Which makes it hard to then argue from a Eurosceptic perspective that they don’t matter and no one cares about them. This is the chief reason why Brexiteers are so keen to avoid them happening – they would demonstrate in a clear and demonstrable way just how important the EU now is to British politics.
Oh I wish. That really would be hilarious to see. Unlikely, but hilarious. How would that also play with the “unelected, undemocratic” EU narrative spouted by the Leavers? Oh wait, that always was nonsense.
I seem to recall the electoral commission had already established contingency plans for a Euro election, just in case. Hmmm.
Proxy second referendum?
A European Parliament election would be better than another referendum because people would be able to vote for representatives who agree with their views on Brexit and not just answer a yes/no question. European Parliament elections are held by proportional representation even in England, so the results are proportionate to the votes.
NIck –
The Liberal Democrats have never performed particularly well at European elections, and since the introduction of proportional representation in 1999 for European elections in Great Britain, (and yes, I know it’s not STV – but you can’t have everything), their performance has been underwhelming.
So why the weak LIbDem performance – of all parties – for European elections under PR? I’d guess because there is more effective electoral competition for the non-Lab/Con party vote from the Greens, UKIP, SNP etc. in PR elections than under the first-past-the-post system (ironic, I know). And also because the LibDems lose the ‘third party’ tactical squeeze vote that they get under first-past-the-post in some areas – for example from Labour-, Green- or even UKIP-inclined voters in the South West region.
Oh. And other thing. We have never really had a set of European elections in which Europe featured much as an issue – with the possible exception of the first one in 1979, which had a certain novelty value all of its own. So why buck the trend now?
Brexit would make a European Parliament election in Britain in May 2019 entirely different from all previous European Parliament elections. It would be another referendum on Brexit.
Is this what May is hoping for? It gets rid of another referendum,People will know more about the events around in or out for them to vote on. It gets her and her party out of the mess that they dragged the country into.
Well, leaving aside the small detail that it is not going to happen anyway and two-thirds of people never bothered to vote in the European Parliament elections even when they could, what incentive would there be for the Conservative and Labour parties to highlight an issue that embarrasses them? Come to think of it though, It would be a field day for UKIP. The script writes itself.