I don't vote, I don't pay community tax

[venta]

If we assume that:

(a) most people don't bother voting in elections[*]
(b) people are more likely to complain when they don't like something than offer praise when they do

does it follow that parties like UKIP will always do well in elections for MEPs ?

[*] Turn-out figures show that about 1 in 3 people voted in the European elections last week.

Comments

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I don't really understand the point of voting UKIP for Europe. It seems to be a way of saying "I want out of the EU". But cleverly done in such a way that saying so cannot possibly make it happen, since obviously MEPs don't have the power to take us out of Europe. MPs do, but people who vote UKIP for Europe have presumably voted Tory in general elections.

Possibly there are things which UKIP MEPs do that Tory ones don't, but if so they haven't bothered telling me the details. Or maybe the people who want out of the EU treat EU elections as a joke in which it's OK to vote UKIP, but don't feel strongly enough against the EU to vote on that issue in "real" elections.

I guess if UKIP wins any seats in the general election, then Euro-scepticism becomes a viable stance in Westminster.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't really understand the point of voting UKIP for Europe. It seems to be a way of saying "I want out of the EU". But cleverly done in such a way that saying so cannot possibly make it happen, since obviously MEPs don't have the power to take us out of Europe.

Phew. I'm glad you said that. I'd thought exactly the same, but assumed it was just me failing to understand the electoral process (politics really isn't my strong point).

I guess UKIP could have a policy of MEPs behaving so irrationally that the European parliament is thrown into such disarray that it gives up and goes home :)

[deeteeuk.livejournal.com]

I think their stance is that the European framework should be as small as possible*, and campaign to that end. In that way, they're a little like the Tories, who would prefer "small government" wherever possible. They want government to be small, but they still want to be in it.

*Obviously, they'd rather it just didn't exist, or that we weren't in it

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

If I'm not mistaken, UKIP has some council seats. This demonstrates the irrationality of UKIP voters (and indeed, the party itself) even more effectively than what you say above.

Of course, you could argue that in reality UKIP are more than a single-issue party, in that they represent xenophobia and opposition to anything the EU might actively do. In that case, voting for them in EU elections might make a lot more sense (assuming they actually attend the European Parliament, that is - last I heard they didn't).

[pm215]

My guess is that a lot of people see euro and local elections as basically irrelevant (look at the way turnout is always much lower than for general elections). Therefore they feel free to use them to send messages to Westminster (which they do care about). "The government is a load of rubbish" and "we don't like Europe" are both popular messages; I'd guess that a lot of BNP votes are trying to say "we want less immigration". I'm sure the fact that UKIP regularly does well in Euro elections has a measurable effect on the policies of the major parties on Europe; in that sense voting UKIP is a rational move.

(Also FPTP means voting UKIP in a general election would be pretty pointless and quite possibly actively harmful if the lot you didn't want got in due to split vote.)