Nick Clegg - Is This the End?

  In the wake of the Local and European elections, the Liberal Democrats haven't exactly done well. In the locals, they lost over 300 councillors and control of 2 entire councils. In the Euros, the slaughter was even more impressive - of the eleven MEPs the party won in 2009, only one - Catherine Bearder - will travel to Brussels when the European Parliament reconvenes. By anyone's measure, that's not a good performance for a party which has made much of its recent ascension to become a viable party of government.

  One man who really couldn't have been looking forward to this particular set of elections is the Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg. On the one hand, the party avoided total wipeout in Europe, which had been prophesied by a number of people, including some prominent party figures. On the other, though, this catastrophic collapse has triggered a fierce debate over whether Clegg is really the best man to lead the party into the next election. And that, for a leader already unpopular with the public (-26%, the worst of any party leader) and clinging on to power pretty much by the skin of his teeth, is going to be profoundly worrying. 

  But is a leadership challenge likely? The past few days have seen some turmoil in the Liberal Democrat party, but now the dust is beginning to settle, just how precarious is Clegg's position?


The Oakeshott Conspiracy

  One of the biggest shakeups in the party has been the publication of a several ICM polls in Lib Dem-held seats - including Clegg's - which were commissioned by Lord Oakeshott, who until recently was an important figure within the party and a close ally of Vince Cable. These polls suggest that Clegg's chances of reclaiming his seat in Sheffield Hallam in 2015 are growing increasingly remote - The Lib Dems came only third in the poll, on 23%, with Labour winning on 31% and the Tories second on 26% (UKIP are fourth on 11%, the Greens fifth with 8% - NOTE: all figures based on those expressing an intention to vote). 

  It must be emphasised that this is merely a snapshot - without the long-term polling which is conducted at a national level, it is impossible to tell if this result would be translated into a defeat for Clegg at the Geneal Election. However, it cannot be good for a party leader if one of his own is deliberately trying to undermine him in this way.

  So what does this mean in terms of a possible leadership race? Well, Oakeshott - who was never really in the running anyway - has now left the party, solving that problem - at least for now. However, the fact that Oakeshott alleges that Cable - who is a possible contender - knew about the polling prior to its publishing may cause problems for Cable in the future. Meanwhile, even the suggestion that Clegg might lose his seat after the next election is going to be a godsend for the growing minority within the party who are calling for his head.


The Contenders

  If there were to be a leadership election, who would it be between? There are, basically, four people in the party with the standing to take the top job. They are:

Jeremy Browne

Browne is a man firmly on the right of the party, one of those hardline Orange Book liberals who believes very strongly in the Old Liberal principles of Gladstone and Asquith and not much that has happened to the party since. Having already accused his party of having become pointless, and having laid the blame for this pretty firmly at Clegg's feet, it is fairly certain that Browne would stand in any leadership contest. However, his right-wing credentials - much as they would win him the tacit support of the Tories - might well prove anathema to much of the Lib Dems' remaining progressive support base. A Browne leadership campaign would be an uphill struggle.



Vince Cable

As an experienced minister, a former Deputy Leader of the Party and a respected authority on economics within the Liberal Democrats, Cable has some fairly impressive credentials. However, there are a few stumbling blocks as well: As a high-profile coalition minister, he is tainted with almost the same toxicity as Clegg in terms of association with the Tories; his recent embroilment in the Oakeshott affair casts a certain shadow of disreputability over this previously squeaky-clean party figure; and, without wishing to put too fine a point on it, he's getting on a bit, and the tendency within British politics at the moment seems to be towards younger, more charismatic leaders. However, none of these obstacles are insurmountable, and Cable is respected enough by both wings of the party to stand a decent chance of success. One to watch.

Tim Farron

Champion of the left wing of the party, Farron has been President of the Liberal Democrats since January 2011 and has garnered a reputation for himself as something of a rebel, voting against tuition fee increases, NHS privatisation and the selling off of public forest estates. His left-wing credentials make him the perfect candidate to try to win back those Lib Dem voters who defected to Labour or the Greens after 2010, and his opposition to tuition fees might  help to detoxify the party's image with respect to what was previously their main voter base - students. If I had to guess, I'd say Farron has the best chance of victory - though that could be my own confirmation bias, as he's certainly my favourite candidate - but he won't by any means have an easy run of it.

Nick Clegg

Let's not forget, just because a leadership contest may be looming, doesn't mean Clegg couldn't necessarily come out of it still standing. He has, after all, managed to get the Lib Dems into government for the first time since 1922 and still retains the support of the majority of the Parliamentary party and a significant proportion of the party grassroots. After everything the Lib Dems have done in coalition, from raising tuition fees to introducing secret courts where people can be tried and convicted without even knowing the charges against them, Clegg is still in power. At this stage, he really does look teflon-coated, and running against him won't be easy.



Will it happen?

  At this stage, I'd have to say - probably not. The fact is, whatever happens over the next year, the Lib Dems are headed for electoral devastation in 2015. I doubt they will be quite so crippled by the voters as they have been in the Euros - tactical voting to keep out either the Tories or Labour will still likely take place, whereas it doesn't under the proportional EU system - but they are going to take a hammering. With that looming on the horizon, who really wants to be the one to assume responsibility for the party? Going into 2015 without Clegg at the helm would probably gain the Lib Dems some votes, but not nearly enough to offset the damage coalition has done.

  It makes far more sense for whoever has their sights set on the top job to wait until after the election. That way, they will have a far better chance of kicking Clegg out in the first place, and they can present themself as the party's saviour, swooping in to rescue the Lib Dems from the ashes of Nick Clegg's rule. When the challenge does come, it will be one of those above who emerges victorious - Danny Alexander, the only other party figure with the necessary clout, is very likely to lose his own seat - but anyone who seriously wants to make something of their leadership will wait until after 2015 to plunge the knife.

Europe 2014 - The Results are In

  The results are in now for the British portion of the European elections. I say British specifically because, at the time of writing, Northern Ireland has yet to declare theirs - but, since the electoral system is different and the motivations for voting revolve heavily around the nationalist v. unionist split which is not present elsewhere, I think we can safely proceed with the analysis. So, where do we stand?


UKIP Ascendant

  In a nutshell, this is the big political story of the day - UKIP have topped a national election for the first time ever, and they're loving it. Nigel Farage has been talking of political earthquakes for a while now, but it does now look as if he really might have gone and done it.

  Having said that, we must be careful not to overstate the impact of UKIP's victory. They got 24 MEPs out of 70 for Great Britain - just over a third - which is a not inconsiderable feat, but Labour was close behind on 20 and the Tories just behind them with 19. This does not represent a mass conversion to UKIP among the general population; it represents an almost three-way split in the vote between the three principal neoliberal parties in the UK. The amount of attention the mainstream media have placed on UKIP's victory is understandable from a sensationalist point-of-view, but is hardly justifiable academically - the Tories beat Labour in 2010 by a wider margin, but were unable to form a single-party government. Be clear - this is no landslide.

  It is, however, undeniably a major development in British politics. There are, it seems to me, three major factors behind the rise of UKIP - disaffection with the political classes, the perception of mass immigration from within the EU and a complete inability of the pro-EU side to articulate any kind of argument against the rampant media-fuelled Euroscepticism which has taken hold of the country. Exploitation of these three trends in popular opinion has allowed Farage to make good his promise and claim victory on Europe.

  The question is, what now? What does the success of UKIP at these elections mean for the general election in less than a year's time? Farage claims that UKIP will take a number of seats in Westminster in 2015 whilst the other parties seem to be of the opinion, wishful thinking or not, that this short-term boost will desert him and UKIP will find itself beaten well back into fourth. The first-past-the-post electoral system in use for general elections means that UKIP will have their work cut out - the party received nearly a million votes in 2010 but won no seats - but to suggest, as Philip Hammond has done, that all those who donned the purple on Thursday will take up the blue and the red again in less than twelve months is absurd. 

  Sadly, it is quite likely that UKIP will make their electoral breakthrough in Westminster in the next year - whether at the Newark by-election scheduled for the fifth of June or next April remains to be seen (I suspect the latter). It may even hold the balance of power, though I would deem that very unlikely, but even one UKIP MP should be a worrying prospect to anyone whose fondness for neoliberalism and xenophobia is anywhere near as limited as mine.



Where Have All the Lib Dems Gone?

  Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... The Liberal Democrats, having fought the election as 'the Party of In', are O-U-T Out. Ten of the party's eleven MEP's fell to the scythe of public opinion, leaving poor Catherine Bearder (representing South-East England) the only member the UK liberal will send to Brussels when the European Parliament reconvenes in July. 

  Well, I can't say I'm particularly shocked - or that I'll be losing much sleep over this turn of events. The Lib Dems may profess to be the party of in, but it was their miserable failure to articulate the arguments for the EU - coupled with a stubborn refusal to tackle the issues it does have, such as its democratic deficit and the madness of the proposed TTIP deal - which caused them to suffer such a humiliating defeat. In essence, the Liberal Democrats are identical to the Tories and Neo-Labour in every way OTHER than their uncompromising support for the EU, and they failed to explain why that difference alone made them worth voting for over and above those two parties. Therefore, is it really any wonder that their votes were siphoned off?

  The protest vote, meanwhile, was essentially hoovered up by UKIP - with the those left-wingers who would never vote for Farage's mob in a million years defecting to the Greens instead - and thus was the Liberal Democrats' coffin sealed. Will we see a similar collapse next May at the general election? Quite possibly - some projections are suggesting a loss of a third of their Parliamentary seats. The devastation is unlikely to be as total as at Europe - public dissatisfaction with the EU was undoubtedly the main factor behind this disaster, and that should recede somewhat by next year - but I would not be surprised to see considerably less yellow rosettes on election night than in 2010.

  And frankly, I can't wait.



Labour and the Tories - Eds Are Going to Roll...

  I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.


  As far as the Tories and Labour are concerned, that was a close one - only one seat and 1.5% of the vote between them. For Labour, that's not good - not good at all. At this point in an election cycle, the Opposition should be trouncing the government in every poll. Taken together with the party's lacklustre performance in the local elections - an increase in only 338 councillors in the strongest Labour-voting seats - and its average poll lead of scarcely above the margin of error, this would seem to suggest that Labour are most certainly not on course for a majority in the general election. 

  Of course, anything could happen over the next year, and it's not looking too good for the Tories either - the peculiarities of first-past-the-post mean that they generally need a good two-point lead over Labour nationally to get a victory on the basis of uniform swing, and this they most certainly do not have. A hung Parliament, then, is looking increasingly likely - not that it hasn't seemed that way for some time - with the Lib Dems probably holding the balance of power. Still, political predictions are usually wrong, so who knows? - we might end up with a majority Christian People's Alliance government after all.

  If we do, I'm emigrating. 



Green Explosion? Not Quite...

  Natalie Bennett (the Green Party leader in England and Wales) suggested her party might treble its number of MEPs. Sadly, this was not the case - the Greens won only one additional seat, in the South-West of England, to add to their London representative and Keith Taylor's stronghold in the South-East. 

  This actually quite surprised me - I thought six was optimistic, but I would have thought a fourth Green was not an unreasonable expectation. Perhaps that's the old confirmation bias acting up again - it's not really a secret I vote Green whenever I get the chance - but the fact they are the only party with a sensible policy towards Europe (have a referendum because hey, we're a democracy, campaign to stay in and then do their utmost to fix the issues with its democratic processes and mad international trade deals) would seem to have made them the ideal choice in a European election. 

  Regardless, an increase of one might not sound amazing - it isn't - but it is, technically, +50% so I suppose that's something. Any other party would kill for an exponential like that. This increase is likely due to the fallout from the Lib Dems going into coalition with the Tories - as some on the left of the party have drifted into the Labour camp, still some others (realising Neo-Labour for the neoliberal pack of liars they are) will have turned to the Greens. As for the reason they didn't do better - that's a little trickier, but likely has something to do with UKIP attracting the majority of the protest vote, some of which would otherwise have gone to the Greens - especially considering 73% of UKIP voters are demonstrably left-wing. 



The Rise of European Fascism

  Those are some words which should scare the hell out of you. They scare the hell out of me. It's tempting, given that the only fascist MEP from the UK - the BNP's Nick Griffin - lost his seat, to think that these elections were a triumph for democracy. UKIP - who might be on the same right-wing populist spectrum as the BNP and others, but are relatively moderate by comparison - have swallowed up the BNP's support base and put paid to Griffin's vile organisation. It's very tempting, but it's also very narrow-minded.

  Because elsewhere in Europe, things are changing. For the worse. In France, Marine Le Pen's anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim Front National won the elections, gaining 24 MEPs; in Hungary the openly neo-Nazi party Jobbik won approximately 15% of the vote - a comedown from their general election showing, but still enough to claim 3 seats; Greece's Golden Dawn, the leader of which has a Swastika tattoo and much of which's leadership is currently in prison for racially-motivated crimes, claimed another three - their first ever MEPs. All across Europe, the far-right has either advanced or held its ground, with the result that this European Parliament will contain more fascists and fascist sympathisers than it will Greens and Liberals combined.

  The rise of UKIP in the UK is infinitely preferable to the triumph of these kinds of people on the continent, but it is all symptomatic of the same fundamental disease - the poison of right-wing populism: engineered by the media, fuelled by economic devastation and politicians' inability to connect with their electorates and exploited by thugs, racists and ultra-nationalist fearmongers across Europe. We need a fundamental change in our political culture, not just in the UK but across the EU - and indeed, across the Western world - or this sorry tale will only get worse. 




Postscript
This does relate to the EU, I promise. As some of you know, the EU and the USA are currently trying to force through a deal which will allow US corporations to sue European governments in secret courts for regulating their operations and to forcibly buy out essential public services such as the NHS. Please help to stop them by signing this petition.

Petition - Persuade the UK and EU Governments Not To Sign TTIP

  Yesterday, Cynical Optimist started a petition on Change.Org to persuade the UK Government, the European Council and the European Commission that the proposed TTIP trade agreement with the USA will be highly damaging to all EU countries and should not be proceeded with. You can help by signing the petition here.

  The full text of the petition is reproduced here:

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is an upcoming so-called 'free trade' agreement at the EU level, to be signed between the EU and the USA. Negotiations for this agreement (also known as TAFTA) are currently underway.

On the face of it, TTIP sounds like any other free trade area agreement - just like the one which currently exists between the 28 EU Member States. However, this particular deal is in fact an insidious piece of legislation which will cause horrendous damage to the UK and to the other EU Member States.

TTIP will allow US corporations to sue the governments of EU Member Statesfor passing laws which might damage their profits. For example, if the UK government were to forbid a US energy company such as Exxon Mobil drilling rights in, say, Yorkshire - which has large shale formations - on the basis it would damage the environment (Yorkshire is home to two officially protected National Parks) then Exxon Mobil would be able to sue the UK for damages, to the tune of total expected profits from such a drilling operation. 

This is, self-evidently, madness - a clear usurpation of the sovereignty of our government and the right of this country to decide its own future. With TTIP, we - along with the 27 other EU Member States - are surrendering our nation to the interests of American corporations.

Another massive problem with TTIP is that the deal will essentially 'break open' our existing public services to corporate buy-outs. Of course, the neoliberal agenda of UK governments since 1979 has already seen many of our public services sold off - usually at a huge loss - but TTIP will allow US companies to bid for those that remain.

This includes the NHS. Yes, US corporations will have the absolute right under TTIP to buy out the National Health Service and take over health provision in the UK. The NHS, for all its flaws, is one of the best things about this country - TTIP surrenders it to the whims of wealthy individuals in America.

Of the five largest political parties in the United Kingdom, only the Greens are opposing TTIP - The Tories, New Labour, the Lib Dems and even UKIP are refusing to stand up for the interests of this country and the whole of the EU. It falls to us, the people, then to defend our public services and our natural resources from exploitation by greedy US business interests.

Sign this petition if you don't want the UK and the EU as a whole to become another outpost of American corprate greed. Together, we can force the powerful institutions of the UK and EU to reconsider this insane and vastly irresponsible deal - but we must act quickly. 

To:
The European Commission
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, The Government of the United Kingdom
The European Council 

Do Not Sign Up to TTIP

This so-called free trade deal is clearly a neoliberal scam to allow US corporations to sue EU Member States for justifiable regulations and to break open public services, such as the UK's NHS, for acquisition by greedy American corporate interests.

The people of Europe do not want this. The people of Britain do not want this. We will not allow you to get away with this wholesale treachery.

Do not sign up to TTIP, or face the consequences.

Sincerely,
[Your name]

---

  At the time of writing, the petition currently has 836 signatories (EDIT: Now up to 1,765), with more signing every minute. In less than twenty-four hours, this is a significant achievement. A significant portion of that credit must go to the Politics UK Facebook page and to fellow blogger Another Angry Voice for sharing the petition. Many thanks to both.

  Thanks also must go to everyone else who has signed and shared with their friends this very important issue. It is vital for the future of our country and for the EU as a whole that this deal is stopped. If you have not yet signed the petition, please take the time now to do so, and when the results for the European Elections come in and our new MEPs are elected, lets make sure that one of the first things to land on their desks is a flurry of messages calling for an end to this neoliberal experiment in idiocy and wholsesale economic treachery.

  Together, we can change the world. Dramatic, I know, but true nonetheless.

        Many thanks,
            Chris Wright

Electoral Reform - Why We Need It

  So, there we are. European Parliament elections done and dusted for another five years. The results will start to come in Sunday night, once the other EU member states are done voting, and we should know the makeup of the Parliament in its entirety by Monday evening. Then comes the wrangling within the EU hierarchy over who gets to be President of the Commission - itself a very important post, having power over 28 countries and carrying a paycheque larger than Barack Obama's - but as far as we, the citizens of the Union, are concerned , it's all over.


The Problems with First-Past-the-Post

  Now, the more astute amongst you may have noticed that on that rather large ballot paper were the names of rather more candidates than at most elections. That's because the European Parliament operates under a different voting system to our own - they use Closed Party List (CPL), as opposed to the First-Past-the-Post (FPtP) system which is used for Westminster. This is a far more proportional system, producing a Parliament which is a much better representative of votes cast. Observe the graphs below:

  These two show the differences between votes cast in the 2010 General Election and the seats in the House of Commons which those votes translated into. This election took place using FPtP, and as you can see, the two are pretty different. 

  The standout point at first glance is the fact that UKIP and the BNP, having claimed 6% of the vote between them - nearly 1.5 million votes - won no seats at all. Now, I'm a fan of neither party, but surely it cannot be right that the views of so many people are simply discounted in this way by the electoral system?

  The second point to note is that the percentages of seats won by the biggest parties have been artificially inflated by the system - the Conservatives by 10.3% and Labour by 10.7%. This is a common feature of FPtP, which always favours these two parties above all others, and generally Labour slightly more than the Tories. 

  The Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, have suffered a devastating cut of 14.2% to their own percentage - had this not been the case, the Lib Dems would have had the option of going into Coalition with Labour instead of the Tories, changing the entire makeup of government. The Greens also took a hit of 0.8% - four-fifths of their total vote.

  It should be pretty obvious that this system is undemocratic - it distorts the wishes of the electorate and is heavily biased towards the two largest parties - who also happen to be the most similar in terms of policy. Essentially, FPtP deprives us of our choice of representatives and thus of government. 


Why Does This Happen?

  The reason these distortions occur is because in each of the 650 constituencies for the Westminster Parliament, whichever candidate wins a plurality of votes - i.e. more than anyone else - wins the seat. This means that it is perfectly possible for an MP to be elected on the basis of less than half, or even less than a third, of the vote. Not only does this system waste the votes of anyone who votes for a candidate other than the victor, it also wastes any 'excess' votes for the winner - i.e. all votes over and above the number required to win the seat (one more than the closest rival).

  Let's take an example - my own constituency of Aldershot. The seat is a safe Tory seat, held by Sir Gerald Howarth since 1997. In 2010, the results were as follows:

• Conservatives:                                  46.7%
• Liberal Democrats:                          34.4%
• Labour:                                              12.1%
• UKIP:                                                    4.5%
• English Independence Party:             1.8%
• Christian Party:                                    0.5%

                                          [SOURCE: BBC NEWS}

  As you can see, I live in a pretty right-wing constituency, but that's beside the point. The Tories beat the Lib Dems by a healthy majority of 12.3%. Therefore, 12.2999'% of those Tory votes weren't actually needed to win the seat - we'll call it 12.3% for simplicity's sake - and were thus wasted. Similarly, all the votes for the parties which did not win the seat had no effect on the overall balance of power in the House of Commons - they were wasted too. This brings the total proportion of wasted votes to 66.6% - two thirds, in other words. 

  That means, in effect, that two thirds of the 45,843 voters who turned out to vote in Aldershot constituency in 2010 need not have bothered - the result would have been the same without them. No wonder, then, that 36.5% of the electorate in that constituency didn't bother to turn out - they understandably felt that they wouldn't make a difference. A shame, because if they HAD turned out then they would have been able to tip the balance away from the Tories quite easily - which is why apathy is NEVER an option for protest - but you can see the reasoning.

  When magnified to a national level, it transpired that 71.2% of all votes in 2010 were wasted in this way - nearly three-quarters. No wonder a third of voters nationwide don't bother to vote. In short, First-Past-the-Post is broken to the core. 

Closed Party List - What Is It?

  Closed Party List works in a very different way. Instead of lots of small constituencies, there are a smaller number of larger ones which return multiple members each - between three and ten apiece in the European elections. Seats are allocated within each constituency in proportion with the number of votes received by each party (see this article for an example of this in action). Parties each propose lists of candidates, which are ranked in order, and those candidates fill the party's seats in the order they appear on the ballot paper - i.e. if the Tories win six seats in the South-East, the first six candidates on the Tory list for the South-East will become MEPs. 

  CPL is a far more proportional system than FPtP, of that there is no doubt. These graphs, of the 2009 European Parliament election, show a much closer match between voting and seats won. The differentials in the vast majority of cases have been cut to within a few percentage points, meaning UKIP were able to claim second place - a feat which would be impossible at a Westminster election. 

  The one obvious discrepancy is the Tory party - a 10.2% gap between votes and seats is only 0.1% less than the gap in 2010, after all. At first glance, that looks to be a major problem - but it isn't, in fact. The reason why is quite simple, and it has to do with numbers of seats.
  
  At a basic level, there are a lot less MEPs than MPs - 73 for the whole of the UK, as opposed to 650. As seats are allocated proportionately, in a ten-member constituency such as the South-East of England, 10% of the vote is needed for each seat - but if there are 'spare' seats left over at the end of this process, they are distributed amongst the parties in order of how much of the next 10% they have. So, the Tories - who won 34% of the vote in the South-East - were given 3 MEPs in the initial distribution, and then a fourth in the 'second round' - essentially a free 6% of the vote.

  However, the South-East has rather more than 10 Westminster MPs - 84, to be exact. Therefore, if CPL were used for the Westminster elections, only 1.2% of the vote would be needed for each seat. This would significantly reduce the number of 'spare seats', and would bring the differentials in the two percentages down to a very minute level indeed. Therefore, this system - already far more proportional than FPtP when used at a European level - would become even more so.

  
Criticisms

  Despite the obvious benefits in terms of proportionality, and therefore for the health of our democracy, there have been some criticisms of the CPL system put forward. The main ones are:

• Coalitions: CPL, being a form of Proportional Representation (PR), would create a House of Commons far more split between the parties. To form a majority government under this system, a party would have to win an absolute majority of the vote - 50.1%+ - something which has not happened since the Conservatives did it in 1931 (and they formed a coalition anyway, due to the Great Depression). However, it is arguable as to whether this is necessarily a bad thing - coalitions are unusual in the UK, but par for the course in most EU countries, and are better representations of the views of the electorate than single-party governments
• Representative Disconnect: The large numbers of representatives CPL would create for each constituency would likely lead to a disconnect between MPs and voters - people would not know who to go to with their problems. An obvious way to fix this problem would be to simply assign each proportionally elected MP to a constituency - since no MP in the country, through a combination of split votes and poor turnout, was actually voted in by a majority of their constituents in 2010, the oft-quoted argument that this would mean having an MP one did not vote for does not hold
• Confusion: The ballot paper under CPL is simply more confusing than under FPtP, and this could theoretically lead to more spoilt ballots. However, the problem is nowhere near as acute with CPL as with other PR systems such as STV (used for the Northern Ireland Assembley elections) 

Conclusion 

  Overall, I think it is clear that CPL is a far better, more democratic electoral system than FPtP. Implementing it for Westminster elections would vastly improve the strength of our representative democracy and significantly cut voter apathy, as people begin to realise that their vote really does count under CPL. Less confusing and more proportional than other PR systems, the only real concern is the propensity to create coalitions - but then, I do not personally think that a bad thing; imagine, if you can bring yourself to do so, a UK which had had not a Coalition Government but a pure Tory government for the last four years. 

  I shudder to think.

Narendra Modi - The Rise of 'India's Milosevic'

  On Friday, the results came in for the world's single biggest election, a poll covering most of a subcontinent where 815 million people have the chance to cast their vote. The Indian General Election took twelve days to complete, and a further four to count the votes. This is truly a momentous event, easily the most important so far this year, yet it got virtually no mainstream coverage in the UK or US media.

  The really worrying thing about this election in particular, though, isn't the lack of attention the Western media pay to such an important event - concerning though that is. No, the scary thing is that this election marked the ascension to power in India of Narendra Modi, leader of the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP. Modi swept to power in a landslide, with his party taking 282 of the Lok Sabha's 543 seats, whilst his wider electoral alliance won a further 54 - a total of 62%, compared to its closest rival's paltry performace of just 11%. 

  This is a party, let me make it clear, which has as its official policy a ban on Muslim immigration from neighbouring Bangladesh, whilst opening its arms to Hindu Bangladeshis; a party which states the existence of Pakistan to be illegal and has been consistently hostile towards this and other Islamic states in the region; and which is generally considered the political wing of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary the RSS, an organisation frequently linked to violent acts of terror and banned four times in India by both pre- and post-independence governments.

  In short, the BJP is bad news.

  Narendra Modi himself is a particularly vile example of an already distasteful organisation. Leader of Gujarat state since 2001, Modi was implicated in the Hindu-Muslim race riots of 2002 in that state, which killed around 2000 people - mostly Muslims. Modi's personal involvement has never been proved, but it is certain that Gujarat state police and BJP government officials were involved. Despite receiving heavy criticism for his inaction over the violence, Modi remained in power - and actually stepped up his anti-Muslim rhetoric in the aftermath of the tragedy.

  India is the world's second-largest country in terms of population and seventh-largest by land area; it has the world's third-largest economy by PPP and possesses armed forces of 1.3 million troops, as well as nuclear weapons. This is a powerful nation, make no mistake, and it is now in the hands of a man who until 10 months ago was banned from entering the UK due to his extremist views and connections with the 2002 riots. 

  Modi has been likened to Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević by Mehdi Hasan and to Adolf Hitler by former Indian Union Minister Mani Shankar, but the extreme nature of these comparisons - which has, perhaps understandably, generated calls for restraint in that small portion of the media which is paying any attention - risks undermining the very real point that this is a man with extremely disturbing views, and a history demonstrating his willingness to allow them to be realised, who has now been handed the keys to power in one of the world's upcoming superpowers, with the capability to launch nuclear strikes and a very clear target on its doorstep to aim at.

  And THAT should make us very worried indeed.

Europe 2014 - Options on the Table

Part One - Why You Should Vote

  One week to go until the European Parliament elections. Are you excited yet? I trust we shall all be voting? No. Well, you should. As I explained in an earlier post, not voting ISN'T - as Russell Brand would have us believe - a protest. If there's no party you feel represents your views, I sympathise, but at least have the good grace to turn up and spoil your ballot paper. Because not voting at all means only one thing: the politicians get to ignore you. And that can't be good.

  Plus, the thing about the EU elections is that the vote is conducted under proportional representation, or PR - specifically by the Closed Party List system. Without getting too technical, this basically means that the constituencies for the election are huge and return multiple members - the South-East of England, for example, returns ten. Every vote counts, and the members are allocated by the percentage of the votes that were cast for that party (unlike in general elections, you vote for a party rather than an individual). 

  Continuing our example, in the South East in 2009 the results were as follows:

• Conservative Party: 34.8% of the vote; 4 MEPs
• UKIP: 18.8% of the vote; 2 MEPs
• Liberal Democrats: 14.1% of the vote; 2 MEPs
• Green Party: 11.6% of the vote; 1 MEP
• Labour Party: 8.2% of the vote; 1 MEP
• BNP: 4.4% of the vote; 0 MEPs

                     [SOURCE: BBC News]

  As you can see, PR a far more democratic way of allocating seats than the First-Past-the-Post system used in Local and General Elections. Under such a system, the Conservatives in the UK would have gotten all 10 South-East England MEPs. This would therefore waste all of the votes cast for the other parties, as well as all of the excess votes which the Tories had over their closest competitor, UKIP - 15.9%. Therefore, under FPtP, only 18.9% of the electorate's opinions would have been taken into consideration. PR isn't perfect - no representative system can be - but at least under this system the MEPs in the chamber far more closely match the wishes of the electorate.

  I digress somewhat. The point is, PR is far more democratic than any other system, so the old rallying cry of the apathetic voter - 'My vote won't make any difference' - no longer holds. The EU election is one election where every vote really DOES make a difference. The UKIP claim that 70% of our laws are made in Brussels may not be true, but in the region of 7% of primary and 14% of secondary legislation DOES originate from within the EU apparatus, and that is something not to be taken lightly.

  I'm no Eurosceptic, but is is true to say that the EU is fundamentally antidemocratic in its current form. We have the power to change that, and to forge a Europe that works for all of its people - but if we continue the current trend of only around one-third of the population voting, that will never happen.

Part Two - Who to Vote For?

  Right then. Now I've done the slightly ranty bit, it's about time I cast an eye on the bunch of toerags actually looking for your vote. Now, descriptions of each major party and their policies can be found here, but I will summarise each of their broad positions for you, with particular focus on Europe, of course. 

The Conservative Party

• Currently the largest party in the coalition government, the Conservatives are ideologically committed to neoliberal economics. This essentially means they want reduced state spending, a deregulated capitalist market, a restricted welfare state and no state ownership of industry
• Conservative social policy is, unsurprisingly, conservative - they support, in general, traditional institutions such as the monarchy and Christian values such as the nuclear family. They are also very authoritarian, favouring harsh anti-terror measures and the use of prisons
• The Conservative view on the EU is mixed, with some members - such as Nicholas Soames, grandson of Winston Churchill - being strongly in favour of the EU, whilst a growing percentage are committed Eurosceptics
• The party is committed to holding a renegotiation of the UK's settlement with the EU, followed by an in-out referendum on the basis of that renegotiated relationship to be held no later than the end of 2017. Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged to step down as PM if he is unable to deliver on this promise

The Labour Party

• Currently the largest opposition party, Labour broadly support the same neoliberal economics as the Conservatives, although they favour slightly more regulation of the market and there have been some hints they may be willing to renationalise the rail industry
• Labour social policy is less conservative than the Conservatives', but they are equally authoritarian and much of the anti-terror legislation currently in place was drafted under the last Labour government
• The Labour Party is divided on the issue of the EU. Whilst there are few members as outwardly Eurosceptic as some Conservatives, there is a broad range of opinion within the party
• The Labour leadership has refused to make any clear statement on the issue of the EU, though it is generally assumed they are pro-Europe. They are committed to a referendum if any further treaty to transfer powers to Brussels is proposed

The Liberal Democrats

• The Lib Dems are the smaller partner in the coalition government. They are committed to neoliberalism, as the other main parties, although they have acted as a slight moderating influence on the extreme neoliberalisation of the Conservatives
• Lib Dem social policy is relatively liberal and they are strong advocates of equal rights etc. However, they have signed up to the authoritarianism of the Coalition and have backed such Tory proposals as secret courts in which the defendant may not even know the charges against them
• The Liberal Democrats are very pro-Europe and are committed to a referendum only if significant powers are to be given up by the UK. They wish to stay in the EU

The United Kingdom Independence Party

• UKIP have no Westminster representation but are increasingly popular in the opinion polls. They are the most neoliberal of the main parties, advocating such things as a flat income tax rate and the scrapping of maternity leave
• UKIP social policy is highly conservative and many candidates have expressed extremely distasteful views with regards to equality and democracy in the UK. They are generally less authoritarian than the above parties, however, though they wish to implement strict immigration controls to limit annual net migration
• UKIP's position on the EU is very clear - they want the UK to withdraw immediately, without any referendum or renegotiation on the issue

The Green Party

• The Greens have only one Westminster MP. They are the largest UK party not committed to neoliberal economics, and advocate extensive market re-regulation and the renationalisation of the rail and energy industries, amongst others, as well as a more comprehensive welfare state
• Green social policy is extremely liberal, being outspoken proponents of equal rights for LGBT people etc. and they are committed anti-authoritarians
• The Green policy on Europe is somewhat mixed - they want to remain part of the EU, but campaign for increased democracy within it and a shift in focus away from the interests of big businesses

The British National Party

• The BNP are an openly racist, fascistic organisation. They advocate corporatism as an economic system and a very harsh social policy, as well as strict authoritarian controls and the immediate cessation of immigration - quite possibly along with the expulsion of existing migrants

  So, there we go - these are the six UK-wide parties currently in with a chance to win MEPs. I haven't covered the SNP, Plaid Cymru or the Northern Irish parties on the basis that if you live in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland you probably know a hell of a lot more about those organisations than I do, but in general the SNP, Plaid and the Irish republican parties are pro-EU while the unionist parties tend to be more Eurosceptic.

  Who to vote for, then? Well to me the choice seems quite simple. If you want out of the EU, vote Conservative - UKIP have no chance of achieving power in 2015, and never turn up to the EU Parliament so are useless as representatives, whereas at least the Tories are offering a realistic prospect of a referendum. If you want to stay in - and I hope you do - vote Green: they are highly active members of the EU Parliament who do their best to defend the interests of people over businesses and the political elites, and will campaign for reform to the issues which do admittedly plague the EU as is. 

  I can see no real reason to vote Labour - they have resolutely ignored the issue of Europe in all their election broadcasts and speeches, so frankly they don't deserve your consideration. The Liberal Democrats are slightly too comfortable with the anti-democratic features of the EU for my liking - plus, they're due some comeuppance for their treachery in joining the Tories in the first place - but they're not the worst choice you could make. I would reiterate, though, that both of these parties are signed up to the same neoliberal economic consensus that the Tories are, so if you're unhappy with the way the economy works for ordinary people, I urge you to consider the Greens.

  Detecting any hint of bias yet? Good - I should hope so.

  Oh, and don't vote BNP. Just don't.

Part Three - What Everyone Else Reckons

  Here, have some polling data before you go. You know you want to!

     

This graph shows the fluctuations which have been taking place over the most recent polls. Labour, the Tories and UKIP have converged - meanwhile, so have the Lib Dems and the Greens. Looks like it might be all to play for after all

The polynomial trendlines of the data smooth out the smaller changes to show the bigger picture. As we can see, despite a period in the lead UKIP look like they may well be on a downward trajectory. Meanwhile, the Tories are on the up and the Greens are catching the Lib Dems

These rolling averages are very crude, but they at least give some idea of what the election would look like were it held tomorrow. Given that there's only a week to go, time is running out for the parties to lay claim to their voters. At the moment, Labour and UKIP are neck-and-neck and the Tories (factoring in the three-point margin of error) aren't far behind. It's going to be close!