Wednesday 27 May 2009

Tory Euro Election Anguish


Former Conservative Party Chairman Lord Tebbit risks expulsion from the party following his recent call for the public to boycott the major parties at next week’s Euro elections as a punishment over the MPs expenses scandal.


Whilst many people will sympathise with his view, there is a clear danger that, even inadvertently, his comments might help increase support for fringe parties such as the BNP.

But David Cameron has only himself to blame for the anguish which many natural Conservative supporters feel. He has decided that after the election, Conservative MEPs will join a new alliance in Brussels which includes a homophobic Polish party and Nazi sympathising Latvians.

Unlike Westminster, elections to the Euro Parliament are on a PR basis. In London, the number 2 candidate on the Conservative list is Syed Kamall. He is a brilliant hard working MEP who took over from Theresa Villiers when she stepped down in 2005. He is a proper Tory who has helped me enormously with a constituency matter and he thoroughly deserves to be re-elected.

Number 3 on the list is Councillor Marina Yannakoudakis. Marina is one of a number of Conservative councillors who has steadfastly refused to be bullied by the ruling cabal on Barnet Council as to who she can and cannot associate with. She also deserves to be elected next week.

But whilst there are many other worthy Conservative candidates, some supporters will be unhappy at the prospect of their representatives joining such an unholy alliance of far right parties.

Political parties in Brussels form groups for what appears to be no other reason than to qualify for EU funding. The public have rightly expressed their indignation at the way taxpayers money is being wasted - especially in Europe.

Mr Cameron should give a signal that Conservative MEPs will not be forced into joining any alliance against their wishes. More importantly, no pacts should be entered into without the prior consent of the electorate.

1 comment:

DarkKnight said...

The other problem is the way the voting system works is incredibly complicated. At least with First Past the Post, you simply add up the votes. You can see the bits of paper as they are counted. The winner wins.

But under this PR system, votes are divided up, then plus one, then divided again etc. And even then, because of the list system, you don't know who you actually get as your MEP.

Once the MEPs are elected, they then arrange themselves into 'blocks'. If you don't like the block your MEP is going to join, what can you do?

The whole system is a farce.