And the winner was...
WORKERS, JULY 2009 ISSUE
The most important result of the EU election? 65.7 per cent of us effectively said “No to the EU” by not voting at all – the turnout in Britain was 34.3 per cent, down from 38 per cent in 2004. This ever-rising abstention is what frightens our rulers. How the minority voted matters far less.
Just 9.5 per cent of the people voted Conservative, 5.7 per cent voted UKIP, 5.4 per cent voted Labour, 4.7 per cent Lib Dem, 2.9 per cent Green Party, and 2.1 per cent BNP. (The BNP and the ultra-left both see the BNP’s 2 per cent as the most important result!) Just 5.6 per cent of people in Wales voted Plaid Cymru, while 8.3 per cent of people in Scotland voted SNP.
The EU spent 18 million euros on election “awareness”. But across the whole EU, only 43 per cent voted, down from 45.5 per cent in 2004. Turnout has fallen every year since the first EU election in 1979. Its leaders claim the election proves that the peoples of Europe want the EU. In the real world, it proves we don’t.
The ruling class wanted us to vote. The parliamentary parties and the ultra-left, the churches, the BBC, the newspapers and the European Commission, they all begged us to vote. But we didn’t. We should celebrate that 65 per cent of us defied the pro-EU pleas.
Now the EU election is safely over, the Tories are reneging – just as Labour did – on their promises to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Shadow Business Secretary Clarke said, “If the Irish referendum endorses the treaty and ratification comes into effect, then our settled policy is quite clear that the treaty will not be reopened.”
Our rulers clearly want the EU, not democracy. They probably want a nice solution to the expenses scandal along EU lines – MEPs can get expenses and allowances of £363,000 a year, including a £261 daily subsistence allowance for just turning up to sign their name on an attendance sheet. Each MEP costs the European taxpayer £1.8 million a year.
And that’s without counting the cost to Britain of the decisions they make – a heavy cost indeed.
We want democracy, not the EU. We want the referendum that all politicians promised. We should force the referendum on this dying government – referendum now!