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Post by Emily on May 11, 2009 18:06:19 GMT
This is mainly aimed at Tim as he is the *ONLY* one who might actually know whats going on and who represents what in any detail... but I for one will be voting for the Green Party, if only because every vote some someone else is a vote against the BNP who are the lying scum of the earth and should crawl back to the circle of hell from whence they were spawned.
Tim do you have any political advice about who will represent my views as a faery and a liberal?
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Post by stokerino on May 11, 2009 19:42:02 GMT
Green will probably do you fine as a feary and a liberal. The alternatives along those lines are either tiny/single-issue (e.g. The Peace Party)...or the Lib Dems, but I'm guessing you'll likely be a tad cynical over any of the three 'main' parties.
The tricky part is getting any kind of actual manifesto out of any of them for what they want to do in the European Parliament. They usually just repeat their standard UK manifestos - half of which aren't applicable. For example, the Green Party's website is just the standard pledges like "Free insulation", "Free school meals", etc. - to which I can only say that's all very nice, but you're not going to be able to do any of that from Strasbourg, are you?
In 2004 the Conservatives took the most MEPs from the South East region (4), followed by UKIP (2), Lib Dems (2), Labour (1) and Green (1). Since most people view any election as a judgement of the current government in Westminister regardless of what they're ACTUALLY voting for, I'd predict something along the lines of the following:
Conservatives (5) Lib Dems (2) UKIP (1) Green (1) Labour (1)
Not sure who I'll vote for yet. It was the Lib Dems the last time, but I guess I should try to fish out some European policies from them all...if that's even possible.
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Post by Lu on May 11, 2009 19:52:05 GMT
is this the 4th june voting? I got a card through so know i can vote but wasnt really sure what this voting was all about ( i dont understand how general and local elections are different)(yes i am ignorant)
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Post by stokerino on May 11, 2009 20:31:39 GMT
Yes. It's for the European Parliament (MEPs rather than MPs) in the 4th June European elections.
Unlike in a General Election where you're voting for a specific candidate in your small constituency, it's Proportional Representation. So the country is split up into large regions (like the South East) and everyone votes for what party they want. Their votes are all added up, and then the MEPs for that region (the South East has 10) are shared out between the parties according to their share of the vote.
Each party has a list of candidates, so if they win enough votes to be awarded 2 MEPs, they take the top two candidates from the list, and so on.
As regards to what MEPs actually do in the European Parliament - they're much like MPs in Britain. They don't propose the legislation (that's the job of the government in the UK, or the European Commission in the EU), but they do influence the agenda, work on shaping the legislation in committees and so on.
The main difference between the British and the European parliament is that the Commission isn't made out of the dominant group of MEPs in the same way that the British government is made out of the dominant party. The European Commission is separate, but the make-up of the different parties in the European Parliament will affect whether they fight against the Commission's proposed legislation, or support it, or what have you.
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Post by Ally on May 11, 2009 21:08:52 GMT
I guess I'd better read up on some manifestos...although I'm always very wary of them, because as we all know, words and actions are very different things in politics.
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Post by Emily on May 11, 2009 21:56:13 GMT
thats the good thing about the MEPs, because of proportional representation, you can vote for a minority party and actually stand some chance of them getting elected. so vote for your favourite niche!
(as long as that niche isn't barely disguised racism fuck you BNP) Do you know you can't even join their bloody party unless you're not just british but white british? I SPIT ON THEM.
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Post by tangent on May 12, 2009 3:13:25 GMT
I'm not allowed to vote. Something about not being an English resident. ^_^
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Post by Emily on May 12, 2009 8:16:23 GMT
No really? ...just badmouth the BigotedNastyPrickheads instead then. the reason I am so angry is because their leader was on the news last night going on about how he wasn't a racist, and how he had "loads of sikh friends" apparently "But they don't want us in their temple and we don't want them in our party" LIKE THAT WAS THE SAME THING! also i'm sure if you decided to become a sikh you'd be quite welcome in the temple regardless of colour- and I want people who want to live and work in britain to be welcome regardless of colour.
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Post by Lu on May 12, 2009 8:37:44 GMT
Blame the parents. he was probably brainwashed as a child...................
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Post by stokerino on May 12, 2009 10:17:31 GMT
They got 4.9% of the vote in 2004. From a turnout of 38.2% (lol, democracy), so that's roughly 1.9% of the eligable voting population.
Presumably UKIP wasn't HARDCORE enough for them...or something.
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Post by Ally on May 12, 2009 15:00:37 GMT
...just badmouth the BigotedNastyPrickheads instead then. the reason I am so angry is because their leader was on the news last night going on about how he wasn't a racist, and how he had "loads of sikh friends" apparently "But they don't want us in their temple and we don't want them in our party" LIKE THAT WAS THE SAME THING! also i'm sure if you decided to become a sikh you'd be quite welcome in the temple regardless of colour- and I want people who want to live and work in britain to be welcome regardless of colour. I've heard him in interview before, and I'm amazed he's still their leader - any time he's up against someone who can construct a halfway decent argument his stupid views get knocked down like a house of cards. (I think even if you weren't a Sikh, you'd be welcome in temple - isn't part of their religion that you welcome and feed everyone? I expect if you kept turning up you'd get more and more nudges to convert, but then, that's the same for pretty much every religion). The more I hear from the BNP, the more sickened I am. They're sexist as well as racist - one of their leading members was quoted as saying that rape is about as inconvenient to a woman as being force-fed chocolate cake.
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Post by Lu on May 12, 2009 16:32:52 GMT
They got 4.9% of the vote in 2004. From a turnout of 38.2% (lol, democracy), so that's roughly 1.9% of the eligable voting population. Presumably UKIP wasn't HARDCORE enough for them...or something. So few? ?? i thought England was far more racist than that! maybe they're being weeded out. Or maybe bastards don't vote?
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Post by stokerino on May 12, 2009 17:32:12 GMT
That's 808,200 votes out of 17,028,947 cast in total (with the size of the full electorate being 45,309,760 at the time).
I suppose the question I must ask is: how many did you expect?
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Post by Animae on May 12, 2009 17:42:33 GMT
well this has been informative. Carry on.
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Post by Lu on May 13, 2009 12:51:44 GMT
i suppose when u put it that way its quite a few more than i thought. i suppose i underestimated how big the population is
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Post by Emily on May 14, 2009 22:16:01 GMT
AUGH thats nearly a million reaaaaaally racist people! noooo!
I wonder how they feel about gingers, the racist little ****s.
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Post by Lu on May 16, 2009 9:46:23 GMT
Well according to South Park gingers have no soul, and i've heard this repeated by others. Its a downward spiral towards them chasing us with pitchforks
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Post by Emily on May 16, 2009 10:27:52 GMT
I'll hex them.
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Post by tangent on May 18, 2009 1:56:15 GMT
I'll sic the kittens on them. ^^
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