I’m sorry to say that today I’m slightly embarrassed for the UK. Not only are we being badly affected by the recession, have a crumbling ruling party in Government and have a Parliament full of people milking the system for all its worth, but we’ve just sent two members of the racist British National Party to the European Parliament.
Counting started yesterday after Thursday’s vote, and stretched into the early hours of the morning. Although we still have incomplete results (as I write this we are still waiting for Northern Ireland and Scotland), we have a pretty good picture of what has happened. Unfortunately, two parts of the North – Yorkshire and Humberside, and the North West have voted for the BNP, who now have 2 seats and for the first time, a proper platform and funding structure to support them in the future.
It is a dark day for the UK.
I’ve been tweeting the result announcements throughout the count and it was quite comforting to see the response of some of the other people on Twitter. A lot of people are disappointed that this has happened. How did it happen though? Why did they get in?
I received this message from someone I know last night while the results were coming through:
“No one gives a f about politics! Stop boring everyone!”
It is thoughts like this that has allowed the BNP to get into such a prominent position. While I understand that not everyone is as interested in politics as me, some people obviously do not understand how important it is. Politicians are responsible for making decisions that affect everything we do. People should care about who gets in and who doesn’t.
Part of the reason the BNP got in is not necessarily because more people voted for them (in fact, their percentage share only increased by 1.4%, which in reality is not that much), but because people didn’t vote for any of the other parties. In fact, with a turnout of just 35%, a lot of people obviously just didn’t vote at all.
I have a pretty strict viewpoint on not voting – if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about the state of the country. So to everyone who didn’t vote in this election, you are as much to blame as the people who actually voted for the BNP.
Of course blame must party lie with the politicians as well – if they hadn’t been milking the system, we might not have been in this situation.
5 Responses
I’m completely with you on the don’t vote, no right to complain stance. I wonder how much that person you quoted complains about “politics” without realising (like that advert the BBC ran the other year).
The BNP getting seats in the EU is the same all over Europe. I’m not sure it’s *that* bad a sign yet, I think it’s more a case of the people who do “care” about politics, in the bigger countries at least, being fed up of being in the EU and voting for the parties that claim they’ll get them out of it.
BTW, I’m glad you tweeted about the results, I could catch up this morning because I missed them last night D:
I’m with you and Kat about the not voting – no right to complain thing. It’s not hard to vote, and easy to find out where to vote, it’s just laziness. People should also get the message out about spoiling ballot papers – they still get counted as being turned up to vote, but with no vote to be counted, it shows that people just aren’t happy with any of the choices available to them from any of the parties.
I’ve seen some tweets over the night stating that they can’t believe how the BNP got a seat, and to sign petitions to get them out. This goes against the principles of our fair governmental election system. They got in because a) people aren’t happy with the alternatives (and in BNP’s case agree with their one policy) or b) lazy people who didn’t bother to vote meant that the very small proportion of people who did vote meant their vote meant more. (That probably isn’t as clear as it is in my head). Basically what I’m trying to say is, don’t blame the BNP for actually getting the seats – they may be racist, but they didn’t cheat the system. Do something positive for UK politics and highlight to every one why you think that party should not be voted for, or do something even more positive and promote the party you support – this isn’t a personality contest remember.
Thanks! it was sort of a dry run for the General election. Looking forward to tweeting that one.
It’s a shame the BBC didn’t re-run that advert this time. It really is a case of people not caring about politics – if only they realised how important it is.
I know that quite alot of EU countries went the same way, but it is still bad for us in the UK. Looking at the results, people left Labour and went to Cons / UKIP. But alot of people just didn’t vote at all.
I’m half minded that there should be a minimum turnout figure. If there is less than 45-50% turnout the election should be re-run.
By the way – I found the advert that was run a while ago:
“If you don’t do politics, there’s not much you do do. ”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zruGBWLk9s8
I must say that, as much as it pains me, theres a small part of me that is glad the the BNP got 2 seats for the following reason, i cant stand the BNP and do actualy scream at the tv when Nick Griffin (or Hitler V2.0 as i’ve come to call him) comes on, however i also cant wait to see the BNP’s MEPs get up and start spewing their serpentess bial only to hear an orcward hush of their fellow parlementarians as his words echo around the room, to no reponce, then to sit down and think ‘Oh God, I’ve got nowhere’, and in doing so probably lost most of his votes and quite a few of his party. Sometimes theres nothing quite like the truth to wash out a political stain.
As for the ‘no-one gives a F*** about politics’, may i point out that a show running for many years and getting fairly low viewing figures, namely question time, has in resent weeks topped the BBC iplayer listings for around 4 days, fending off such regular hits as ‘Eastenders’ and ‘The Apprentice’, and has been said by many to be ‘Must See Viewing’.Politics is at its most popular point for decades. Yes, I do understand that its not to all tastes, and that if people want to they can block out its importance, at least in their minds, but most dont, i can only assume that when they said ‘no-one’ and ‘everyone’ they mean him/herself, but their oppinion should not foulter anyone who is intrested in voting. purely by the way this person uses ‘everyone’ where he means ‘me’ it calls in to question whether the idea of an election is, at least in part wasted on them.
And lastly Dai,thankyou for the facebook updates, as much as I get how a General and Local Election works, the European is, at least to me, a tad more confusing, and as i watch the bbcs coverage, my brain in essence says ‘got that, that too, still with you . . . hang on what was that first one?’, and i’m lost, so with your regular updates at least i know whats happened.Thank you.