Excepts from a day’s arguing on social media…..
It’s voting day! These EU elections are more democratic than the UK elections, and are based on a much more fair voting system.
They are certainly way more democratic than the WTO elections since those never ever happen.
These EU elections are fairly proportional, and you don’t have to worry too much about voting for lesser-evil. You can actually vote for who you want to win without worrying about that letting the bad guys win.
Nice.
Why Bother?
“People fought and died for your right to vote”, they say, “so go vote!”
Course, people also fought and died to keep China British, for the divine right of kings, and over which pope was the real pope ordained by god.
So. Not sure that’s a great reason for doing a thing.
There are lots of actually good reasons though!
Like: If you don’t go outnumber the fascists and the idiots and the power-crazy then they will outnumber you.
Then you might end up fighting and dying in their stupid war.
Green
So when wondering how to vote for a representative in the EU, I’d suggest it might be worth considering if there is any kind of climate emergency going on that threatens to collapse the ecosystems and so destroy civilization. That may be important.
If that were happening it might even be more important than the methods of collaboration used when administrators design legislation on international product standardization and global taxation harmonization.
Even though everyone seems really worked up about that lately!
If a thing like global ecological collapse were happening, then our representatives on the administration boards that design international product standardization would probably represent us best if they considered preventing that collapse their number one task!
But you know, vote for who you want to win. You can do that in these elections. The EU elections are more democratic than a UK general election that way.
Labour
“Why not vote Labour?” someone asks, “Corbyn offers most of what we’ve wanted, and he actually has a chance of putting into action”.
Well.
I like Corbyn, and I am convinced that this Labour is not “New Labour” and that they have actually changed and do indeed offer some of what I’ve wanted.
So considered it, but my red-lines prevent it: I will not vote for a party which supports first past the post. Never ever forever. I would sooner spoil my useless ineffective ballot-paper.
Luckily, this voting policy of mine makes absolutely no difference to the outcome of any general elections in this country because most people’s votes don’t even matter, including mine every single time, so why throw them away on a party which supports that status-quo?
My vote is meaningless anyway, so I won’t give it to someone who likes it that way.
I’m also not keen on the way they want to put my innocent drug-using friends in jail, but I could probably forgive ’em on that one. Do the “join the party to change it” thing.
It does make it pretty easy for Labour to collect my vote if they really want it though! They just have to agree to change to a PR system. And without some stupid referendum to potentially ruin it. Just make it policy and do it.
But they won’t, I’m told by party insiders, because they’re just as selfish as every other political cunt out there and they don’t actually *want* a plurality in politics. They demand solidarity instead.
Well. That’s not how you get it. At least not from me.
Lib Dem
“Why not vote Lib-Dem?” someone asks, “what’s wrong with Privatisation! Grow up!”
Trouble with the Lib Dems is that I find it pretty hard to vote for a party who had the chance to bring down a government which was carving up the NHS and selling it bit by bit, and yet instead collaborated with that government and helped it to do that.
I told ’em at the time I wouldn’t be voting for them again if they did that, and they did it anyway.
I have seen no sign that they have changed anything in their fundamental outlook since 2008, they learned nothing from the complete collapse of capitalism and it’s bailout by the public sector. They still think putting all government services out to the public sector tender is a good idea. They still think government is like business. That orange-book is still their bible.
It would be good to see them admitting their mistakes, explaining what led to those mistakes and how their policy and world-view has changed to prevent it happening again, but where is that? Perhaps a leadership battle could provide it, but it hasn’t happened yet.
The economic effects of the 2008 crisis continue, seen mostly in the almost-negative interest rates from bonds and inter-bank lending, the growth of the underemployed suffering ill paid gig-economy jobs, and the continued growth of the gap between rich and poor.
Nothing has changed in the banks since then, the next one is only a matter of time away unless we fundamentally reorganize our economy.
So what is the NeoLiberal-Demcrat answer to all that?
And all that’s without even mentioning climate change, which, yes, also needs us to completely rethink capitalism and the way our economies need constant eternal exponential growth.
Still, they’re not actively evil I suppose, just misguided and wrong
Brexit Party
“You should vote Brexit party”, someone probably suggested to someone at some point.
Hahaa.
I can sort of see the appeal, if you’re a leaver, and if the Brexit Party had a policy of not taking up their seats and refusing their pay like what Sinn Féin do.
But this isn’t Brexit Party policy.
Brexit Party policy is a mystery box, and to judge by it’s leader’s past actions, it’s a mystery-box involving voting pretty much hard right-wing on every issue except those where he can’t even be bothered to vote at all.
All while claiming wages and expenses from a parliament he denies is democratic or should exist.
Well. Fuck that. Even if I was a leaver. Fuck that.
If a third of our country are really voting for the “mystery box”, it is the most crazy political event I have ever witnessed.
I hope the media have just exaggerated him out of all proportion like they usually do.
CUKs
“Maybe vote for Change UK then?”
I don’t understand why they didn’t just join the lib-dems.
How are they different?
Why are they called “change” when they want to make things the same as they used to be?
I agree politics has become polarized, and that this is probably bad, but it is the inevitable result of the old middle ground utterly failing in 2008.
The center did not hold.
Find something new, the old is broken, talk to me again when you have actually described a change you would like.
Plus, so many names, and you end calling yourself “CUKs”. Hahha. The Blairites used to have media-savvy you know.
Conservative
“The Tories still exist, I think? You could vote for them?”
I nearly did once, when I was too young. This is why I don’t really like the idea of lowering the voting age to sixteen. I might well have voted Tory if I’d been able to vote at sixteen.
The party that spends more on denying disabled their benefits than they gain from denying the disabled their benefits.
The party other than the “Brexit party” fiasco most likely to try for the maximum-pain ultra-hard get-out-of-the-kitchen hard brexit.
Why?
Because they would like to pollute more, to sell us chicken washed in chlorine, to restrict medical benefits to only the rich, to avoid taxes and force workers to work longer hours for less pay.
I do not understand why they ever got even the 30% of the vote you need to rule this country under it’s insane electoral system.
Only the 2% richest people that they actually represent should be voting for them, and even those 2% ought to be kinder frankly.
In Canada they reduced their equivalent party to two seats in one election I’m told.
That would be amazing.