European Election 2014 – Scotland
It’s almost time for the most low-key elections in the UK, the election for Members of the European Parliament.
As you are no doubt aware (cough) our 6 current MEP’s are:
SNP: Ian Hudghton, Alyn Smith
Labour: David Martin, Catherine Stihler
Tory: Struan Stevenson
Lib Dem: George Lyon
I’ve occasionally emailed them when hassling all elected members and found them all to be a bit useless. So now it’s time to elect some more. In the d’Hont system the SNP would need to lose about 100,000 and Labour about 50,000 votes to change lose an MEP so the actual battle will be for the final place. Last time the Lib Dems got the last one with 11.5% of the vote with the Greens closest at 7.3%.
So who are the group of parties we have the option of voting for?
Britain First: Defending the Union 2014
Who they? You might say. A bunch of racist mentalists, cos there aren’t enough of those. Bankrolled by Jim Dowson who previously threw loads of money at the BNP after he got bored of sending photos of miscarried babies to teenage girls campaigning for womens rights. Creators of some awful, lying meme-style photos you may have seen random aquaintances post onto facebook/twitter before pointing out they are sharing fascist propaganda.
They are defending the union somehow, maybe confusing this election with the referendum.
Vote for them if: the BNP are a bit too wishy washy for you.
British National Party: Because we can make Scotland better
Your favourite bunch of knuckle dragging holocaust deniers are back. Having had another purge in Scotland and lost almost all their councillors to defection, incompetence or jailing, this time the split of votes amongst all the parties who hate non-white people might even see them lose their MEPs. Let’s hope so.
Vote for them if: you would normally sign your name with the X you put in the box.
Conservative Party: Scottish Conservatives Vote No to Independence
Not even using a pretendy name to try and look Scottish, their tagline is however amusing. It’s a statement. The Tories vote no to independence. None of us were surprised by this. Might as well have been Scottish Conservatives Vote To fuck over the poor
. Unless it’s meant to be a call to arms or something. Who knows. Their youth wing cancel their AGMs having sold 12 tickets (haha), so hopefully this bunch of aresholes will toddle off soon.
I did receive a mailshot from them which also had a fair chunk about the Referendum. Do they not know what day it is?
Vote for them if: you are part of the blue hair brigade and love Maggie (dead dead dead).
Labour Party
Too lazy to pretend to be a Scottish Party, or to even have a slogan. Maybe they think the appeal of their candidates will be enough. In Brussels they amusingly sit in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group. So if you take out the words which don’t describe them they would be the Alliance of and
.
Vote for them if: you are worried that the Tories will get 50K more votes to take their seat or are confident that they can get 150K more votes to take a third seat.
Liberal Democrats: Scottish Liberal Democrats
Everyones favourite chameleon party are back and as shit as ever. This is where the real fun begins. Their seat is up for grabs by either the Greens or UKIP.
Vote for them if: your head is zipped up the back and you believe anything these shysters say.
NO2EU: Yes to Workers’ Rights
NO2EU are back and appear as silly as ever. I was at a meeting hosted by the CPB the other month and their speaker insisted that if Scotland was independent it would join Europe. He probably wasn’t told Scotland is already in Europe and his parties head in Scotland was standing for the parliament the next month. As far as I can tell they still contain the Liberal Party who recently had a member arrested on suspicion of racial or religious harassment. Quoting some book by misogynistic racist areshole Winston Churchill.
Haven’t seen any material by them this year but last time they jumped on the let’s play dog whistle politics
bandwagon by railing against social dumping
instead of showing solidarity with exploited labour.
Vote for them if: you don’t like the EU but don’t want to vote for fascists.
Scottish Green Party
No slogan or nonsense from the Greens. Probably closest to sniping the Lib Dem seat and hopefully from UKIP. Maggie Chapman is the lead candidate. Certainly better at the RIC conference than on Newsnight the other day (not helped by rude constant interruptions from the UKIP candidate amongst others).
Vote for them if: you would prefer a socialist than a UKIP member to represent you.
Scottish National Party (SNP): Make Scotland’s Mark in Europe
Unlike 2 of the Unionist parties, the SNP are focusing on Europe in their slogan for the European elections and not the referendum. They already have two MEPs so a vote here will be thrown away.
Vote for them if: you want to throw your vote away. They will get 2 MEPs, no more no less needing a highly improbably number of votes to change.
UK Independence Party (UKIP)
Current media darlings. There’s been a coup in Scotland. Out with the swivel-eyed loon Lord Monckton, in with boorish carpetbagger David Coburn. Purveyors of dog-whistle politics and hypocrisy they are puffed up in a media bubble by right wing rags who have chosen to cover their every fart and statement instead of just printing BNP propoganda. In a bit of a bind as when anyone other than Farage makes a public statement they end up being a rotten apple in the barrel and they are resigned.
Zombie Farage
Vote for them if: you are a racist areshole who is too cowardly to just vote for the BNP instead/you want Scotland to be an embarrassment with one of these loons in power.
Conclusion
The last seat is all up for grabs. The choices are a campaigning councilor who cares about grassroots democracy, a Lib Dem who has been invisible in parliament and a carpetbagger shipped in using racist propaganda. It’s clear the Greens are the only vote for anyone progressive.