European Elections

The European Elections are on Thursday 23rd May. Here is some handy info...

1) Make sure you are registered

If you are a UK citizen then do this:

• Register to vote
  
  

If you are an EU person living in the UK then register and also do this:

• Download the European Parliament voter registration form
  
• Fill out the form and send it to your local Electoral Registration Office
  
  

The UK turnout in 2014 was 35.6%. We can do better this time.

(The above info is taken from here)

2) Note that our current MEP representation leans right

Our MEPs are made up as follows:

• The UK (i.e. GB & Ireland) is allocated 73 MEPs
  
• They are split across 12 regions
  
• The London, South East, and Eastern regions have 8, 10, and 7 MEPs (respectively)
  
  

For 2014 our results were as follows:

Current (in)famous MEPs include Farage, Hannan, Atkinson, and Batten:

3) Check out this year's candidates

TBC...

So has anyone given any though to this? Or is it all in the Brexit thread?

Dunno, I was planning on voting Green.

I'm voting for a pro Remain, left-wing party.

Probably Green

Green here

Magid Magid is standing for Greens in Yorkshire

That's what I've usually done.

But aren't they a pro-Brexit party?

The only way to stop the far right is to vote Labour.

This is not a referendum. This is not a general election. This is about presenting a positive face of Britain on Europe. That face is not Farage.

Labour seem to be set on a course that gives the far right what they want for fear of losing what they want. I’ve voted Labour my whole life, but not anymore.

Labour are lukewarm at best on Europe.

Red hot on busses, however.

Maybe a cold, but I'm finding researching this very frustraiting. Even working out my "e-constituency" is a ball ache.

Apparently I'm Eastern England.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48081343

My geography isn't great but I'm pretty sure this depressingly puts me in the land of inbreds and Euroskeptics.

So I guess I'm looking at Change UK, Greens and Lib Dems. Need to pick 7, so what is the most tactical method to choose? Surely it's got to be all 7 from one of those three parties, right?

Change UK
Emma Taylor
Neil Carmichael
Bhavna Joshi
Michelle de Vries
Amanda Gummer
Thomas Graham
Roger Casale

Green
Catherine Rowett
Rupert Read
Martin Schmierer
Fiona Radic
Paul Jeater
Dr Pallavi Devulapalli
Jeremy Caddick

Liberal Democrats
Barbara Gibson
Lucy Nethsingha
Fionna Tod
Stephen Robinson
Sandy Walkington
Marie Goldman
Jules Ewart

The only way to stop the far right is to vote Labour.

This is not a referendum. This is not a general election. This is about presenting a positive face of Britain on Europe. That face is not Farage.

So much absolute tosh in one post it's hard to know how to respond.

I'm voting Green.

Intergalactic space lord, Lord Buckethead.

Rupert Read

Is a big part of XR, if that's of interest.

I'm still mulling it over, but right now I think a tactical antiBrexit vote is my no. 1 priority followed by support for the environment.

Traditionally my votes go to the Greens and Lib Dems. Unfortunately now I'm in the bluest of constituencies so VOTED Labour in the GE.

My gut says in my region Green is more likely to pick up votes from those agnostic over Brexit, and should hopefully pick up antiBrexit votes too. Plus there is the PR/AV voting.

But then my remain mate in the region of London is sending all his votes to Lib Dems.

Our MEPs are made up as follows:

The UK (i.e. GB & Ireland) is allocated 73 MEPs

Um, yeah, about that...

I am going libdem (live in Amsterdam, but have a vote in London)

It is difficult to vote libdem, I don't really trust them, but they are pushing a very strong anti-brexit message, which I feel I must simply support

How does the voting work in this? I thought it was PR but I saw comments from Change UK that they couldn't join with the Lib Dems as it would have an adverse impact on the number of seats they'd get (due to voting mechanics rather than losing voters, etc).

Need to pick 7, so what is the most tactical method to choose?

My ballot paper says to only pick one box - I think the parties choose the order of the candidates that get put forward.

Method here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method

Ah. That's good to know and makes life easier.

So I'd probably put Greens or Lib Dem 1st then 2nd, followed by Change at 3rd.

You still have to only choose one of the three to vote for.

I think it's slightly less stressful though, as there's much less onus put on you trying to decide which of those three will be the one that emerges as the main challenger - especially if you're voting early by post.

I'll likely go Lib Dems for what it's worth. I joined them a couple of years back as a response to their being the only anti Brexit party that seemed to have a plausible presence where I live. Feel I should follow through on that.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/nigel-farage-european-elections-remain-vote-brexit-party-gina-miller

Site doesn't seem to work fully but it seems tactical voting won't make a significant difference (according to their own stats)