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[Ukrainian Ranger]

right-wing populist

That is what makes me sad. Can't say that I know much about European mainstream right-wing parties... But form here I see dumbed down nationalism

[10ebbor10]

Yup, the European systems aren't perfect. But those who criticize them don't intend to fix their flaws, meaning that no solution can ever be reached.

[Graknorke]

Really, on the subject of UKIP, you either love them or you hate them. Most who hate do so for unfounded reasons. Most who love them it is mainly because finally there is a party that represents their views on the E.U.

You don't see anything wrong with that statement?
You just said that everyone who disagrees with you has as close to a wrong opinion as you can get.

And I assure you there are plenty of reasons to dislike UKIP.
From http://www.ukip.org/issues:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Free trade, but not political union, with our European neighbours. We are the EU’s largest export market: they depend on us for jobs - not the other way around.

Immigrants must financially support themselves and their dependents for 5 years ... private education ... they should pay into the pot before they take out of it.

Scrap HS2, all green taxes and wind turbine subsidies.

UKIP will abolish inheritance tax.

Make cuts to foreign aid that are real and rigorous.

No votes for prisoners - that’s what losing your liberty means.

Remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

Yes that one is bigger because really what?

Prioritise social housing for people whose parents and grandparents were born locally.

Make welfare a safety net for the needy, not a bed for the lazy.

Wording.

Teach children positive messages and pride in their country.

So it turns out there were more things on there to dislike about UKIP than I expected, so I put them in a spoiler.

[Sheb]

So here in Belgium, we still don't have final results, because our electronic voting system had a floppy disc issue. Frankly, I don't see why we don't simply use paper ballots everywhere.

[MonkeyHead]

Results in Wales are interesting. Labour, unsurprisingly based on its stranglehold in the south wales industrial belt, got the biggest share (28%, +8%) of a horribly low turn out (32%), and get one MEP. UKIP took second place with 27.5% (+15%) and get one MEP. I strongly feel that UKIP did well simply as they would have been able to get eurosceptic people out to vote in the financially challenged areas (they topped the poll in the North East, a traditional Tory heartland with a shit economy), whereas most people don't really care that strongly about the EU elections. Labours MEP put it best when he said that if he had been able to get people out to vote, the result would have been very, very different. Fair play to UKIP for tapping into a vein of disenchantment, but they may have shot themselves in the foot with regards the outcome general election time as this success might just motivate those who didn't go out to vote to get out there and put their name behind someone else. I would be very surprised if this process repeated itself in a general election or the vote for the Senedd, where the turn out would be much higher with regards Plaid and Labour voters and UKIP are not a viable option to most people who support those 2 parties. The Tories took 17% (-4%) and get one MEP. Plaid took 15% (-3%), mostly from its support in the rural North and West, still struggling to break the stranglehold of "socialist" thinking in the labour strongholds. As a result our 4 sets are shared by those parties, just like they were last EU elections. The Greens came 5th with 4.5%, but they always struggle here in Wales as Plaid take away a lot of thier potential support. The LibDems were 6th on 4% (-6%!), still suffering from their association with the Tories. The BNP and a whole host of minor parties took the last 2% of votes between them,  interestingly most of those minor parties, BNP included, tended to spout the same kind of rhetoric as UKIP, so part of me is blaming the way the media constantly swing in love then out of love into hate then back again with UKIP, what with the average voter being dumb and there being no such thing as bad publicity.

Oh, an with regards to some of the reasons to be scared of giving UKIP any power...

Spoiler: Check this list (click to show/hide)

UKIP complained to the police to get this image taken down from a bloggers website, despite most of the claims having sound sources. Obviously it went viral, so here it is for your perusal.

[scriver]

At least over here, left wing parties and socialists tend to be skeptical of the EU as well. There's just a bigger support for "we can reshape it into something better" rather than "lets just break all commitments and leave". Which includes myself, even if I believe reshaping the EU into something good will be hard as hell.

I always find it entertaining when countries like the UK, which has like the biggest amount of national exceptions from EU laws of all, complains about it being overbearing.

[10ebbor10]

The UK still thinks it's an empire, it's as simple as that.

Anyway, this officially our first (partial) day without government. Forming a coalition will be quite hard, as the 2 largest parties (as it appears, counting isn't finished) on both sides of the language barrier are pretty much diametrically opposed.

Technically, a Di Rupo II government is possible, but somewhat unlikely. Their majority will be quite small, making for a somewhat unstable government. Additionally, it's traditional that the same parties are found in the regional as well as the federal governements, and NVA, gets, as is customary, to be the first one to start making the Flemish regional government. (Forming a coalition for the Federal government has some involvement with the King.)

[MonkeyHead]

I would argue that. Most of us in the UK do not consider us still an empire, and see the benefits of the EU - it is essential. The trouble is a very vocal minority is stuck in the past, and they get a lot more air time than us europhiles.

[scriver]

The UK still thinks it's an empire, it's as simple as that.

Well, so does France and Germany, so no big surprise there.

[LordSlowpoke]

lol germany

norway thinks it's more of an empire than germany does

in fact any positive feelings about germany as a whole are only allowed at football games (though i love their concept of... uh, they call it heimat or something, google it)

[Sheb]

Additionally, it's traditional that the same parties are found in the regional as well as the federal governements

Not really. Last time the majority in walloonia was PS-CDH-Ecolo, while at the federal level it was PS-MR-CDH (well, for the french-speaker).

I think it'll go faster than last time and end up with a Di Rupo II. Just give it a couple months.

[10ebbor10]

Ecolo isn't exactly the biggest party though.

[palsch]

And I assure you there are plenty of reasons to dislike UKIP.
From http://www.ukip.org/issues:

From that link;

Return Power to the UK

• A vote for UKIP is a vote to leave the EU and recover power over our national life.

• Free trade, but not political union, with our European neighbours. We are the EU’s largest export market: they depend on us for jobs - not the other way around.

Erm, that's actually how you surrender more power to the EU, not reclaim it.

The European Economic Area requires the adoption of at least much of European law to enter, and even non EEA trade agreements require such adoption, such as in Switzerland. If we entered into the Area or a similar agreement then we would have to keep imposing European laws despite no longer having any voice in making them.

Not to mention that the UK being a net importer isn't going away any time soon. The best case we could hope for is the trade deficit remaining the same, without hurting our exports and without imposing any tariffs on EU goods. Worst case is that the EU imposes costs on our exports that we can non longer control and we are stuck with a greater trade deficit and higher transaction costs for businesses dealing within the EU.

Arguably we could try to use our position as the largest European export market for leverage, but that would require competence in the European Parliament and British government to make such negotiations work. We haven't seen that for a long time now.

[Sheb]

Ecolo isn't exactly the biggest party though.

But the MR is pretty big and was left out of the regional government. Seriously, after the last time, I think any coalition they can form will have to do.

[Owlbread]

Spoiler: In reply to The Dwarfy One (click to show/hide)

Quite. Claiming that the SNP is Anglophobic simply because the English are the ones who lose out is rather foolish. Much like claims of racism against UKIP, no?

No, not at all.  The claims of racism against UKIP are there due to their actions, as I have already highlighted (the targeting of immigration as an issue in countries where it is actually beneficial, plus the scapegoating of immigrants). This is not helped by the unusually high number of racists in positions of power within the party, from councilors to candidates to constituency chairmen.

The point is that if there's a benefit to immigration, it should happen. As such, immigration as based on skill should be allowed in Scotland, simply cutting out any criminal elements. If this is racist, then I'm a racist and proud. Not much of a racist vote to exploit, unless you redefine racist as border-control.

In Scotland we don't really need to "cut out the criminal elements". The criminal elements are next-to-none when compared with the crimes of Scottish natives and our priority is to grow our population and build up a workforce of young people earning money. The current system is working just fine, we don't need to cherry pick people.

Trade. In fact, nearly everything outside our borders. And even our borders, too. And stuff inside too, e.g. agriculture. I'll go into more depth if you want.

No, please do. Go into as much detail as you can.

Separatism is separatism. Still, do explain the main differences to me, other than scale.

The UK is an independent country that is a member of an international organisation called the European Union, rather like the United Nations.

Scotland is a region of the UK. Its "government" is a pretendy-wee parliament (in the words of Billy Connolly) that can be dissolved at any time by the British Government. It has little control over our affairs and the most important things (such as international relations, defence, welfare, macroeconomic policy etc) are reserved powers at Westminster. Scotland is basically nothing. It is not a country, it is a region. A province.

Voting for independence would mean that this "region" would actually become a country. Voting to leave the European Union would be just that - voting to leave an international organisation. There is no similarity between the two.

Spoiler: In reply to MonkeyHead (click to show/hide)

I strongly feel that UKIP did well simply as they would have been able to get eurosceptic people out to vote in the financially challenged areas (they topped the poll in the North East, a traditional Tory heartland with a shit economy), whereas most people don't really care that strongly about the EU elections. Labours MEP put it best when he said that if he had been able to get people out to vote, the result would have been very, very different.

This assessment makes perfect sense. Rather than the Euros revealing that Britain is a very Eurosceptic country, it would be more accurate to say that of the people who actually care about the EU - UKIP are very popular amongst them. That is to be expected.

Fair play to UKIP for tapping into a vein of disenchantment, but they may have shot themselves in the foot with regards the outcome general election time as this success might just motivate those who didn't go out to vote to get out there and put their name behind someone else.

I'm of the opinion that the Tories are going to sneak a victory at the General Election next year, but UKIP will probably tank. They will ride in on a wave of media publicity and blanket coverage, just like at the Euros, but by that time everyone will be sick to death of them after they've shot themselves in the feet multiple times. The next year or so will be a grand cacophony of gaffs. They will not do as well as they hoped, taking some seats but failing to make the breakthrough.

I would be very surprised if this process repeated itself in a general election or the vote for the Senedd, where the turn out would be much higher with regards Plaid and Labour voters and UKIP are not a viable option to most people who support those 2 parties.

As with the Scottish Parliament. I cannot imagine UKIP sitting in the Senedd or Holyrood.

The Tories took 17% (-4%) and get one MEP. Plaid took 15% (-3%), mostly from its support in the rural North and West, still struggling to break the stranglehold of "socialist" thinking in the labour strongholds.

That annoys me greatly. Plaid need to position themselves as a left-wing alternative to Labour, and Leanne Wood has done good in that regard given her left wing and Republican nature, but I'm all the more convinced by their consistent failures to break Labour's stranglehold that Plaid just really needs an Alex Salmond of some kind. 

As a result our 4 sets are shared by those parties, just like they were last EU elections. The Greens came 5th with 4.5%, but they always struggle here in Wales as Plaid take away a lot of thier potential support.

The Greens in Wales are not independent, are they? Are they not the same party as the one in England?

The LibDems were 6th on 4% (-6%!), still suffering from their association with the Tories.

The LibDems have been wiped out. They deserve everything they're getting.

The BNP and a whole host of minor parties took the last 2% of votes between them,  interestingly most of those minor parties, BNP included, tended to spout the same kind of rhetoric as UKIP, so part of me is blaming the way the media constantly swing in love then out of love into hate then back again with UKIP, what with the average voter being dumb and there being no such thing as bad publicity.

I agree with this 100%.

Oh, an with regards to some of the reasons to be scared of giving UKIP any power...

Check this list: -snip-
UKIP complained to the police to get this image taken down from a bloggers website, despite most of the claims having sound sources. Obviously it went viral, so here it is for your perusal.

People really need to read this list to understand the kind of party UKIP are. I wouldn't trust them with a council ward, let alone a seat in parliament, European, British or Scottish.

I would argue that. Most of us in the UK do not consider us still an empire, and see the benefits of the EU - it is essential. The trouble is a very vocal minority is stuck in the past, and they get a lot more air time than us europhiles.

For this we can thank our free press and the British Broadcasting Corporation.

An interesting thing to note. The SNP got a larger share of the vote in Scotland than any of the UK parties (including UKIP) got in the other regions of the UK. So regionally-speaking, the SNP got the largest share of the vote of any party. That is in spite of having being in government for 7 years.

Spoiler: Here is an example of the kinds of headlines our press was running with until recently. (click to show/hide)

Admittedly, these are all right-wing rags, but they are well read right-wing rags. I think the entire UKIP vote in Scotland was comprised of all the Scottish Daily Mail, Telegraph and Daily Express readers put together.