Elections!

[Zanza]

[Zanza]

Looking at the German result, this is actually wrong. The NPD (Nazis) won a seat as well and they are surely "very eurosceptic".
Another seat was won by a comedian who will now try to switch seats with another party member every month.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I don't think you can can ignore the rise of an anti-semitic party for partly causing it (or the context necessary for that rise).

The bigger factor will be something else though. And we all know what.

[Sheilbh]

The bigger factor will be something else though. And we all know what.

You're right. Nothing could make Jews feel more at home than the sight of Frenchmen scapegoating a minority community for their own willingness to elect a party 10 years from Holocaust denial.

[Viking]

This is basically what the single remaining Lib Dem MEP said. There's maybe some truth to it. Trouble is I think you'll be cherry-picking and it'll be seen through. And also it's a bit like Tony Benn in 1983 - the reason Labour lost isn't that they were too extreme for most people the electorate weren't educated enough, they were hoodwinked by the Murdoch-media.

I thought this was a striking piece, and I agree with its read:

What price the EU, including fascists?


- See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/price-eu-awash-nazis/851#sthash.3DE7p0YT.dpuf

It's been a while since you've posted anything I agree with, but me too, +1, I agree.

It's not just the eu level but there is a disconnect between the voter and the politician. They are seen as some sort of other. Politicians are not citizens performing a social duty for society itself, they are professional politicians looking for a job. Being a politician is a full time job. Nobody meets a politician at work or at a social activity. For them their work is with other politicians and their social activity is with other politicians. It's a separate ruling class (without the normal ruling class benefits of wealth and power). Two elections ago I volunteered for the campaign for the Conservative Party here in Norway. What baffled me most was when talking to the person on the street about "our policies" the argument that "this is good for the country" swayed nobody. It was all "what can you do for me as a student" or ".. a mother" or whatever.

People don't see politics as being something that society does for itself, but rather something that a separate class does for the rest of us. They are Plato's Gold people or Divergent's Abnegation. The local parliament has legitimacy and historical caché, the EU parliament doesn't.

The other thing that blog brought up was the non-consent for the various policies specially on immigration and multiculturalism (I know, he didn't use that word, but I'm using it). A people who see themselves are wards of a custodial political class which can't be replaced due to the end of history; the policies of the left of center being virtually identical to the policies of the left of center; find themselves unable to do anything about how their neighborhood is changing and how their city or village is changing. They can protest the new shopping market but they can't go and protest the family from afghanistan social services moved into old Rosies house after she died.

Farage is right about a democratic defecit, he's just missing the mark. The EU is more a canary in the coalmine than the problem itself. Nobody looks at it and thinks, well, they represent us...

This is the same problem as the one that makes news into entertainment and the one that leaves the electorate ignorant of what exchange rates and hedge funds are and do. Our problem is that our voters are ignorant, stupid, lazy and don't care until it is too late. The elite is right about them. They are also right about the elite. 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The bigger factor will be something else though. And we all know what.

You're right. Nothing could make Jews feel more at home than the sight of Frenchmen scapegoating a minority community for their own willingness to elect a party 10 years from Holocaust denial.

nope, wrong answer

[Sheilbh]

I'll answer these in a bit but just wanted to post this piece on UKIP in 2015, one of the writers was the author of the book that accurately predicted where UKIP would do well:

Ukip have torn up the map
After their success in the local elections, Ukip are poised to wreak havoc in 2015. Robert Ford and Ian Warren explain where and how the battle will be fought
By Robert Ford and Ian Warren

Nigel Farage scored a spectacular triumph in the early hours of Monday morning, leading Ukip to the first nationwide victory for a new political party in almost a century. Coming on top of Ukip's success in the local elections, it was hailed as heralding the age of "four-party politics" in England. Mr Farage had shattered the mould of British democracy, and thrown next year's general election – already set to be the closest and most unpredictable for a generation – into turmoil.

These claims may seem exaggerated. But the more you look at the data – the further you drill down into how people actually voted on Thursday – the more you can see that predictions that Ukip will fade away are a case of wishful thinking. It is now crystal clear that the party really does have the potential to cause chaos in 2015, affecting all three parties in unforeseen and unpredictable ways.

To see why, it helps to understand what matters most about these results, at least in terms of the general election. For, while Ukip's European triumph has stolen the headlines, their less dramatic advances at local level will ultimately be more important.

The real currency of elections, after all, is not votes, but seats. Before their breakthrough last year, Ukip had won only a handful of local council places in their 20-year history. They now have more than 300 councillors, enough to make them a significant presence in town halls up and down the country.

Why does this matter? Because Britain's first-past-the-post system poses a huge challenge to any new party, whose support is usually spread evenly over the country. As the Liberal Democrats have learnt, national popularity counts for nothing at Westminster unless you can win locally. So parties like Ukip must try to convince sceptical voters that they are a viable option in constituencies where they have no track record of success.

Thursday's results were a powerful response to this challenge. In many seats, Ukip activists can now argue on the doorstep that they are the dominant force in local elections, and a strong presence on the council. That will help convince voters that returning a Ukip MP is a logical progression, not a leap into the unknown. In seats like Eastleigh and Rotherham, where Ukip are now the main opposition party on the council, they can start to put the squeeze on the Tories, arguing that even if they can't win outright in 2015, they are the only credible opposition to the incumbent. In other seats, such as Great Yarmouth, their strength may already be sufficient to take a place at Westminster.

There are three particular characteristics of Ukip's performance last week that should cause sleepless nights for strategists from the main parties. First, they have shown they can take votes from anyone – deposing the Tory council leader in Basildon, the Labour deputy leader in Rotherham, and sweeping the board in North East Lincolnshire. The best way to see the wider impact of this is to compare the seats where Ukip stood for the first time in 2014 with those where they did not have a candidate. When Ukip appeared, the Tory vote fell by six percentage points, and Labour by eight. Even the Lib Dems, who faced a drubbing everywhere, did two points worse when Ukip joined the fight.

Second, although it is hard to predict which party Ukip will hurt most locally – in the wards where their advance was strongest, Labour and the Tories lost out almost equally – it is easy to predict which voters they will win. The recent book Revolt on the Right (co-written by Robert Ford) showed that Ukip draw their support from a very clear demographic: the "left-behind" electorate of older, working-class white voters with few educational qualifications. Last week's results confirmed their strength within this group, and their weakness outside it. Ukip surged in areas along the east coast with large concentrations of such voters – places like North East Lincolnshire, Hull and Basildon – and flopped among the younger, more ethnically diverse electorates of London, Manchester and other big cities, as well as in university-dominated areas such as Oxford and Cambridge.

It is entirely possible that Ukip will not win any Westminster seats outright (and equally possible that it will win a dozen). But the real problem for the existing parties is the third factor at work – namely, that there are a host of battleground seats where Ukip support is large enough to have a decisive impact, even if the party comes nowhere near winning.

Paradoxically, the seats where Ukip may be most influential are not those with the largest concentrations of supporters. The "left-behinds" tend to be concentrated in safe Labour seats – often struggling former mining and manufacturing towns in the North of England. In most, Ukip could take an enormous bite out of the vote without actually threatening the incumbent.

No, the seats that will give Tory and Labour strategists migraines are different – those where the incumbent is less dominant, and the Ukip-leaning groups are large enough to swing the result. To identify such seats, we created an index of local Ukip strength, measuring concentrations of "left-behind" groups. Then we identified the marginal seats where the gap between the top two parties was less than 15 per cent, and the share of "left-behinds" was well above the national average.


Areas where there are high numbers of Ukip-leaning voters are coloured shades of purple. The marginal seats in which its impact will be crucial are outlined in black
The result is this map (above) which shows the seats where Ukip's intervention could prove critical. Areas where the share of Ukip-leaning groups is well above average are marked in shades of purple, with the black outlines showing the marginal constituencies where this will have the most impact.

There is a clear geographical pattern: in London or the large Northern cities, or in the Tory shires that ring the capital, Ukip will be irrelevant to the outcome. But in seat after seat along the east coast, through the former mining country of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and across the South West and rural Wales, Ukip's showing could prove decisive. Indeed, in the European elections, Ukip topped the poll in nearly all of these areas, often posting above 40 per cent.

In these seats, a Ukip surge can upset the balance of power in several ways. For one thing, it can turn a straight two-way fight into an unpredictable three-way battle. Take Thanet South, a key marginal where Nigel Farage has been tipped to stand. If Ukip take support primarily from the Tories, as they did in Essex last week, they could deliver it to Labour. If they split the Labour vote, they could help the Tories cling on. If they really surge, and take votes from both parties, they could well win the seat themselves – particularly if Farage himself opts to stand.

Ukip also have the potential to turn seats long thought safe into new battlegrounds. Further up the coast is Great Grimsby, which Labour has held for many decades. The long-serving MP, Austin Mitchell, faced a strong Conservative challenge in 2010, and is now retiring. His Tory rival is standing again – but in Ukip colours. Next week's by-election in Newark could prove equally interesting. Patrick Mercer's former seat has a huge Tory majority, and while the leafy demographics are not favourable, the timing of the election is – plus there is a large Labour vote to squeeze. A close second from Ukip will cause Tories huge difficulties in 2015, particularly as there are seats nearby with more Ukip potential – such as Louth and Horncastle, where the veteran MP Sir Peter Tapsell is standing down, which has one the largest concentrations of Ukip leaners in the country.

Farage's party can even alter the outcome in seats where it is well out of the running. In Southampton Itchen, the local election results suggest that Ukip is splitting the Labour vote, which went backwards from an already low showing in 2010, while the Tories are holding up. If this was repeated at the general election, Ukip could tip a Labour seat into the Tory column. But we saw the opposite pattern in Ipswich, where a Ukip surge bit deep into the Tory vote, leaving Labour well ahead. In Thurrock, one of the tightest marginals in the country, Ukip is taking votes from both sides; the result in 2015 could be decided by whose vote is most (or least) damaged by Ukip rising star Tim Aker.

For David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg, the result is an electoral map of nightmarish complexity. Should they divert scarce resources to formerly safe seats, in order to see off a nascent Ukip challenge? Should they avoid fighting Ukip in areas where they seem to be mostly hurting their opponents, and run the risk of fuelling a revolt that could overwhelm their candidate, too? Should they try to win back Ukip supporters by adjusting their national message, and risk alienating the more moderate and diverse electorates in key urban and suburban marginals? Or should they work to win over Ukip voters at a more local level – and if so, what messages can they use to persuade them?

Past experience offers no guide for the parties on any of these questions, for the simple reason that the Ukip surge has no precedent in modern British politics. Last week's results have torn up the old political maps. We are in uncharted territory now.

Robert Ford is a lecturer in politics at University of Manchester, and co-author of 'Revolt on the Right' (Routledge). Ian Warren is a political analyst and author of the Election Data blog

Edit: Incidentally this is part of why Iain Martin is right to say how impossible it is to predict the election: economic recovery based on a new housing bubble, Clegg and the Lib Dems in melt down, how unpopular Miliband is, the Scottish problem and boundaries that favour Labour. I'm half inclined to bet on Labour winning most seats and Tories winning most votes.

Edit: Meanwhile the sons of Neil Kinnock (also the husband of the Prime Minister of Denmark) and Jack Straw will be Labour candidates in safe seats and Tony Blair's son is sniffing around for a seat too. That'll go down well with those left behind

[Sheilbh]

The other thing that blog brought up was the non-consent for the various policies specially on immigration and multiculturalism (I know, he didn't use that word, but I'm using it). A people who see themselves are wards of a custodial political class which can't be replaced due to the end of history; the policies of the left of center being virtually identical to the policies of the left of center; find themselves unable to do anything about how their neighborhood is changing and how their city or village is changing. They can protest the new shopping market but they can't go and protest the family from afghanistan social services moved into old Rosies house after she died.

I don't buy this.

It doesn't match my experience. The immigration that's driven UKIP up the polls and placed that issue firmly in the top two biggest issues facing the country for most people is from Eastern Europe. The issue isn't Afghan refugees on the social services but white, Christian, hard-working, hard-drinking Poles. What's the cultural issue here?

I think it's economic. Immigration as a whole is good for the economy as a whole. However it does put pressure on people who at the bottom of the economic ladder. That's a problem. Similarly in areas I think it does put pressure on housing stock and can put pressure on certain public services - even though, again, in general immigration is good for the economy and the tax take.

As a leftie I think part of it is a function of wages policy, we've had a minimum wage in this country for 17 years and you can more or less count the number of prosecutions for paying under the minimum wage on the fingers of one hand. I also think a solution is that you start trying to organise workers and get unions back to protect workers' rights (see the 'Tres Cosas' campaign in London of Spanish-speaking cleaners and janitors). I think that's more of a solution than blaming people with the balls to move across the world or a continent to give themselves a chance of earning some more money. But denying the problem is worse than either.

Farage is right about a democratic defecit, he's just missing the mark. The EU is more a canary in the coalmine than the problem itself. Nobody looks at it and thinks, well, they represent us...

I think there's two issues why Farage is particularly able to attract votes given the rise in EU migration. One is that it is the EU. No government can do anything to restrict the right of free movement of workers. So any promise by Cameron or Miliband to get tough on immigration is relatively empty - as Farage can point out - and limited - as I would point out - to people who actually meet the criteria to come here in the first place whether on student, business or entrepreneur visas. Again that's a problem of the EU. If people want to reduce the number of immigrants arrive in a country - which is fine and a legitimate thing to do - but aren't able to do that through electing a government there's an issue. Farage is able to take advantage of that feeling and no-one else can.

Secondly is that the EU migrants aren't like previous migrations - in part because they're so easily assimilated. So previously immigration was felt by very local areas. Bradford and Oldham had the BNP and race riots due to tensions between a large, poor white community and a large, poor Asian community and there's similar factors in, say, Barking and Dagenham. EU migrants have gone all over the country - which is great and because they're not ghettoised and have assimilated - but it means problems with immigration, real and perceived, are spread everywhere too.

The best example is Boston, where UKIP expect to do very well in the general election. In 2001 the largest immigrant community in Boston was 250 Germans in a town of 55 000, in 2011 10% of the population is from Eastern Europe and the town's grown to around 65 000. That's a big shift in a short space of time in non-London. So over 50% of the children in the schools are the children of mostly Eastern European immigrants which is part of the pressure on services I mentioned. There are less extreme examples all over the country. So it's easy and accurate to say the people with most of a problem with immigration have the least immigrants, but they've also, probably, seen the largest growth of immigration over the last decade. Even in rural Dorset where my mum and dad live you meet lots of Eastern Europeans and there's no animosity at them or anything like that but I think it's a very new experience for rural Dorset to deal with.

This is the same problem as the one that makes news into entertainment and the one that leaves the electorate ignorant of what exchange rates and hedge funds are and do. Our problem is that our voters are ignorant, stupid, lazy and don't care until it is too late. The elite is right about them. They are also right about the elite.

Nonsense. I say this every time but overwhelmingly certainly in the UK and the US (where I know most) voters make the right choice. Generally speaking when it happens populism is happening for a pretty good reason. My own view is that, in a Europe of the Troika, it's happening EU-wide for a good reason too.

nope, wrong answer

It's easy to blame the Muslims but I bet they're not the 25% of people who voted FN. Or for that matter the 15% of Greeks or Hungarians who voted Golden Dawn or Jobbik, or the Poles who voted for a couple of explicit Holocaust denying MEPs.

If you look at that ADL survey of anti-Semitism 26% of French said Jews are hated because of the way they behave. 31% said that Jews only care for their own. 51% said they have too much power in the business world. How many Muslims are there in France?

I hate to go all CdM about this but Europe has a rich and varied history of anti-Semitism. When attitudes like those above exist in such large numbers and more strongly among the young (from what I can see it's not just Muslims instagramming quenelle-selfies). And when, after an attack on a Jewish museum in Belgium, the Israeli PM calls the governments of Europe to discuss anti-Semitism in Europe and only the Belgian Prime Minister returns his call. And European electorates in the midst of economic problems start voting for extreme right parties again I think there's a need to look beyond the Muslim community when we worry about anti-Semitism. And our solution needs to go beyond blaming a relatively small minority group, because I think European Jews may have long enough memories not to be impressed by that.

Jeffrey Goldberg today tweeted about when it would be time for the Jews of Israel and the Jews of America to tell the Jews of Europe to get out. That's not the case now and I think it's over the top. But it's worrying that it's increasingly possible to imagine a time when it might not be.

And to be clear I think a large part of the issue is also on the left where we've let too many anti-Israel sentiments slide to anti-Semitism.

Edit: Also not convinced appearing nearly on the verge of tears is a great response:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nick-clegg/10856642/Nick-Clegg-election-losses-are-gutting-and-heartbreaking.html

[Sheilbh]

Grim:
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/elections-europeennes-2014/20140526.OBS8488/europeennes-qui-a-vote-fn.html?utm_content=bufferc249c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[Liep]

It's also poor spin. Before the election everybody was fighting to be the most sceptical EU party because they saw the polls favour the far right, instead of trying to explain how much you can accomplish with the EU. That of course only made more people sceptical and thus seeking the original sceptics.

The Lib Dems ran a pro-Europe campaign. They went from 11 MEPs to 1.

And what can we accomplish in Europe? The great accomplishment and culmination of Europe so far has been the Euro. The consequence of that has been an economic catastrophe. We've got enforced recessions followed by deflation (remember banks are currently projecting that Spain will have recovered in 2029), weakening of the European welfare state and a nostalgic return for Ireland to the days when the old save their money to send the young to America and Britain.

Environmental regulations, food industry surveillance (sans fleischskandal), financial regulations, anything but just crying wolf, or in this case Romanians.

And yes, there were parties here that talked EU up and had poor results, but the big two here ran a campaign on how to best save Denmark and they were always going to lose that, mostly because it was insincere and because they were going up against the classical "save Denmark" party that is Danish People's Party.

EDIT: And I'm sure the Lib Dems also lost some because of internal national politics, they're in govenment aren't they?

[Viking]

The other thing that blog brought up was the non-consent for the various policies specially on immigration and multiculturalism (I know, he didn't use that word, but I'm using it). A people who see themselves are wards of a custodial political class which can't be replaced due to the end of history; the policies of the left of center being virtually identical to the policies of the left of center; find themselves unable to do anything about how their neighborhood is changing and how their city or village is changing. They can protest the new shopping market but they can't go and protest the family from afghanistan social services moved into old Rosies house after she died.

I don't buy this.

It doesn't match my experience. The immigration that's driven UKIP up the polls and placed that issue firmly in the top two biggest issues facing the country for most people is from Eastern Europe. The issue isn't Afghan refugees on the social services but white, Christian, hard-working, hard-drinking Poles. What's the cultural issue here?

It's a substitutory issue. The issue isn't the poles or the romanians it's the lack of control and ability to affect the the issue. They are targeting the the one group they can without being "raciss". The issue as a whole is that the government is letting "our" society change without our consent. The proximity to the change or the amount of change locally doesn't matter either, the fear of change is the issue.

Whatever effect the immigrants have they are an easy scapegoat (as is the eu itself, since the eu gets blamed for a whole bunch of shit politicians want to do but don't want to pay political capital for). I don't have a job, some furriner stole it. I don't have a girlfriend, some furriner stole my share of our wimmin. etc.etc. Whatever the issue you just need to make a somewhat plausible link from cause to effect. People feel emasculated and out of control. It's not economic, as you point out no prosecutions for paying under the minimum wage. It's visceral, emotional and about the feeling of empowerment of the members of society.

[MadImmortalMan]

the fear of change is the issue.

It always is.

[mongers]

I'm surprised 'Yesterday's man'*is still around, maybe he thinks he deserves another kicking from someone else before he retires?





* LibDem 'leader' Nick Clegg.

[Valmy]

Man whose dog did Nick Clegg kick?

[Duque de Bragança]

According to the BBC 30% of young voters in France voted FN

Again far-right picking up votes in old Socialist areas

Is it any wonder France's Jews are looking to leave France

Jews under Marine Le Pen's FN are not in danger. Le Pen père would troll antisemitically, and that would be all.
As for leaving, some French Jews leave and since Hebrew is a tough language (the'y're French so Anglos excepted they're the worst at languages) they come back.

"they are just trolling" has been the common excuse for dangerous racists since at least a hundred years. It is totally wrong. Even IF the leaders are trolling, a portion of their fanbase aren't. And that is the part of the supporter base with the most conviction, drive, and agression. They are bound to take effective control of a government dominated by their party, exactly for the same reason "trolling" antisemitism is a-ok: because the rest of the supporters are at the very least willing to turn a blind eye toward their antisemitism/racism, otherwise they would not vote on the party.

You should have read the whole post. Marine Le Pen does not troll antisemitically and is quick to point out the difference with her father; père = father. Besides, Cukierman, the head of the most vocal Jewish community organisation (CRIF) actually said to Haaretz than more votes for Le Pen would  probably lower muslim anti-semitism and anti-zionism before claiming he was quoted out of context.
http://www.liberation.fr/evenement/2002/04/23/le-president-du-crif-derape-sur-le-vote-fn_401302. Le Pen likes to troll before election to garner more votes, it also helps the left which can mobilize against the "fascist" threat. Only worked partially this time.
As for the current danger to French Jews, the current Prime minister declared he was eternally linked to Israel (kind of clumsy even on election time he's supposed to be French first and foremost), so colour me sceptical.
The ones who do the violent antisemitism in Western Europe are muslim e.g Merah whose sister tried to join the jihad in Syria earlier this week. Incidentally, Le Pen père trolls against them as well as against the third world in general (Mgr Ebola was the latest troll).