I Love Voting

Posted

I wasn’t going to do a blog post but I became so inspired
when walking to the polling station this morning at 7am that I just had
to.  By the way, why do they always
situate polling stations in the roughest areas of town?  Do I sense a conspiracy theory?!
It is unlikely that you will need me to tell you whom I have
voted for.  Neither am I going to make a
strong recommendation of who I believe you should vote for, as I shall
elaborate on later.
However I ask kindly if you would mind not voting for UKIP.
UKIP will not represent you in Brussels/Strasbourg, they have
an exceptionally poor attendance record to the parliament and rarely vote on
matters that concern us, the voters.  A
vote for UKIP is a vote to not be represented.
Brussels is far more of a gravy train than our own
parliament that so many complain about – I find it hugely contradictory that
UKIP is the beneficiary of an anti-establishment vote when they do far less for
the very considerable sums in wages and allowances that far outstrip what our
MPs are paid.
Not to mention the negativity, fear and hatred that their
politics is based on.
These elections are important.
I truly believe in the European Union – many problems are
not confined within borders – many solutions can be found by working together
for the common good.
Crime, immigration and environmental issues are all obvious examples where we need to work together.  Such items as energy security should be dealt with on a European level – not to mention the economic boosts that liberalising trade in services would do, and a currently-discussed US-EU trade deal.
You don’t need me to tell you though that the European Union
gets involved in far too many areas of our lives, where we should have control,
such as the European courts, and there are many areas where reform is needed – such as the Common Agricultrual Policy.
Reform of the European Union is what is necessary.  We
don’t require either isolation or to blithely sign up to an ever-closer union.
Only the Conservatives offer to negotiate for reform of the
European Union, only the Conservatives are offering a referendum in 2017 and
only the Conservatives are worthy of my vote.
However I am sure there are valid reasons to vote for other parties, everyone has different priorities in life and expectations from those that govern them, and even if you vote Labour, you can do so in the knowledge that a vote for Labour in the European elections won’t mean a repeat of their great recession they gave to the UK during 2007-2010 – only voting Labour in a general election will bring you the next huge recession.
We don’t get the outcome of the European elections until Sunday, as that is when many countries vote, however the local election results will filter in overnight.  My local Tory was quite cute but I cannot remember her name, and of course there is no information online as to who the local candidates are.
The biggest shock of the day would be a Tory victory in the
European Elections.  It just ain’t going
to happen.  More likely than a Liberal
Democrat victory of course, which is probably even less likely than a Roman Party
victory (he has a level 2 boat license – why wouldn’t you vote for him?!).

I would accept a 22% share of the vote as reasonable – 25% would be amazing,
more than Labour would be hilarious, less than 20% would be poor.  But the incumbent party should not panic at
poor mid-term elections – even Tony Blair at his pomp used to get a kicking at
local and European elections but would reverse this come the general election.
The recriminations will come for the Labour Party who as the
main opposition should be looking to win both the European and local elections
mid-term, and the Liberal Democrats who are about to get trounced – beaten by
the Green Party, who I despise more than Labour.
Anyway my lunch is over.
Make the effort and vote.

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