Voters in Britain and Other Nations Might Strike Back at EU

Voters in Britain and Other Nations Might Strike Back at EU

Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Thursday, June 3, 2004

The looming European Parliament elections have been greeted with indifference or anger by British voters, political excitement among the French, Germans and Italians who have embraced the euro, and relish by hard-line Eurosceptics and the UK Independence Party, poised to upset the status quo in Brussels.

On June 10-13, the European elections, the only internationally elected assembly anywhere, will be the first to be held under the European Union’s 2000 Nice Treaty, a shake-up that among other things allowed the addition of 10 more nations to the bloc.

Will British Conservatives Bolt?

Five years ago in the last EU election, British voter turnout was about one in four, the lowest rating in the EU, which averaged about 45 percent.

Although predicted to have a slightly higher turnout in June, the general voter indifference across the Channel from the European mainland might open the doors to the virulent anti-EU groups who have been causing the most stir.

Nigel Farage, one of the UK Independence Party’s three members of European Parliament, is representative of those Britons who see an informal alliance with the U.S. as more productive than casting fate to the European winds.

“Better to be dead than subjugated,” says Farage.

Another UK Independence Party candidate, Stephen Harris, adds, “Now they are trying to take 25 countries and 21 languages and put us into one homogenized, pasteurized goo.”

UKIP was founded by the late Sir James Goldsmith, a conservative international financier. The tiny party could emerge as a major force in British politics.

Already, Britain’s Conservative Party leader has asked members of his party not to bolt and vote for UKIP candidates. But some polls indicate that British conservatives are angry that the party of Margaret Thatcher has not taken a clear stance against further integration with the EU.

France: Not All Wine and Roses

Meanwhile on the other side of the English Channel, all is not wine and roses for the EU. There the Eurosceptics are fulminating across northern and central Europe, poised to ally with the UK Independence Party, perhaps even gaining the balance of power over key legislation.

Examples of breaches in the European line:

Opinion polls in Poland give 17 percent to the left-wing isolationist Samoobrona party (Self-Defense of the Polish Republic) of Andrzej Lepper, a populist best known for comparing the EU’s eastern expansion with the National Socialists' invasion in 1939.

A spanking new EU member, Poland has been talking “secession” unless Brussels amends the Common Agricultural Policy, which rations Polish farmers to a fraction of the subsidies given to their French, Spanish or British competitors.

In the Czech Republic, the Civic Democratic Party, led by president Vaclav Klaus, is now polling at 33 percent and likely to emerge with a solid cache of the country’s 24 seats in the European Parliament. Among other sentiments, Klaus has said his country would “cease to exist as an independent and sovereign entity” inside the EU, rendering his people no more than “a tiny particle whose voice and influence will be almost zero.”

Denmark’s June Movement is polling at 16 percent as undercurrents of public opinion are moving its way as voters become alarmed about the European constitution, a project slated to be polished off at a Brussels summit meeting one week after the elections.

Meanwhile, the Danish People’s Union, which advocates secession from the EU, is at 7 percent and looking forward to capturing a seat.

In Sweden, JuneList has emerged as a sanctuary for those on the soft left protesting against the pro-Brussels “betrayal” of the ruling Social Democrats.

Ireland is positioning to install its first Sinn Fein MEP on a campaign to halt what it perceives as the EU’s militarist ambitions.

Dutchman Paul Van Buitenen is heading the campaign of Europa Transparant, a coalition seeking to end rampant fraud in Brussels.

Also operating in the continental mix are groups of right-wing nationalists troubled by “meddling Eurocrats,” as described in floods of their campaign leaflets. Included are the Danish People’s Party, the Flemish Vlaams Blok, Jorg Haider’s Freedom Party in Austria, Umberto Bossi’s Northern League in Italy and Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France.

Communists in France, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia are running on platforms that denounce the EU as the Trojan horse of Anglo-Saxon capitalism.

Britain, France and Italy each have 78 members in the 732-member European Parliament. Germany gets 99 seats.

Among the new entrants, Poland is the best-represented with 54 seats, the same number as Spain. Malta has the smallest number of seats, at five.

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