EP elections 2014 - Results Thread

[Yeahsayyeah]

Can anyone retrieve the results for bremen, especially by city quarters?

http://www.wahlen-bremen.de:8080/Ergebnisse/eu14_land/

The results are there, but it has no maps.

[EPG]

Historically, South has had important independents, Pat Cox and that Anti-EU woman.

And if you want to go all the way back to the beginning, TJ Maher. Maher was head of the Irish Farmers' Association, which is like being a union boss in other European countries. Two of the other ten IFA presidents since him have also been elected as MEPs. Cox was deselected as a Progressive Democrat but defeated his former party leader. Sinnott was best known for taking a disability rights legal case. She is a conservative Catholic.

So two of the three independents had big grassroots movements behind them (the IFA and the Pro-Life Campaign) and the other was already an incumbent MEP.

And of course, I don't view 'rural Ireland' as a homogeneous whole, and of course, every individual is a precious snowflake, but general conclusions about large populations based on empirical evidence are incredibly useful in almost every field of activity, and it's foolish to explain GUE strength in Midlands-North-West without noting that actually, Roscommon people are not similar to Swedish Left Party voters.

It's notable that FG also got badly battered in a lot of these counties (Sligo, Roscommon, Cavan, Leitrim, even Mayo to a certain extent) in the local elections.

Which makes me wonder an off-topic wondering, what happened in your part of the world?

[YL]

Re Ireland, is there an obvious reason why the establishment parties did noticeably better in the South constituency?

There's no inherent sociological reason. The proximate cause was the strength of Crowley, the main Fianna Fáil candidate, and the weakness of the independents. It's possible that the absence of Leinster candidates helped Fine Gael a little, as the only party to field one.

Thanks, that make sense.

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To be fair, you could say similar things about many members of the other groups, starting with Fianna Fáil and, say, D66.

[EPG]

To be fair, you could say similar things about many members of the other groups, starting with Fianna Fáil and, say, D66.

Yep! If FF had won 4 MEPs and people were writing about how this is because Ireland is becoming a liberal country, they'd be very wrong! That didn't happen (but who's to say it couldn't have, in some universe).

[EPG]

The Mail reports that Thorning-Schmidt is favoured by London. Next week, she visits Berlin.

[ObserverIE]

Historically, South has had important independents, Pat Cox and that Anti-EU woman.

And if you want to go all the way back to the beginning, TJ Maher. Maher was head of the Irish Farmers' Association, which is like being a union boss in other European countries. Two of the other ten IFA presidents since him have also been elected as MEPs. Cox was deselected as a Progressive Democrat but defeated his former party leader. Sinnott was best known for taking a disability rights legal case. She is a conservative Catholic.

So two of the three independents had big grassroots movements behind them (the IFA and the Pro-Life Campaign) and the other was already an incumbent MEP.

And of course, I don't view 'rural Ireland' as a homogeneous whole, and of course, every individual is a precious snowflake, but general conclusions about large populations based on empirical evidence are incredibly useful in almost every field of activity, and it's foolish to explain GUE strength in Midlands-North-West without noting that actually, Roscommon people are not similar to Swedish Left Party voters.

It's notable that FG also got badly battered in a lot of these counties (Sligo, Roscommon, Cavan, Leitrim, even Mayo to a certain extent) in the local elections.

Which makes me wonder an off-topic wondering, what happened in your part of the world?

European elections: Ming led the field with 30% of the vote and McGuinness a distant second.

Flanagan 5251 29.80%
McGuinness 3157 17.92%
Carthy 2134 12.11%
Harkin 1934 10.97%
Byrne 1646 9.34%
Gallagher 982 5.57%
Mullen 837 4.75%
Higgins, J 789 4.48%
Higgins, L 474 2.69%
Gilroy 143 0.81%
Dearey 93 0.53%
Fay 61 0.35%
Fitzsimons 61 0.35%
Ní Fhearraigh 60 0.34%

Local elections: FG's local vote held up well (a lot of it due to hyper-local "friends and neighbours" effects) but they still lost seats and lost control of the council to a FF-Ind alliance.

(FG shouldn't take too much comfort from this; in 2009, FF's vote held up well here locally when it was being slaughtered everywhere else. It still didn't stop them being slaughtered locally like everywhere else at the following general election - they were barely ahead of Labour on FPVs. We can be funny that way.)

I'm not arguing that rural Ireland is consciously voting for communism, BTW (just to toss that particular straw man into the boghole), but I think there's a very sizeable mauling awaiting FG there come the next election.

[EPG]

Merci

I know you're not, but I think some people got the impression that Midlands-North-West with 2/4 MEPs for GUE was somehow becoming a left-wing stronghold, that SYRIZA-type politics could be emerging in an ex-programme country, when in reality it's a very different type of politician who got that support, who'd perhaps be perceived more as tax protesters in other European countries.

And we know how Labour (!) did so well in 2011 (Sexton not socialism).

[ObserverIE]

Merci

I know you're not, but I think some people got the impression that Midlands-North-West with 2/4 MEPs for GUE was somehow becoming a left-wing stronghold, that SYRIZA-type politics could be emerging in an ex-programme country, when in reality it's a very different type of politician who got that support, who'd perhaps be perceived more as tax protesters in other European countries.

I'm not sure that I agree with your conclusions; I think the vote for Ming and the vote for SF are largely about continued austerity and an economic strategy which imposes seemingly endless pain without any visible benefit, both of which are perceived as being imposed at the behest of the EU high command by a government composed of middle-class Dubliners whose concerns begin and end with middle-class Dublin.

This is not a standard right-wing anti-tax vote (Mogens Glistrup/Carl Hagen/Howard Phillips). The closest thing to that on offer were DDI, who bombed in these elections.

[EPG]

Yes! It's a subjective topic whereon reasonable people can disagree. So we can all have our own opinions. Mine...

To start with, it is hard to find anyone who does not see themselves as being affected by austerity. The jobless lost unemployment benefits, the old lost supplementary pension benefits, the low-paid get USC, the well-paid get higher capital gains and interest taxes, private-sector workers get pension levies, public-sector workers get pay cuts. So I think anti-austerity as a definition of public support for a movement is not enough. Everyone is affected in their own special way.

Most of the well-aired anti-austerity grievances are about the new taxes - on water, property, public servants, small businesses - or they are anti-elite populist complaints, like the idea that a tiny liberal elite controls the government. Perhaps it lives in the cities and doesn't like traditional religious conservative values. Some of them concern named public services that impact middle-income people, like restrictions on free medical care on income grounds (take your government hands off my medical card).

So far, it's hard to distinguish this movement from the Tea Party. Then we expand to grievances about other named public services like boil notices. This is more like the typical GUE party. But the typical GUE prescription, of higher taxes, is exactly what we've had (and the typical European country funds its bigger government spending budget through much higher taxes on middle-earners), which is precisely what's anathema to people and is driving them to the Independents and even Sinn Féin:

The woman next door says her husband is self-employed “and it’s nothing but tax, tax, tax. I think if Sinn Féin get in they might make it easier for the self-employed.” Lynn agrees.

DDI are loons, barely distinguishable from local independents in the same way as, say, the United Left or the Christian Solidarity Party. I agree that they are most comparable to the Scandi people you mentioned.

[justfollowingtheelections]

Umm... EPG, leftist parties usually want to tax those who have a very high income, not the average Joes.  So yes it might be better for the average Joe and small businesses if a leftist party comes to power.

[FredLindq]

Accoriding to Swedish television EFD has survived. Swedish SD has joined it as well as one former member off FN and the Latvian Farmers. In total 24 UKIP, 17 M5S, 2 TT, 2 SD, 1 Sv., 1 ZZS, 1 ex. FN = 48

This is a very heterogenous group and I wonder if it will survive. However I am inpressad that Farage pulled this off.

This also implies that the Polish KNP might join Le Pen and that she only need one more country... Like one former member off any party...

[Antonio the Sixth]

Who's the FN renegade? Does it have anything to do with the ongoing new guard/old guard tensions?

[Diouf]

Accoriding to Swedish television EFD has survived. Swedish SD has joined it as well as one former member off FN and the Latvian Farmers. In total 24 UKIP, 17 M5S, 2 TT, 2 SD, 1 Sv., 1 ZZS, 1 ex. FN = 48

This is a very heterogenous group and I wonder if it will survive. However I am inpressad that Farage pulled this off.

This also implies that the Polish KNP might join Le Pen and that she only need one more country... Like one former member off any party...

Maybe they could trade a former FNer for a former UKIPer

[FredLindq]

Joelle Bergeron, 64, left the French far right party two days after this year’s elections. The party, led by Marine Le Pen, asked her to leave her seat in favour of another candidate. The widowed auctioneer joins the new Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group, which was formed tonight (18 June), as an independent.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Crooks the bunch of them. Pathetic.

[FredLindq]

ECR third largest group now. 68 seats against 67 for the ALDE. Any implikations?!

[justfollowingtheelections]

ALDE is actually at 66 (some websites are counting the Latvian Union of Greens and Farmers as an ALDE party but they are now with EFD).  I think Verhofstadt screwed up when he invited N-VA to ALDE, but I'm guessing he didn't imagine they would say no.

To me it seems that the anti-Euro bloc is becoming stronger.  I wouldn't be surprised if a couple more EPP parties went to ECR.

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:
EPP 221
S&D 192
ECR 68
ALDE 66
GUE 52 (26 of which are women)
Greens 50
EFD 48
EAF 41 (they still need an MEP from a 7th country)
Others 13

[eric82oslo]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

[Middle-aged Europe]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

From Germany the NPD and Die Partei.

[eric82oslo]

The Swedish Feminist victory is creating world-wide headlines apparently.
And now they've surpassed 100,000 likes on Facebook! 5 months ago that number was only 15,000.

Washington Post: "Sweden's Feminist Initiative has lessons for social movements elsewhere": http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/06/20/swedens-feminist-initiative-has-lessons-for-social-movements-elsewhere/

[eric82oslo]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

From Germany the NPD and Die Partei.

NPD, the neo-nazi party? What's Die Partei exactly?

[Zinneke]

The total number of MEPs by party as of now:

Others 13

Who are these others? The Greek Golden Dawn?

From Germany the NPD and Die Partei.

NPD, the neo-nazi party? What's Die Partei exactly?

Protest/comedy party, created by the German equivalent of Ian Hislop (if you know who that is).

[Middle-aged Europe]

NPD, the neo-nazi party? What's Die Partei exactly?

The NPD are Nazis who are considered too extreme by Front National and FPÖ, and as such they are not invited into a potential EAF group.

Die Partei was basically founded and is run by the staff of the German satirical magazine "Titanic". Their most well-known platform plank is that they want to re-erect the Wall between West Germany and East Germany in order to make the division of Germany permanent. In the European election, they mostly campaigned on the promise of resigning their seats on monthly basis so that everbody on the party's candidate list gets a chance to serve in the European Parliament for a period of 30 days. In practice, the party's actions result in a kind of an anarchist obstructionism.

[Tender Branson]

Turns out that the Austrian outfit "EU-STOP" (which got about 2.8% of the vote) actually took legal steps to nullify & repeat the EU election (1 day before the deadline to do so ended).

One of their reasons is the case in Germany, in which a prominent German-Italian journalist admitted to voting twice in the EP election: One time in Germany and one time for Italian MEPs.

The case will now go to the Constitutional Court, which will rule within 4 weeks if their request is reviewed further or not.

http://www.tt.com/home/8527786-91/eu-wahl-von-eu-stop-angefochten.csp

...

So far, only 1 election has ever went to the Constitutional Court here, in 2004.

But the candidate of the party (FPÖ) sent the formal objection after the deadline to do so had already passed, so the case was not reviewed by the Court.

Will be interesting to see what comes out of this, if anything at all.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Oops, there's indication that Die Partei may partially drop the pretense and get semi-serious.

They published a decidedly non-satirical post on their Facebook profile asking their fans which group in the EP they should join: ALDE, Greens-EFA or GUE-NGL while hinting a own preference for the Greens. Their main argument is that joining a group would weaken the right-wing populists.