EP elections 2014 - Results Thread

[EPG]

My only caveat is that the exit poll company has no past experience.

Having said that, clearly, the Irish elections had high turnout. Presumably, that means a strong youth vote and turnout in low-income areas. This is good for Sinn Féin and the far left; the independents also benefit from the youth vote.

The best media coverage is on RTÉ Radio One.

The other exit poll is:
Midlands-North-West (4-seater, 20% quota)

Flanagan (Ind, Eurosceptic) 20%
McGuinness (FG / EPP) 16%
Carthy (SF / GUE) 13%
Gallagher (FF / ALDE) 11%
Marian Harkin (Ind / ALDE) 11%
Thomas Byrne (FF / ALDE) 10%
Jim Higgins (FG / EPP) 7%
Lorraine Higgins (Lab / S&D) 4%
Rónán Mullan (Ind, Catholic) 4%
Mark Dearey (Green / EGP) 2%
Others <= 1% each

Smashing performance by Flanagan - I thought he'd come fifth in my prediction thread post, due to his reliance on the ephemeral populist/anti-system vote, which wasn't enough to elect Declan Ganley in 2009 in a smaller constituency with a bigger campaign bandwagon. I must say that his behaviour has made me despise the man. But this is an incredible achievement if true. He would be the first MEP ever elected by Ireland on a primarily Eurosceptic platform.

Otherwise likely to be McGuinness, then a scrap between Cope, Harkin, Carthy.

EDIT: In Northern Ireland, the council elections suggest the SDLP threat to the UUP has receded, but the TUV did much better than expected. Thus, the final seat may be between the UUP and TUV.

Finally, you do need to keep an eye on this liveblog for important stories like:

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[EPG]

There's almost no benefit to synchronising results, though, so these bans or directives would be undue interference in national election organisations.

[EPG]

There's almost no benefit to synchronising results, though, so these bans or directives would be undue interference in national election organisations.

Unless you are in the opinion that an EU election should be held with the same rules everywhere under a common EU voting law that sets the same procedures for every country. That would also mean the same parties on the ballot in every country. If the same parties are on the ballot in all countries, it would be unfair to have different voting days or poll closing times. People in other countries would then be really influenced if a country would close earlier and release its results.

The European parties aren't popular enough to win seats yet. So synchronisation would be, at best, premature. Before that point, I think it would be seen as more EU interference in the most precious of national affairs, democracy, weakening support for the EU.

[EPG]

A few people voted Lib Dem because they were Not Government Against All. Now that that's UKIP, they will shift (notably in the South West, I think, and it's a phenomenon that already existed to some extent at Europe).

[EPG]

High-income protest vote.

[EPG]

The DUP has no incentive to join a group. Their raison d'etre is representation of the majority religious community in Northern Ireland. They have no meaningful political platform to advance. Their political views largely reflect evangelical Christianity because that's the membership, but the point of the party is to protect the Protestant community.

[EPG]

Interest would be a lot lower in European parties. People already hate their own national parties because they're out-of-touch; what would they think of parties based in Strasbourg?

[EPG]

The margin between the Cope and Harkin for the last seat in Midlands-North-West, Ireland, will be a few hundred votes. Expect recount.

[EPG]

Interest would be a lot lower in European parties.

This is actually an immense understatement.

Plus, presumably, as long as we're still democracies, national parties will still be allowed to contest.

UKIP versus the German socialists?

Recipe for dissolution of the EU.

[EPG]

To Comrade Sibboleth and EPG:  Don't you think the people should know what they're voting for?  Shouldn't the ballots at least have the names of the European parties their MEPs will join once elected?  Do Forza Italia voters for example know they're voting for EPP?  It just seems that voters are being deceived which contributes to the feeling that Eurocrats don't want the people to know what is really happening in Brussels.

If S&D wants to run candidates in the UK, S&D should run candidates in the UK. They don't. Why? Because nobody cares strongly about the S&D party in the UK compared to the British Labour Party, so they wouldn't win seats against Labour. Libertas won, what, one seat when it ran across the EU? It's not easy.

[EPG]

If Europeans elected a European Parliament of Eurosceptics that voted down all legislation, very little would happen. Clearly, European elections do matter, but they don't lead to the most radical changes simply because opinion moves faster among the smaller and more collegiate European Council, whereas the Parliament reflects public opinions in approximate proportion to their prevalences, so it isn't as volatile.

[EPG]

If you ask the typical European voter whether they gave their party leader a mandate to be head of government at the last general election, they'll agree. If you ask them whether they gave Jean-Claude Juncker a mandate by voting for the EPP (or even their friends in the Parliament who are backing him), they will not agree. Democratic legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed, which is not really present or absent in Juncker's case because EU democracy is still mainly about big fragmented coalitions.

[EPG]

Hahaha, amazing. For context, Midlands-North-West is 1/2 conservative rural Irish heartland stereotype, 1/2 exurban commuters who hate taxes. The amount of historic socialism in this constituency is approximately zero. However, in service of their general discontent with tax increases, government policies and the European approach to Ireland's economic crisis, they have elected two Eurosceptic anti-tax populists (the Irish left always tells people they can have lower taxes and more government spending, though they stay away from anything controversial like actually explaining how they'd get the rest of the money).

[EPG]

Hahaha, amazing. For context, Midlands-North-West is 1/2 conservative rural Irish heartland stereotype, 1/2 exurban commuters who hate taxes. The amount of historic socialism in this constituency is approximately zero. However, in service of their general discontent with tax increases, government policies and the European approach to Ireland's economic crisis, they have elected two Eurosceptic anti-tax populists (the Irish left always tells people they can have lower taxes and more government spending, though they stay away from anything controversial like actually explaining how they'd get the rest of the money).

Midlands-North West includes places like Dundalk, Drogheda, Athy, and, of course, Galway City... none of which fit that stereotype. I'd also question how conservative Ireland's conservative rural heartland really is.

Of course not everywhere fits a description. Of course there are exceptions to every rule. But it's important to see Ireland in context: its social policies, from schools to women's rights to marriage to divorce, espouse values at times far more conservative than the typical European voter, let alone the typical GUE-NGL parliamentarian. Those policies aren't just nasty impositions on a secretly liberal populace: they exist because lots of people support them and don't support changing them.

[EPG]

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.

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.

[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?

[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.

[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).

[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.

[EPG]

FF hates the idea of associating with those parties. Its identity is like the Canadian Liberals; it's the party that built the country; it doesn't identify with junior-partner agrarian or anti-immigrant parties.

[EPG]

Politics is all about these perceptions, the pacts between voters who identify with and respect politicians, and politicians who identify with and respect each other. As is clear from European Parliament groups, the details of policies matter very little at all.

[EPG]

Politics is all about these perceptions, the pacts between voters who identify with and respect politicians, and politicians who identify with and respect each other. As is clear from European Parliament groups, the details of policies matter very little at all.

Unnecessary lecture is unnecessary.

That is not a very polite response.

I merely noted that self-perception does indeed matter in politics. It is, as you might say, reality.

[EPG]

Childersing would involve quitting after your party stops being omniopposition omnipopular rockstars. This case is extremely unseemly haste.

[EPG]

I think the vice-presidents could be deceptive. Important, yes, but Moscovici in Economic Affairs and Vestager in Competition are more important. Even Ireland's Phil Hogan will have more influence on the important TTIP than some of the vice-presidents. In contrast, Dombrovskis and Anslip have pretty vague and all-encompassing roles that could command authority over large areas in principle but which aren't yet established.