If you live in the north-west of England and want to stop Nick Griffin being an MEP...

[policywonk]

here's how to do it

[giantkatestacks]

Its complicated with the PR isnt it - people just dont understand the implications enough...

[policywonk]

Yes, fair play to Respect. I'm not usually Galloway fan.

giant - yes, you're probably right about that. I still think it's a better system overall though.

[policywonk]

Bump for the people on the Euro elections thread

[northender]

northender and Mr northender on board.

[YanknCock]

Thanks for this.

[Spidermama]

This needs to be bumped from time to time between now and June 4th.

Well done PW.

[Spidermama]

I would recommend a vote for Peter Crainie of the Green Party if you're up in the North West.

[policywonk]

Anti-fascist BUMP

[TotalChaos]

thanks will seriously consider voting green.

[MamaHobgoblin]

Bumping.

(god, the comments after that article are appalling!)

[policywonk]

Down with the racists, la la la

(Haven't read the comments - what do they say?)

[Mercedes]

its good that parties are working together to stop the bnp but the best way is to ensure the bnp doesn't win a seat is to have a high turnout. minority parties do better with low turnouts. i would never vote tory or lib dem but i'd rather their supporters came out on mass and won rather than allow nazis to get in.

i'm sure the expenses farago will allow the bnp to stand as the honest outsider and discourage others not to turnout - another fine new labour mess and kick in the teetf for their constituents

[KayHarkerInTheBackOfTheQuattro]

Yes indeed. I've been made physically ill by the BNP antics in recent weeks. What Would Jesus Vote? He wouldn't have a vote, he'd have been voluntarily repatriated, you morons.

[YanknCock]

Got a Peter Crainie leaflet through the door yesterday. DH's comment was that he looked really young. I told him it was a young guy or the BNP. DH thought we had missed the election somehow, even though I've already told him a few times that it's in June!

Can see it will be up to me to remember!

[policywonk]

Thought it might be time to bump this again.

There's a 'Stop Nick Griffin' campaign day today at Cafe Pop, basement of Pop Boutique, 34-33 Oldham Street, Manchester, M1 1JN.

[policywonk]

Bump, seeing as there's a flurry of Euro election threads tonight.

[SomeGuy]

This thread is seriously misguided IMO.

The Greens got fewer votes than the BNP last time.

The way to prevent a BNP candidate being elected would be not to vote for any party that is liable to do worse than the BNP.

This would mean in other words - don't vote for Libertas, Jury Team, the Greens, or in fact anything other than the Tories, Lib Dems, UKIP or Labour - in other words the parties that won seats last time.

As a matter of fact, supporters of those four parties switching their votes to the Greens are probably HELPING the BNP, by reducing the tally of votes for those parties.

In the last election the numbers were, roughly:

Labour 27%
Tory 24%
Lib Dem 16%
UKIP 12%
BNP 6%
Green 5%
plus others

There are 8 people to be elected.

Let's say the numbers this time look like this:

Tory 30%
Lib Dem 16%
Labour 15%
UKIP 12%
BNP 8%
Green 7% (let's say their natural support is 4%, but they get 1.5% from Labour and 1.5% from Lib Dem voters)
plus others

then the people elected are:
1st: Tory (now 15%)
2nd: Lib Dem (now 8%)
3rd: Labour (now 7.5%)
4th: UKIP (now 6%)
5th: Tory (now 10%)
6th: Tory (now 7.5%)
7th: Lib Dem (now 5 1/3%)
8th: BNP (now 4%)

What would have happened if the Labour and Lib Dem voters and voted for their usual parties? The BNP would have been kept out, and the 8th seat would have gone Labour.

The exact numbers are hard to calculate because there are so many possibilities. For instance are UKIP going to move up on 2004? Possibly, but the key point here is that if the BNP are in fact in danger of winning a seat here then the chances of UKIP scoring double their vote (it is a given that UKIP will take one seat - to take the second at the expense of the BNP implies a vote share double that of the BNP's) is tiny.

The correct voting choice for the anti-BNP voter could be Lib Dem, Labour (most likely to keep either party's vote more than double that of the BNP) or Tory (in this case more likely to be triple that of the BNP).

But it's unlikely to be Green.

[policywonk]

You're right that it's impossible to predict the correct numbers, and of course there's always a danger with tactical voting that things will go wrong. I do think, however, that you're mistaken to place so much emphasis on what happened last time around. So much has changed in the electoral landscape that the last election's numbers are almost irrelevant.

One thing I've heard again and again over the last few weeks is that it's the Greens and UKIP that have benefited most from the expenses scandal; the BNP has not seen a comparable increase in its share of the vote. Now, this might be due to the BNP's supporters being reluctant to own up to their voting intention, admittedly. But on the numbers that have been published so far, it's the Greens and UKIP that are most likely to take the final seat (which tends to go to a small party).

Progressive voters won't want to vote UKIP, which is anti-immigration and anti-Europe. But they might well be happy to vote Green.

[SomeGuy]

I'm not placing an emphasis on last time's numbers.

I don't believe UKIP will get 2 seats, but they certainly will get 1. In 2004 there was a real anti-European feeling which UKIP capitalised on very well - it was an unprecedented result for UKIP, they came third, beating the Lib Dems. Since then they've been pretty much impotent and had 3 of their MEPs kicked out for expense scams and such like.

Tactical voting works very well with FPTP, where a Tory voter might vote Lib Dem in a Labour/Lib Dem marginal, or similar, but it doesn't work here because nobody knows what will happen.

It's not really correct to say the 8th seat will go to a minor party. The combinations are too complicated. It could be the 5th, 6th seat, 7th, 8th, or not at all.

Bottom line is because the polls vary so much it would be foolish IMO to vote tactically. Vote for your preferred party and it's just as likely to 'work' as voting for another party.

[Spidermama]

Bumping this thread again with the news that the latest ComRes poll puts the Greens in the battle for third place, with 15%.

[SomeGuy]

Do you have a link for that?

[Spidermama]

I don't but I could email you the press release

[SomeGuy]

The latest Comres is here:

www.comres.co.uk/page190891517.aspx

There's a lot of discussion of their methodology (changed for this poll), but the Greens are given as on 8%. And lower in the North, not surprisingly, as their heartlands are in the South of England.