Euro elections - remainers come hither

[Electionpondering]

Sorry if this has been done before.

It's the Euro elections on Thursday and I'm a remainer. I've been confused about which party to vote for to give the best opposition to the pro Brexit parties. I really wish Change UK had partnered up with the Lib Dems but alas, that wasn't to be. I think on balance I will be voting for the Lib Dems - I usually vote for them in General Elections although I admire the Change MPs who put their careers on the line for something different.

I just wondered what other remainers were thinking. My friends don't really talk about this sort of thing so thought here might be a good place to discuss but apologies if this isn't allowed in an election period.

I’m fairly certain the use of the d’hondt system in England, Wales & Scotland is down to Westminster, not the EU.

Can’t really answer that, sweets it’s never happened in an EU election. Have sometimes gone for least worst in locals though.

@Sweetsandcrisps DH hasnt got one. Hes not on fb but i am!!

Does the remain voter advice not make sense based on the maths of the PR list system? I’m not an expert so if someone could clarify that would be great. But I read in the 2nd round of counting, the winning party’s votes are halved, so if you have a safe LD seat they already get the first MEP and then go quite a way down the list again. So they idea is to get greens (for example) into 3rd/4th place ?

Yes. It's all about using the d'Hondt system of PR to Remain's advantage. Basically the idea is to advise undecided Remain voters which party will swing a seat from Leave to Remain as you get further down the list.

www.remainvoter.com/how-to-vote-london

Link which explains why they're recommending Change UK in London.

BambooBoobam's post from FB sums it up more pithily.

Sweetsandcrisps - at the moment we are leaving in October. But people who want to Remain want to send a message to THeresa May by voting in as many remain parties to the European Parliament as possible. So if you want to remain voting for a remain party in your area is a way of sending that message.

The system is confusing as to how to achieve as many remain seats as possible so there is lots of advice - some of it confusing - as to who to vote for.

I’m not sure why there might not be anyone you want to vote for. It’s about getting Remain people in rather than Farage and his lot. Not personality driven. For me anyway.

I’m in the south west and have voted Green - I do postal vote.

remainvoter.com for the South East recommends a tactical vote for Change Uk.

Trying to work out who of the Greens and Lib Dems is most likely to get a seat and vote for them.

Does anyone know when and how we will get the results? I'm sure I read that it will be Sunday before we know.

Who is responsible for the Remainvoter website? Doesn’t it have any political affiliation?

Voting Lib Dem. NW England. Don't feel comfortable with the idea that the Lib Dems will obviously get one MEP so I should bump up the Remain vote here by voting Green. We all thought that Remain would win the referendum by a slight margin. We all thought TM would build on DC's majority. We all thought DC wouldn't get a majority and would negotiate away the referendum promise in a coalition with the Lib Dems. No messing around this time.
I would actually be prepared to live with WA but as every party that is for Brexit is potentially for No Deal, I can't stomach any of them. None of them deserves my support but I will go with the LibDems on this one.

@fedup I think it's Gina Miller, who is the private citizen that brought the meaningful vote case to the Supreme Court.

Avocados - I think Gina Miller is behind Remain United not Remain Voter. As far as a know Remain Voter is a group of self confessed techies/number crunchers. They are a bit like Led By Donkeys.

It’s such a shame that there are so many small groups rather one big one for Remainers to get behind. It needs one big group and a personality. Someone to counteract Farage.

I'm in London and want to vote for Change UK - remainvoter website also recommends a tactical vote for them in London so that's all good for me.

@electionpondering Yes, some other EU countries are voting at the weekend so we will only find out the results from Sunday evening when every country has voted.

Avocados - I think Gina Miller is behind Remain United not Remain Voter. As far as a know Remain Voter is a group of self confessed techies/number crunchers. They are a bit like Led By Donkeys.

Do you have any links for that-I’m here struggling to find who they are!

I'm wondering too. I don't want to back a horse with no chance of winning, so which party do you think has the best chance (Lib Dems?) and have they any nasty policies I should be aware of?

Also, you'd think I'd know this by now, but Brexit negotiations is all a haze to me at this stage and a jumbled up mess of political grand-standing, but where do Labour stand on Remain?

There are 19 options on the ballot (I use a postal vote), 11 of which are independents, 8 of which are parties. I don't recognise any of the names within the parties and there's too many to google every one of them.

The only 3 parties who have stook anything in my door that I haven't thrown away are UKIP, Change UK and the Greens.

Change UK seem a bit fluffy on other policies, and I don't know any of them well enough individually to know much about them!

@ForalltheSaints

Trying to work out who of the Greens and Lib Dems is most likely to get a seat and vote for them.

The way the ballot is set out, you're not voting for an individual unless they're an independent, so I don't know how they choose which individual - that was going to be my next question!! All candidates within a party are all grouped together, so you're voting for the party, not an individual.

Change UK has:

Gavin William James Esler
Jan Rostowski
Carole Tongue
Annabel Jean Charlotte Mullin
Kareen Melanie Newman
Nora Mulready
Jessica Margaret Poppaea Simor
Haseeb Ur-Rehman

Greens have:

Scott John Ainsile
Gulnar Hasnain
Shahrar Ali
Rachel Anne Collinson
Eleanor Phoebe Margoiles
Remco van der Stoep
Kirsten de Keyser
Peter Underwood

I'm going to have to stick it in the post by tomorrow latest.

The Gina Miller recommended remain tactical voting website is www.remainunited.org. It's recommendations are very different from the remainvoter site, which seems very dodgy to me.
I think we all need to think twice before giving contact information to strangers on the internet.

Sorry - just noticed others have already said the same.

Is anyone else fed up with Farage's media blitz? He is getting more coverage than the rest of the parties combined. Bugger having a policy or a coherent manifesto. Just keep saying " brexit"

Fedup21 - Remain Voter is here.

I follow quite a lot of various Remainers and political writers etc on Twitter which is where I came across them. I can’t vouch for them or anyone obviously. I signed up to their website and got their email yesterday although I had already sent off my vote. For weeks now I had been reading that it was recommended t vote Green in the SW as we already have a good Green MEP. Remain Voter reckon Lib Dem’s will get a seat so are recommending those who aren’t definitely voting Lib Dem to vote Green.

It’s flipping hard to make any sense of anything!

Labour are bloody painful. They have loads of Remainers standing and saying vote Labour but Corbyn is a Brexiteer. And has said he will respect the result of the 2016 ref. I have seen so many people saying the are angry that their vote fo Labour in the last general election was seen as a vote for Brexit.

The bigger parties are more split in terms of Remain/Brexit.

I think it's easier with the smaller ones to figure out what their stance will be.