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A little late posting this, but none the less it’s good news for Conservative Future and their experiment with live blogging. You may remember a week ago Sunday TYC joined ToryBear and others in blogging live coverage of the European Election Results. Well TYC has just seen the stats and it seems the exercise proved popular with readers:
Moreover CF’s head of Media, Internal Relations and New Media, Richard Jackson, is very pleased – “during the night 2 people emailed me wanting to setup CF branches – DIRECTLY because of the live blogging!“
From 10pm tonight TheYoungConservative will be taking part in a 3 hour live blogging session of the European Election results as they come in. It’ll be open to the audience to add their say, too.
Here’s the page on ConservativeFuture.com where the blogging will be hosted, live.
It should be an interesting night. In the sound corner I’m joined by Tory Bear, whilst representing ‘the rest’ members of the other political parties youth movements have been invited.
On Saturday my branch, Cities of London & Westminster Conservative Future, were campaigning in Marylebone High Street, where we were joined by Dr Charles Tannock MEP. We ran a street stall, handing out Euro election literature, balloons for the children, and seeking signatures on the growing petition calling upon Gordon Brown to go to the country and give us the General Election we need to break the festering political inertia in Westminster that this moribund government is mired with.
Dr Tannock was a grassroots activist himself some years ago, rising to Vice-Chairman of Kensington & Chelsea Young Conservatives – so he’s very much ‘one of us’! Generous with his time, we were able to record a few video highlights, the first of which is above, and it features Dr Tannock thanking CF for its efforts, and stressing the need to get out the vote, especially amongst the young voters, if we’re to deny the extremist left-wing parties, such as the BNP and Greens.
Last week a group of pro-freedom activists rallied outside the Liberal Democrats’ European Election campaign launch. TYC understands that embarrassingly for the LibDems the press seemed to somewhat snub the launch, and there were more activists outside than attendees inside.
The campaign unvealed their campaign banner, and leafleted journalists and attendees – and even one errant Labour cabinet minister. He was probably just grateful they weren’t affiliated with Joanne Lumley…Clegg bolted for his car rather than debate his Party’s federalist agenda.
(H/T The Freedom Association for pictures)
The Not Liberal and Not Democrats campaign is being orchestrated by Democracy Movement, which aims to highlight the LibDem’s truly appalling record on European issues – not least their opposition to a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty (EU Constitution).
Tomorrow the campaign is in Oxfordshire and we urge you to go along and hold the LibDems to account for their treachery.
Labour promised the British people a referendum on the EU Constitution in their 2005 election manifesto. Join our campaign to make them keep their promise.
You did it before; you can do it again. Five years ago, thanks to public pressure in the European elections, Tony Blair made a U-turn on the EU Constitution and promised the British people a referendum. That promise was in the last Labour manifesto.
Now the EU Constitution is back, under another name, and Gordon Brown is trying to deny the British people a say on it – even though it hands over huge powers to Brussels.
By voting Conservative in the European elections on 4th June, you can send a message to Gordon Brown to keep his promise and let the British people have their say on the EU Treaty.
HOW TO JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN:
- Sign up to our Facebook ‘Give us a referendum’ campaign
- Download our ‘EU-turn’ widget
- Print out the ‘Make Labour’s next U-turn an EU-turn’ poster
The University College London European Society will tonight hold a speaker/discussion event on the European Elections with MEP candidates. You do not have to be member of the society, just come along if you are interested. Guest/friends are welcome.
More details here:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=52429944559
Here are the details:
Date: Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Location: Christopher Ingold Chemistry LT
With elections coming up in the June, two MEP candidates come to UCL to speak about the challenges facing the EU going into the next sitting of the European Parliament. At this quite informal event each guest speaker will talk on the strengths and weaknesses of European integration, those policy areas where it is help and where it is a hindrance, and how current arrangements might be improved and built upon. After this, there is the chance for discussion and questions on the subject of the speakers’ talks and beyond!
JP Floru (Conservative) a Eurosceptic but Belgian by birth, JP is currently a Councillor for Hyde Park. He is also the founder of Freedom Alliance, an organisation that promotes libertarianism and free market capitalism.
Emma Jones (Labour) Emma balances her job as a teacher with her duties on the Council at the London Borough of Haringey. She is a committed environmentalist.
You may well have seen the poll which was released earlier this week showing a marked increase in support for UKIP as we head towards the 2009 European Elections.
“A YouGov survey for the TaxPayers’ Alliance and Global Vision puts UKIP core support at 7% for the Euro-vote on 4 June.
“This poll shows that our support is double what is was at this stage of the electoral cycle last time,” said UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP. “That means we can look forward to the people of Britain finally being able to have their say.
“On the issue of the European Union, UKIP is one of the big three parties, as the last Euro election showed. It is significant that in this survey, 45% of people say that the Tories, Labour and the LibDems do not reflect their views on Europe.”
The Daily Telegraph comments: “Significantly, 10% of Conservative voters at a general election would switch to UKIP in the Euro election, compared with 2% of Labour voters and 1% of those backing the LibDems.”"
Other main findings of the poll:
- 64% of the population demand radical change in Britain’s relationship with the EU, including an end to political integration and the supremacy of the European Court. 48% of those favour a looser relationship based on trade and voluntary co-operation, whilst a further 16% support withdrawal from the EU. By comparison, only 22% of the population support Britain remaining an EU member on current terms.
- 64% of the public would vote no to Britain joining the Euro, compared to only 24% who would support Euro membership.
- The economic crisis has made people less likely to support joining the single currency – with 27% made less likely to support adopting the Euro, compared to 18% who are more likely to support adopting the currency.
- 59% of the population believe the British Government should disregard the EU’s VAT rules, should they feel that a further cut is necessary in the 2009 Budget. Only 25% believe the Government should obey the EU’s rules.
These figures undoubtedly show the value and potential of single and multi-issue campaigning. I firmly believe that the way in which we will address the twin evils of voter apathy and disenfranchisement is through campaigning groups, not political parties. All too often on the doorstep the cry goes up from electors ‘You’re all the same’, or, ‘What difference will my vote make?’.
The efforts of such groups, and in UKIP’s case it’s ability to steal votes and seats from the opposition in significant numbers, exerts pressure on the bigger parties to either respond to the will of the people, or cede ground to those who will. At the same time, it allows voters to exert greater influence on specific issues which are relevant and of concern to them. They can involve themselves in campaigns they’re passionate about, without having to sign up to any party’s manifesto, chunks of which they may not at all agree with.
Specifically on Europe, it is clear from these figures (and as we’ve known all along) the big three parties all fail to properly tackle Europe. There’s an appetite for change in the British people, a hunger for freedom which has long gone unsatiated.
Ultimately, of course, no matter how many Euro-sceptic MEPs Britain elects, it’s doubtful what difference they’ll make because the EU is institutionally socialist. As it’s President, Hans-Gert Pottering, showed on a recent visit to Oman, it also seems to put a low value on democracy, telling Arabs intellectuals that the “Middle East must evolve from within, that it must reflect local traditions and values, and that the West should not pressure the region to adopt a European-style democratic system“; which, frankly, teeters on racist. Needless to say, his comments were poorly received by his audience. All that can be said in Pottering’s defence is that the Arab world would be well advised to not adopt European Union-style democracy, and plump for something along the American model which actually enshrines freedom rather than trampling on it.
The question then is how the Conservative Party, traditionally the biggest Euro-sceptic party, will respond to this poll. Will it choose to ignore the poll, or will it man-up over Europe with a tougher stance, or even give the people what they want and withdraw from/promise a referendum on EU membership? I’m not holding my breath on the last one, sadly.
Whilst I don’t think UKIP are going to challenge our core two and a half parties in a General Election any time soon, their ability to give them a serious run for their money in the European Elections is a colossal service to British democracy and freedom.
