The Europe-wide picture

The consensus seems to be that, Europe-wide, it was a good election for the centre-right. It certainly seems as though the governing centre-left parties have taken a bit of a battering, while voters seem content with centre-right governments.

Those of a socialist persuasion may well feel disgruntled. In the midst of an economic crisis which they say was caused by the excesses of capitalism, voters seem to have lost faith in socialist parties’ ability to deal with it. The far left also took a knock. On the other hand, the Green grouping is the one grouping (aside from non-aligned) to have increased its representation in the European Parliament.

Interestingly, despite the fact that apathy was the clear winner of the election across the EU, the main Eurosceptic grouping was almost totally wiped off the map, with the exception of Ukip. Perhaps domestic issues are the cause of this. But if 2004 was the breakthrough year for Eurosceptic parties (which led to the formation of the Independence / Democracy group), 2009 was the bump back to earth. As thing stand (and no doubt they will try to woo more MEPs on board), Ukip alone now account for almost two thirds of the grouping.

The main UK parties

The UK-only picture was rosier for Ukip, but only slightly. This year will be remembered for the fact that they finished 2nd ahead of Labour. But they would be deluding themselves if they believed this was because of a rise in support. Their increase in the share of the vote was a pretty titchy 0.3 percentage points. Indeed, they gained fewer votes than in 2004, and got just one extra MEP despite the huge collapse in trust of the major Westminster parties.

In a lot of ways, the UK picture as a whole is surprisingly static. Yes, there was a massive drop in support for Labour. But none of the major parties were in a position to capitalise, so everyone apart from Labour just shuffled up a bit. In the circumstances, the Conservatives ought to be pretty miffed that they lost votes and increased their vote share by just 1 percentage point. It doesn’t exactly look like a party with the momentum to take a Westminster landslide.

The Lib Dems, who arguably weren’t hurt nearly as much as Labour and the Tories by the expenses scandal, managed to reduce their share of the vote, which almost no other party did. Of course Labour’s share decreased. Plaid Cymru’s UK-wide share decreased, but their Wales-only share went up. The only other party to reduce its share of the vote was the Scottish Socialist Party, which has cemented its place in history by being consigned to it.

The BNP

The BNP made a different kind of history by winning two seats, which became the story of the election. It was probably inevitable that people would “blame” proportional representation for this. But the simple fact is that PR doesn’t vote fascists in — fascist voters do.

6.8% is not an inconsiderable share. Almost a million voters decided to put their cross next to the BNP on the ballot paper, and they didn’t do so by accident. Gerrymandering them out of existence will only exacerbate the problem.

That’s not to say that the closed party list system used for European Elections isn’t flawed, because it is — deeply so. But the corrupt First Past the Post system would only further increase the anger that people feel at being disenfranchised by the political system.

In a lot of ways, the BNP’s “success” is pretty unremarkable. In 2004 they were the sixth most successful party. This year, they were still the sixth most successful party. In the region where Nick Griffin won his seat, the North West, the BNP actually got fewer votes than in 2004.

The BNP only got seats because Labour’s collapse was so dramatic, and those former Labour votes went to a large variety of smaller parties. 11.3% of votes went to parties that weren’t among the top eight, compared to 8.3% that went to other parties in 2004 (and that was in the days of a relatively strong Respect party).

The BNP didn’t gain seats because they caught up with those in front. They gained seats because others joined the queue behind them. Despite still having five people in front of them, the BNP effectively moved closer to the front in relation to the entire queue — just because more people joined behind them.

Nonetheless, any attempts to ignore or belittle the BNP’s success, or to gerrymander it away, should be condemned. It is important to understand why people would come to vote for a fascist party, because that is the best way of defeating the ideology.

Luckily, YouGov have done a good job at finding out (more detail here). And — surprise surprise — it seems that BNP voters are mostly racist. That rather undermines the idea that people voted for the BNP just as a protest vote. With so many potential protest parties, why choose BNP? I guess they were at the top of many ballot papers, but that oughtn’t gain them so many votes. No, people vote for the BNP mostly because they are racists.

In difficult economic circumstances, people often turn to fascism. It is totally misguided to do so though. One potential plus side of the BNP gaining a couple of MEPs is the fact that the spotlight will now be shone on them, and people will see just how rotten their ideology is.

I will look at the Scottish results in a separate article

As for other aspects of the Glasgow East result, the collapse of the Lib Dems in particular can be put down to the fact that the two main parties are broadly centre-left. So Lib Dem voters will have been especially more willing to lend their vote to one of the main parties. Conservatives will be more wary of voting for anyone else, so this is why the Conservatives were able to move up to third place in a constituency which is otherwise not fertile ground for them.

The election has also seen the constant trotting-out of that old line about how Scotland is a desert land for the Conservative Party. That really annoys me because it is simply the biggest myth since Santa Claus. A lot of people, even in Scotland, believe it. Whenever I hear a Lib Dem coming out with it I feel like giving them a slap, because if the Tories are unpopular in Scotland what on earth does that make the Lib Dems??

Okay, so the Conservatives have very few MPs and in 1997 they had none. But that is simply because First Past the Post is so hopelessly skewed against them. Of course, the Conservatives support the FPTP system, so they get no sympathy from me on that front. But it is a fact that, if you look at the numbers for the country as a whole, the Conservatives are the third largest party in Scotland not just once in a while but over and over again.

In 2007, the Conservatives got 16.6% of the constituency vote compared to the Lib Dems’ 16.2%. In the regional vote (i.e. the fairer part, where people are less likely to vote tactically and more likely to vote for the party that they actually support), the Conservatives had 13.9% compared to the Lib Dem’s 11.3%.

The numbers were even more stark in 2003, with the Conservatives getting 15.5% in the regional vote compared to the Lib Dems’ 11.8%. In 1999, back in the days when the Tories had no MPs they were still ahead of the Lib Dems.

In fact, in 1997, that infamous year where the Tories were wiped out, the Conservatives had 17.51% of the votes in Scotland. The Lib Dems had a mere 12.98%.

I don’t like to point all this out because the Lib Dems are the party that I am most sympathetic to. But it really annoys me whenever I hear anyone bang on and on about how unpopular the Conservatives are in Scotland because it simply is. not. true.

And it especially annoys me when I hear it from a Lib Dem. Not only are the Lib Dems less popular than the Conservatives in Scotland, but Lib Dems of all people really ought to be aware that they should look beyond just the numbers of MPs and look to the overall share of the vote because of the unfairness of the FPTP system.

As for worries that a Conservative Government in Westminster will sour relations between Westminster and Holyrood and therefore bring us one closer to the break-up of the union — I’m afraid I don’t buy that one either.

The SNP and the Conservatives do not actually hate each other as much as you might think. In fact, sometimes I think they are actually quite cosy. Often, the SNP will rely on the help of the Conservatives to get legislation through the Scottish Parliament (particularly for as as long as the Lib Dems appear to be content to be little more than an appendage of the Labour Party).

Of course, the SNP always complained about the Tories in the 1980s and 1990s. As did Labour. But, of course, that was twenty years ago now. Today it’s 2008, and a very different political landscape.

The idea that the Conservatives didn’t have a mandate to govern Scotland caught like wildfire. It is silly though. In any country in the world you find similar geographical differences. It’s just a fact of life. For some reason, though, although they were keen to point it out when the Tories were in government, the SNP play down such geographical differences that occur within Scotland. Just take a look at the map. The yellow is almost all in rural areas, with relatively little SNP representation in the central belt. Do the SNP complain about that as well? Hmm, funny that.

The fact is that the SNP only complained about the Tories because it was to their electoral advantage to do so. Last year they removed from their constitution the barrier to forming a coalition with the Conservatives. That tells you what you need to know. I have even seen it suggested that, if the SNP hit their target of getting 20-odd Westminster seats, the Conservatives could form a coalition with the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the event of a hung parliament.

The SNP’s real enemies today are Labour, as anyone who has endured any recent election in Scotland will tell you. Trust me — an SNP Government in Holyrood will get on much, much better with the Conservatives in Westminster than they currently get on with Labour.

Tartan Hero, Grant Thoms, has been pondering the prospect of Plaid Cymru entering into a coalition with the Conservatives (and the Lib Dems) in Wales. He wonders about attitudes towards the Conservatives in Scotland.

Interestingly, Plaid doesn’t appear to have a problem entering into a coalition with the Tories, eventhough PC didn’t embrace the business community in the way the SNP has. Has Wales woken up to a new dawn where the Tories aren’t the bogeymen and women they once were? After all that Bliar and Brown have put us through, is Scotland mature enough to have that debate?

A lot is said about how Conservatism (or at least the Conservative Party) is dead in Scotland, even by people who are themselves Conservatives. I think almost all of it is unfair.

Sure, it was embarrassing for them to end the 1997 General Election with no seats in Scotland. But if we are all honest with ourselves, we know that a lot of that was down to the thoroughly perverse First Past the Post system.

Indeed, the Conservatives came third in Scotland in 1997 in terms of the proportion of the vote. And they were closer to the SNP than the Lib Dems were to the Conservatives. More often than not, the Conservatives will finish ahead of the Lib Dems in a national Scottish election. The “boo-hiss everyone hates the Tories” attitude in Scotland is a bit of a barrier to proper debate if you ask me.

One way in which this manifests itself is through the fact that it is against the SNP’s constitution to go into coalition with the Conservatives. I don’t doubt that a lot of the more childish SNP activists get a massive kick out of thumbing their nose at the Tories. But in doing so perhaps they are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

While the SNP refuse to ever negotiate with the Conservatives, it rather undermines the image they have been trying to portray over the past few weeks. They’ve said they were willing to negotiate and were seeking consensus and common ground. They used this as a stick to beat the Lib Dems with, but I’ve not seen the SNP actively seeking any common ground with the Conservatives.

Yet, it is conceivable that the SNP could rely on the Conservatives to get some piece of legislation through in the current Parliament, especially when Labour will be in the mood to block any SNP proposal just because it can. If the SNP really are all for negotiating and seeking consensus, they ought to ditch this pantomime-esque “we will never make a deal with the Tories” stuff.

I can think of a few people that I know who can not easily decide between supporting the SNP or supporting the Conservatives. They want independence on the one hand, but they find traditional Conservative policies appealing on the other hand.

Put it this way. I can’t think of many SNP supporters who would occasionally turn to Labour instead. This must particularly be the case following this year’s Scottish Parliamentary election.

It doesn’t happen very often, but I agree with Grant Thoms here. “Mature” is the right word to use. If I was in the SNP I would think it was time to stop scoring petty points and take a look at the political landscape as it stands today. While I wouldn’t personally advocate the SNP banning pacts with Labour in their constitution, they must be pragmatic enough to realise that yesterday’s enemy may not necessarily be today’s enemy.

Back in September, one of the reasons I gave for wanting to re-start the Scottish Blogging Roundup was the fact that it was difficult to find any SNP supporters. Of course, since then I’ve discovered absolutely loads, and I’ve been more aware of the fact that there are hardly any Labour supporting blogs.

So I was quite pleased when I found out about Ridiculous Politics. Unfortunately — and I find that this is a theme with Labour blogs — it mentions almost nothing about Labour. It’s always, “Ho ho, look at what the SNP did! Aren’t the Lib Dems idiots! Look at those awful Tories!” And never, ever, anything that actually talks about Labour policy. I wonder why!

If you don’t believe me, here is a breakdown of the current stories on the front page of Ridiculous Politics:

• Conservatives — 18½
• Lib Dems — 4½
• SNP — 4½
• Plaid Cymru — 1
• Labour — 1
• UKIP — ½

Yes, this Ridiculous Politics is such a fan of Labour that it saw fit to write about the Labour party once over the course of its past thirty posts. And even then, it wasn’t so much a celebration of goverment policy as a report of some anti-BBC comments made by famous Blairite Dennis Skinner. Meanwhile, the obsession with the Conservatives is quite striking. (Incidentally, half marks were awarded for those instances where Ridiculous Politics managed to attack two parties in one post!)

This is what usually upsets me most about Labour supporters. All to often their only strongly held conviction is that they support Labour (often re-stated as “At least I’m not a Tory!” or “At least I’m not a Lib Dem!” or “At least I’m not a nationalist!”). Just look at, for instance, Councillor Terry Kelly, or Councillor Bob Piper who was often evasive when it came to actual Labour policy.

For a lot of these people, Labour could probably set up a gulag and they would justify it by saying, “Well the Tories had the Poll Tax.” I mean, just look at what Labour has done over the past decade. Iraq, ID cards, tuition fees, foundation hospitals, all the rest of it. You can bet your house that if a Conservative government had done all this, these same Labour supporters would have gone on a rabid rampage. But because the government that did all this happens to wear a red rosette, it — often literally — gets away with murder.

I wish more Labour supporters would just tell us what their principles actually were (apart from the principle of supporting Labour of course). Because all they ever express is some kind of holier-than-thou “at least I’m not a Tory” nonsense.