European Parliament Elections 2014 – The results (Part 2)

This post is the final part of my series on the 2014 election for the European Parliament. I have certainly found this very educational and I hope you have found my posts interesting and informative. Links to all the posts in the series can be found here.

In the previous part of the results coverage, I looked at the results in the UK. In this post, I will look at the new composition of the European Parliament, the overall turnout and some of the major issues and trends.

Composition

The following table shows you the composition figures based on provisional data from this page. It is entirely likely that the number of ‘Others’ will change significantly over time. However, the number of MEPs in total won’t When the ‘Others’ aligned with some groups or officially become ‘Non-attached’ it is unlikely you will see major changes in the rankings of the different alliances.

This shows the current composition based on the provisional results:

One of the things worth noting is the situation with UKIP. As a party, they are a key member of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy alliance. Despite their increase in MEP numbers (see last post) and the increase in the presence of anti-EU sentiment, The EFD share of the Parliament is (currently) the lowest. Obviously, the biggest alliances are more likely to get their way. It will be interesting to see what happens with the ‘Others’ category. It is entirely possible for them to eventually overtake the GUE-NGL and ECR. However, they will not get anywhere near the total of the EPP (European People’s Party). They won’t even get close to the PASD (also known as the Socialists and Democrats) either.

The ECR is the alliance that the Conservatives are a part of. The group was chaired by Martin Callanan, who was also the Leader of the Conservatives in Europe. However, he lost his seat after these elections (he was a rare thing – a Conservative in the North East region, which is now 33% more Labour than it was before). It suffered noticeable losses, but the EPP and ALDE lost more. Basically, it could have been much worse for them.

You might notice things like the EFD having a lower increase than UKIP and a sizeable loss for the EPP, which is bigger than the losses of the other alliances. At this point, it’s worth looking at the totals. At the end of the last Parliament (so, prior to these elections) there were 766 MEPs. This was due to things such as an increase in the number of member states. It went down to 751 because that is a limit to stop the place being reminiscent of the likes of the House of Lords. There’s also Degressive Proportionality. This means any new member states get at least six MEPs and some member states lose part of their allocation.

Turnout

In my post about voter turnout, I often looked at the turnout for the first member states (from the ’79 election). The following turnout figures are from this page and the latter few include many more member states. Some have much lower turnout figures. I know it’s hard to believe, but we aren’t the worst in Europe in this area.

This is a graph comparing the two sets of turnout figures above:

The steady decline in overall turnout is understandable when you consider how many member states have joined over the years. As I mentioned, some of the newer members are very poor at voting in these elections. The UK turnout has always been lower than the overall figure, but it’s interesting to not that the last three elections have seen a much smaller difference. In theory, more member states could mean we have a higher figure than the overall percentage for a change. However, more members has economic effects and means potentially big changes in the composition of the Parliament. Degressive Proportionality also means the smaller nations have more power than their size .

Major issues/trends

The following is from this article about the victory for the far-right French party, the Front-National:

“Without waiting for the final result, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls went on television to call the result “an earthquake” for France and Europe.

The National Front (FN) won around 25% of the vote in France, according to exit polls, easily beating the centre-Right UMP on 20%.”

Note the language and who it’s from. Manuel Valls is part of the ruling Socialist Party in France, yet he (rather confusingly) uses the word ‘earthquake’, which is most recently attributed to the right-wing UKIP. It would be more appropriate if Marine Le Pen uttered the word, as she has been attempting to forge ties with UKIP recently. However, in an effort to shrug off accusations of racism, Nigel Farage has refused to link his party with hers. Valls stated that there would be no change to the French roadmap, despite the surge in FN support that led to them getting 24.9% of the vote.

According to this RTE article, Le Pen is attempting to form a euro-sceptic alliance in the European Parliament – separate from Farage’s EFD. They need 25 MEPs (at least) for it to be official.

There is now an increased number of articles about the mainstream political parties calling for reform, because of the perceived threat of the far-right parties. However, there isn’t really much change here. For example, the Conservatives called for reform in their European manifesto. The only real change that I can see is the use of less neutral language such as “too big, too bossy” to describe the European Parliament.

Finally…

There are so many people in my country – the United Kingdom – who complain about the influence of the European Union and the ineffectiveness of all politicians. This sort of talk has been happening for years – certainly as long as I’ve been aware of political issues and before then too. An election like this would give people the opportunity to bring about change. Whether you want to stay in Europe, get some powers back or leave completely, there’s a party out there for you. Do you think the current crop of MEPs are too lazy? Then vote for someone else. It really is that easy. However, even though the European Parliament (and the EU in general) affects everyone in some way, we always seem to get turnout figures that are nowhere near what anyone would consider to be decent. It confuses, annoys and disappoints me at the same time.

Maybe it’s an issue of education. Much of the electorate didn’t know who their MEPs were. That’s why I produced this document (an updated one for the new Parliament is in the works). Some don’t know what the parties have to offer, or even the specifics of what the European Parliament does (many of the posts in this series are about those two things). The level of political education and awareness in the UK is low and I attempt to correct that.

Think of all the people that have died in wars to protect our human rights and our ability to express our opinions via the ballot box. Think of the Suffragettes many years ago, who campaigned tirelessly to give women more of a say. People who don’t vote in elections like these would disappoint those people from the past if they were alive today. Those who don’t vote in elections like these have no right to complain.

The rise of the far right shows that things need to change soon, or the institution that promised much in 1979 is doomed to fail. Parties need to listen to the people and more of the electorate need to participate. It’s as simple as that.

So, what do you think?