Electioneering: The UK General Election campaign is in full swing!

On the 22nd of May 2014, the combined electorate of the 26 member states will be mobilised to vote in the European Parliamentary elections. Quite to what extent this ‘mobilisation’ will have is any one’s guess but in the UK, where apathy hangs above us like clouds (and we have plenty of those!) the turnout for the ‘Euro elections’ is likely to be such that those charged with counting the votes cast are unlikely to be filing a particularly large overtime claim, but at least all votes cast will in fact be cast and not selectively discarded as it appears to have happened in the municipal elections in southern Turkey recently! 

But the European elections this year do have some degree of significance in Britain, for they are almost certainly going to be viewed and assessed by the media and political pundits as a barometer of the British electorates intentions at the General Election here in May 2015. Of those of us who will bother to vote, some may well vote tactically and this columnist will be one of them. Ukip )United Kingdom Independence Party) are very much stars in the ascendancy and they are likely to take a considerable number of seats in the Euro elections this time; indeed, many hold the view that they can displace the Liberal Democrats as the third political power in Great Britain. This will be viewed by many as a good thing, indeed it is the writer’s view that the sooner the Lib Dems are parked up in the railway sidings of political obscurity the better, whilst the electorate would be better served if Labour re-hoisted their Red Flag and the Tories turned darker blue, for then the people would have a clearer choice.

One of the reasons there is so much antipathy and apathy towards the EU Parliamentary elections and the EU in general is because millions of people realise that the EU is a Franco-Prussian stitch-up dominated by Germany who in terms of pan-European domination, have achieved for more so during peace time, than ever they could have achieved in waging a war they in fact were on the losing side of. You could be forgiven for losing sight of the latter reality given their world status today. Most of the British electorate, certainly in the 50s+ demography, do not wish to be a part of a Federation of Member States in a United States of Europe with its capital in Berlin, Bonn or wherever, including this columnist who is likely to vote Ukip this May and Conservative in May 2015 as usual, and if this tactic is used widely, then perhaps the Tories will realise that in order to prevail in May 2015, they need to do a deal with Ukip sooner rather than later!

Let us understand very clearly the stark realities in relation to the EU, and that is that a federal Europe cannot ever work: For example, in the USA you can travel from a southern state to a state in the north, transact business and be understood because there is a common language (English-although they do not spell it correctly!) and culture. In Europe, there are 26 different countries with at least 26 different languages – more if you consider Belgium, Wales, Eire and others- and all with distinct cultures, so travelling from north, east, south or west to work or conduct business on the basis of a single united nation is simply not a practical proposition. Europe can only ever be what it was intended to be when the Common Market was first dreamt up, which is a trading consortium of nations; a political federal Europe, cannot and will never work. The sooner this is realised widely, the better it will be for all concerned.