Why Vote in the European Elections?, by Alan Sked

Last time about a third of the British electorate voted in the European elections. Two thirds did not bother. Most Europeans did not bother. Why should they have?

The European Parliament cannot change anything. It rarely knows what is going on. The unelected European Commission initiates policy, agrees with the Council in secret how to shape legislation and gets the federalists in Parliament to rubber stamp almost everything whether they are aware of what is happening or not.

The European Court of Justice will always paper over any cracks with legal approval later.

There is no official opposition in the Parliament. There would be no point of having one. It might conceivably vote out the Commission (this happened once) but most Commissioners would just return (they did last time) and the same politicians and bureaucrats would run things.

Party manifestoes in European elections cannot therefore make promises that can be implemented. There is no democratically elected government to change or toss out of office.

The EU is anti-democratic. It is run by people who failed at politics in their own states (Brittan, Kinnock, Patten, Mandleson etc.). Baroness Ashton, the Labour Party’s former quango queen, who heads foreign affairs, has never been elected to anything in her life.

When small states vote down treaties in referendums, they are forced to vote again till they get it right. The Constitutional Treaty which was voted down by the French and Dutch was, of course, altered by 5% and pushed through parliaments as the Lisbon Treaty.

Since these treaties are all technically amendments to the Treaty of Rome, they should all fail if they do not achieve the necessary unanimous vote. They should never be resurrected. People who oppose them cannot ask for new votes in states that vote yes.

Yet what Brussels wants, Brussels gets.

Recently that has included imposing technocratic governments to replace elected ones in Greece and Italy, and ordering these governments and others to pass precise legislation according to a precise timetable designed in Brussels and Berlin.

In any case, according to the Interior Ministry in Berlin, 80% of all European domestic legislation now originates in Brussels anyway. The leader of the EU Liberals, Graham Watson, put the figure at 75%.

The EU is also corrupt. Its expenses, salaries, perks and pensions are an affront to the European unemployed created by its failed single currency experiment.

Its accounts have not been signed off by the European Court of Auditors for at least eighteen years. If it were a  trading company it would have to cease trading.

Membership costs a bomb. According to independent cost-benefit analyses the annual cost of EU membership to Britain is about 4% of GDP –10% if opportunity costs are factored in. That is £40 billion or £100 billion.

But is the EU really necessary?

It represents a rapidly declining share of world GDP; has no defence or security profile; has no influence in foreign affairs; and is in demographic decline. Once Germany’s population goes down by 20% over the next few decades, its leading economy will be sunk.

So why keep this useless bureaucratic monstrosity? To stop war in Europe? The only threat to Europeans after 1945 was posed by the USSR.  That was deterred by NATO and the USA’s nuclear arsenal, not the EU.

To raise living standards? It doesn’t do that anymore. No, we need a post-EU Europe.

Please do not vote in the forthcoming European elections. The mainstream parties are peddling lies about the EU and its benefits.

UKIP, which I founded, has no reason to be there. Its previous MEPs have mostly been incompetents or charlatans, who play no constructive part in the parliament and have been corrupted by expenses.

Every true democrat should stay at home.