European Parliament election 2014

[johnloony]

Dec 5, 2013 23:52:44 GMT ArmchairCritic said:

This should amuse you all......well, maybe not all. Some nice propaganda from the EU

"One year to go to the 2014 European elections

With one year to go until the 2014 European elections, this Eurobarometer survey of the European Parliament seeks to gauge Europeans’ opinion of the European project,

That is the point at which I stopped reading.

I remember a few months seeing a Youtube clip of fanatically-deranged EU propaganda in which self-important smug people were talking about how delighted and proud they were that "Europe" had been "created" in the 1950s, as if the foundation of an artificial superstructure of dogmatic nincompoopism 50 or 60 years ago was more important and significant than 3000 years of history, culture, civilisation, tecnology, art, architecture and democracy.

[Devonian]

According to their website the Socialist Labour Party of Arthur Scargill want to run a full slate of candidates for the European election in Great Britain in 2014. No mention yet of any candidates though.

[Devonian]

Dec 7, 2013 17:56:41 GMT Devonian said:

According to their website the Socialist Labour Party of Arthur Scargill want to run a full slate of candidates for the European election in Great Britain in 2014. No mention yet of any candidates though.

This was the announcement

The Socialist Labour Party (SLP) has today announced its intention to contest the next European Parliamentary Election which will take place in June 2014. The SLP is the only party on the 'left' that has regularly contested elections at all levels since its launch in 1996. The Party has contested two previous European Parliamentary elections, in 1999 and 2009, seeing the number of votes it received double between these two elections. The SLP is launching a campaign to raise £65,000 to contest the election across the length of Britain.

Speaking today Andrew Jordan, SLP President, said "The Socialist Labour Party is totally committed to Britain's complete withdrawal from the European Union (EU). Withdrawal is the only way Britain can begin to regain control of its economy, sovereignty and political powers."

Jordan also said "In recent years we have seen the true objective of the EU become clear. The 'free movement of capital and labour' between EU member states has allowed industry to flood out of Britain to chase, and exploit, the lowest wages across Europe and at the same time we have seen the uncontrollable economic migration between EU member states lead to a stagnation of the minimum wage here. This is having a serious impact on communities across Britain with rising un- and under-employment which, when coupled with a minimum wage that is decreasing in value, is leading more and more families into an increasingly desperate situation. The EU exists to benefit big business and not ordinary working people."

Also commenting on the announcement today Arthur Scargill, SLP Leader, said "People across Britain are facing an increasingly desperate situation. By contesting this election the Socialist Labour Party will give every voter in Britain the opportunity to vote for the alternative to the economic agenda imposed upon us by the European Union and the 'main' three parties in Westminster. We will be asking people in this election to vote us in to get us out of the EU."

www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk/eurocampaign.html

And this was an announcement from Bob Crow's No2EU

25 years after then European Commission president Jacques Delors addressed TUC Congress in Bournemouth promising full employment, better workers’ rights and protection from Tory free market policies in return for full support for the ‘European project’, it is clear that delegates were sold a pup.

Unemployment in the Eurozone remains at a record 12 per cent.

In countries forced to make huge spending cuts in return for ‘bail-outs’ by the ‘Troika’ of the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank youth unemployment tops 60 per cent.

In Britain and across the EU, health care, education and every other public service face the same EU demands for privatisation and opening to market forces which, of course, the Con Dem coalition is only too happy to oblige.

The proposed EU/US trade deal currently under negotiation also contains mechanisms to remove the ability of member states to decide what sectors, such as the NHS, should stay in the public sector and hands power to unaccountable tax avoiding corporations.

Collective bargaining rights are also being hollowed out by EU diktat and European court rulings which encourage social dumping and severely weakens trade union powers to defend workers.

Over 30,000 Belgian protesters marched through Brussels in June to oppose EU demands to abolish the country’s wage-setting mechanisms agreed with trades unions.

The Belgian government has already implemented harsh EU austerity measures but economic affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn announced that Belgium must conform by next year or face a 780 million Euro fine.

The EU catch-all phrase ‘free movement’ also hands bosses the ability to dictate the terms of employment through exploiting a reserve army of labour in the relentless pursuit of profit.

In this deal, where the scales are tilted so dramatically against workers, the question of what rights workers are entitled to scarcely enters the equation.

This is because the legal scope of the right to free movement for workers is shaped by EU courts and by directives and regulations outside the scope of democratically accountable bodies, such as national parliaments.

Decisions of the European Court of Justice in the Viking, Laval, Ruffert and Luxemburg ECJ cases also take us back over 100 years to the Taff Vale judgment when any trade union activity was perceived by the bosses to be ‘in restraint of trade’.

Global companies operating in EU states are free under EU law to tender for procurement building and service contracts in Britain and hire cheaper labour from abroad.

The workers can then be ‘posted’ to this country under terms and conditions established in the country of origin. These terms and conditions may be less than those negotiated on national or sector-wide agreements by trade unions.

The 1996 EU Posted Workers’ Directive says workers posted to a destination country need only be paid the minimum terms laid down in domestic legislation (such as the UK minimum wage), giving bosses the right to smash up nationally-agreed rates of pay.

‘Free movement’ within the EU impoverishes workers in a race to the bottom and creates a ‘brain drain’ in Eastern European countries, condemning them to a future of underdevelopment and decline.

European TUC general secretary Bernadette Ségol has noted that EU policies “are attacking industrial relations system, are putting pressure on wages, are weakening public services and weakening social protection…the core aspects of the social model”.

So in the Humpty Dumpty world of the EU ‘social Europe’ is really ‘anti-social Europe’.

The reality is that EU treaties are based on Thatcherite economics which ban large-scale public investment to stimulate demand so preventing even the possibility of full employment.

The EU-led attack on trade union rights has been most intense in countries receiving financial ‘bail outs’ which really only pay the debt owned by Europe’s largest banks rather than the country itself.

In Greece, Spain and Italy companies are now legally entitled to set worse terms of employment under the guise of EU demands to increase economic ‘competitiveness’.

The EU insists austerity will increase ‘competitiveness’. But as Greek bosses drive down wages dramatically there is no sign of economic improvement. In fact, these attacks have directly led to a weakening of the Greek economy.

Working people across Europe are sick and tired of the EU business model of fiscal fascism and polls in Britain show that voters want a referendum on EU membership. So why not give them a referendum?

The No2EU campaign will be standing in the 2014 Euro elections under the slogan ‘No2EU -Yes to Workers’ Rights’. The neoliberal Tory-boys of UKIP should not have a monopoly for opposing a corporate-dominated, anti-democratic EU whose policies they largely support.

The EU supports the privatisation of public transport, so does UKIP. UKIP opposes real workers’ rights, so does the EU.

Our movement created the basis for democracy in the 19th century with The Chartists and the demand for universal suffrage which is now being taken from us in the 21st century by the EU.

The only rational course is to leave the EU and rebuild Britain with socialist policies.

www.tuaeuc.org/no2eu-wp/?page_id=335

Both announcements were made earlier this year but there doesn't seem to be any information yet about when candidate lists might be announced.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

A pan-Europe prediction: www.europeanvoice.com/article/2014/february/votewatch/79726.aspx

The S+D group being the largest would be a major upheaval, given that the appointment of Barroso's successor as President of the Council is supposed to take account of the result of the election.

[Devonian]

Martin Schulz has been formally adopted as the PES common candidate for President of the European Commision

www.dw.de/schulz-aims-for-the-top-in-eu-election/a-17466477

[Devonian]

New Pollwatch 2014 prediction

S&D 209 EPP 202 GUE/NGL 67 ALDE 61 ECR 45 Greens/EFA 44 EFD 31 NI 92

blog.electio2014.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/PollWatch2014-tables-5-March-2014-forecast.pdf

[Devonian]

Pollwatch2014's summary

The headline results are:

1) the Socialists remain slightly ahead of EPP, on 209 seats to 202; and

2) support for protest and anti-European forces, on both the right and the left of the Parliament, remains strong. In particular, the radical left group European United Left (GUE-NGL) move up to third place, ahead of the Liberals (ALDE).

GUE-NGL have replaced ALDE in third due to the rise of the Tsipras List in Italy and the Left Bloc in Portugal. The break-up of the major parties in Romania has also precipitated a fall in the total number of seats for the ALDE-aligned National Liberal Party (PNL)[...]

With several new parties from a number of member states, we expect there to be enough MEPs from enough member states for three groups to emerge on the right of the EPP: the current ECR and EFD (or their new incarnations), and a new group led by the French National Front (FN) and Dutch Party of Freedom (PVV). Until the membership of this group is confirmed, we have left these parties and their potential allies either as “non-attached” or in their current groups.[...]

www.pollwatch2014.eu/pollwatch_blog