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Post by carlton43 on Feb 15, 2014 19:40:26 GMT
Wow! Thanks Devonian. Glad to see anti-EU National Front doing so well. We may have a really good bloc in the Euro Parl this year. If so, we can start to really take it to them, block up proceedings and make waves over the budget and the unaudited accounts. The fight-back gets under way. Oh, Carlton. Don't grieve Dok, I am a lifetime Provencaliste and it is the party 'down there' with most of my friends enthusiastic supporters. It is a bit about the old Algerie-Francais days (yes I am that old!) and a lot about stuff Paris and the townie lefties. They are not the BNP with bad provincial accents. |
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cibwr
Plaid Cymru
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Post by cibwr on Feb 15, 2014 20:17:45 GMT
They have to go a long way to convince me of that.
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Tony Otim
Green
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Post by Tony Otim on Feb 15, 2014 20:57:53 GMT
For the socialists to be below their 2009 performance is pretty shocking...
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Feb 15, 2014 21:04:29 GMT
They have to go a long way to convince me of that. For various reasons I don't think you're the kind of voter that they need to convince |
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seanf
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Post by seanf on Feb 16, 2014 7:51:28 GMT
UKIP won't be part of the same group as FN after 22nd May. Clearly, both parties are likely to vote the same way on EU-related issues.
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cibwr
Plaid Cymru
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Post by cibwr on Feb 16, 2014 10:22:53 GMT
They have to go a long way to convince me of that. For various reasons I don't think you're the kind of voter that they need to convince No probably not, though on this issue I am fairly much part of the mainstream, they have been an out and out racist party, Holocaust deniers and generally right wing loons. To say nothing of having the same sort of thugs that have been attracted to neofascist parties through out the world. Can Carlton provide any evidence that they have repudiated their past and now embrace anti racism for example? |
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Post by Devonian on Feb 16, 2014 10:54:57 GMT
UKIP won't be part of the same group as FN after 22nd May. Clearly, both parties are likely to vote the same way on EU-related issues. It is somewhat doubtful that both UKIP and the FN will be able to form a group in the next parliament, initially at least. In order to form an official group there have to be at least 25 MEPs from at least a quarter of the countries in the Union. i.e. 25 MEPs from at least 7 countries. In 2009 the FN was unable to form a group that achieved either of these criteria and it has had to sit with the non attached in this parliament. This time the FN and Geert Wilders' PVV have already announced an intention to form a group in the next parliament however there is some doubt if they will be able to do this. The Lega Nord of Italy (presently in UKIP's group) the FPÖ of Austria, and the VB of Belgium have all expressed an interest in joining this group. However they still need MEPs from two other countries. They won't want to include any overtly anti semitic parties so that rules out Jobbik from Hungary and Golden Dawn from Greece. The Danish People's Party has ruled out joint this group and is likely to stay in the UKIP group. The Swedish Democrats has close ties to the Danish People's Party so for that reason as well as domestic political reasons is also likely to join the UKIP group. For similar reasons the True Finns may decide to stay in the UKIP group. UKIP may also have difficulty forming a group as some the parties in its existing group are likely to loose the seats (in France, Bulgaria and Greece for example). This may particularly be the case if the Lega Nord decide to leave its group. Some people in Germany's AfD have expressed and interest in joining with UKIP but the party leader Bernd Lucke has said he wants to join the Conservative Party's group. AfD policy is for a partial break up of the Euro currency rather than the EU itself and is thus closer to the Conservative position rather than the UKIP position. Having said that i don't doubt that there are those in AfD who are closer to the UKIP position and indeed Farage has been to Germany for talks with senior members of AfD, although not with Lucke himself. So whilst its highly likely that at least one group will be formed initially, led by the the FN or UKIP, it seems unlikely that they will both manage it. However that may change over the course of the parliament with MEPs falling out with their own parties. For example the EFD group presently includes one MEP each from Bulgaria and Belgium who left the parties they were elected for. Also the FN was briefly able to form a group in 2007 in part because they were joined by Ashley Mote, who of course had been previously kicked out of UKIP. |
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seanf
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Post by seanf on Feb 16, 2014 12:30:15 GMT
Devonian,
I think that's a good summary. Marine Le Pen is pretty irritated that UKIP won't link up, but it would be unwise domestically for UKIP to do so.
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Post by carlton43 on Feb 16, 2014 12:41:52 GMT
You serious, I know the French National Front is not quite the NF in the UK but they aren't far off at times, a revolting party of the extreme right - or you just indulging in a wind up. In truth....a bit of both. |
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Post by carlton43 on Feb 16, 2014 12:50:28 GMT
For various reasons I don't think you're the kind of voter that they need to convince No probably not, though on this issue I am fairly much part of the mainstream, they have been an out and out racist party, Holocaust deniers and generally right wing loons. To say nothing of having the same sort of thugs that have been attracted to neofascist parties through out the world. Can Carlton provide any evidence that they have repudiated their past and now embrace anti racism for example? I am not in this 'evidence game' and I don't need to be, for I am not asserting merely giving an opinion based on very small scale personal observation. The party changed over time, when Le Pen pere left, when the old guard died off, as it grew bigger, etc., etc. It still has distinctly rough edges but fewer of them and it does represent a lot of people for a raft of reasons. Most of those people are perfectly normal C, D and E Frenchmen who distrust the north, the socialists, the communists and Paris. We have the same tendency growing here in England now. If, as I suspect, Ed wins next year, then it will grow much faster. A Labour win will actually help UKIP quite a lot. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2014 12:51:52 GMT
There are too many levels in the far to hard right and too much division - sufficient that not all will be happy with the construction of groups:
Golden Dawn are possibly too xenophobic even for the BNP, who in turn are too much for the fascist-lite NF, then Lega Nord + UKIP + Danish Peoples, then AfD.
It would be logical for 5 separate groups to be set up: Neo-nazi, Fascist, Fascist-lite, Populist Anti-Immigrant, Liberal Eurosceptic. I don't think there will be room for 5 groups of increasing scepticism from the ECR. AfD will probably have to choose from ECR and EFD. The NF will probably not be allowed to join the AfD and will not want to join any overtly fascist grouping.
I wouldn't agree with Carlton that Lega Nord are all that bad, certainly no more extreme than the UKIP. Definitely not fascistic, not even really all that eurosceptic.
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Post by carlton43 on Feb 16, 2014 13:02:01 GMT
In broad terms i agree with all that Joe. The good news is that each nation is tending to assert itself though a nationalist party of the right and that there is an imperative to link up in common cause. Perhaps we can attempt a re-write of the European political history of the 20s/30s with an Anti-Socialist International...and this time get it right and succeed?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2014 13:07:36 GMT
In broad terms i agree with all that Joe. The good news is that each nation is tending to assert itself though a nationalist party of the right and that there is an imperative to link up in common cause. Perhaps we can attempt a re-write of the European political history of the 20s/30s with an Anti-Socialist International...and this time get it right and succeed? I think its important the mainstream right are pulled to be more eurosceptic. A missmash of fascists and populists isn't going to win by itself. I follow the progress of AfD with real interest - they are the type of party needed to bring an OUT vote into the mainstream in the continent. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Feb 16, 2014 16:10:53 GMT
The FN are a truly unusual mix- the fascists, the old-fashioned Catholic tendency, various shades of eurosceptic and nationalist...
If that party had existed in the Twenties and early Thirties, I suspect it would have formed a government.
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Post by Devonian on Feb 17, 2014 19:36:34 GMT
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Feb 17, 2014 19:41:19 GMT
Sure, handpicking only the parties which are progressing is even more misleading than the Liberal Democrat bar charts.
And I'm not sure than all those parties like being on the same chart than Golden Dawn, which is literally murdering immigrants and opponents.
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Post by iainbhx on Feb 17, 2014 20:24:33 GMT
And I'm not sure than all those parties like being on the same chart than Golden Dawn, which is literally murdering immigrants and opponents. Strangely, Jobbie, sorry, Jöbbik don't feature on that list. I'm sure they wouldn't mind. |
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Feb 17, 2014 22:15:20 GMT
And I'm not sure than all those parties like being on the same chart than Golden Dawn, which is literally murdering immigrants and opponents. Strangely, Jobbie, sorry, Jöbbik don't feature on that list. I'm sure they wouldn't mind. Jobbik did 15% at last European and is currently polling lower than that (13-14% right now). |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 19, 2014 13:20:39 GMT
The restrictions on forming a group (25 meps from 7 nations, is it?), will be significant if the far/extreme right do well.
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Post by erlend on Feb 20, 2014 20:55:21 GMT
It is a ludicrous rule and very anti democratic. You could imagine a situation where we had a Conservative prime minister and he had 30 Eurosceptic MEPs and they were not allowed to be a group even though their votes might be decisive in lots of votes but they had no other group to join. In Westminster (not somewhere I regularly praise) we don't say that PC have to to have say 20 seats before they get recognition. I think it is a group if it has 2 seats.
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