on a single list for Europe: 2009 results based on one constituency

Elections to the European Parliament are done by Proportional Representation (either STV or party list) as stipulated by the rules for all elections to the European Parliament across Europe. In countries such as Italy, Germany and Spain, parties (or party groupings) present a list to the electorate across the entire country and on the basis of this, seats are allocated to each party.

The rules do allow for subdivision of voters and here in the UK we have opted to subdivide by English regions and the principalities of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. What would the outcome of the 2009 European Parliament elections in the UK, had we adopted one list for the entire country?

Taking the results of the national vote from the BBC and using icon's Election calculus simulator the following results would be achieved:

As you can see (or not, sorry for the rubbish image quality) the Conservatives would be most disadvantaged by a countrywide list losing 4 MEP's based on their actual results last night, the Greens would gain by picking up an extra 4 MEP's taking them up to 6 with the BNP going up to 4 from 2. Interestingly, if a threshold were applied, a tool usually used to keep out extremist parties, the BNP would have gone up to 5.

Plaid Cymru would not have gained any seats, but the SNP would.

Things to note:

Germany uses a 5% threshold for EU elections

The figures do not include Northern Ireland which elects their MEP's using the Single Transferable Vote system

Had the Lisbon Treaty been ratified the UK would have 73 instead of 72 MEP's, which means excluding Northern Ireland an increase from 69 to 70 MEPs, if this were the case the Greens would gain one more seat without a threshold and UKIP with a threshold

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on releasing exit polls early

Under the rules of the European Parliament elections, exit polls are not to be reported until polls across all of the European Union have closed.

This seems to have been lost on the Dutch who once again have released their results early. However according to EUobserver Bulgarian media outlets have released theirs early through the use of the weather, music charts and other clever 'codes'.

On a day where the temperatures have in reality reached above 35 degrees, the temperature at the city hall – home to the mayor and leader of the centre-right Gerb party, Boyko Borisov - has oddly dropped to 25.5 degrees, the Bgnes news agency reports.

Meanwhile, near the governing Socialists' headquarters the temperature is an even chillier 20 degrees, it says.

The number of degrees Celsius are a none-too-subtle code for the percentage the parties are supposed to have obtained.

Wind speed, code for voter turnout, was 26 metres per second at around 5:30 p.m., it also reported.

Other news agencies have used books to report on the results, stating:

38 percent of people had gone to buy books by 6.00 p.m. on Sunday.

Read the article, hilarious stuff.

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on Alan Johnson as Home Secretary

Is Alan Johnson simply naive? Does he not realise the Home Office will eat his career, dead or alive? Or will he do a Roy Jenkins and be a liberal Home Secretary? He seems like a 'nice' guy, when you consider those who will surround him at the Cabinet table.

If Alan Johnson wants to make a name for himself, he should consider backing proposals from the Liberal Democrat Freedom Bill. If Labour has a chance of winning the next election the win would be as a result of the Home Office or Number 11, with Alastair Darling content with being quiet and keeping out of Ed Balls' way the logical conclusion is for a change in Home Office policy.

A few things Alan Johnson should do (or maybe Jack Straw?) to make a positive name for himself and which would propel him into Number 10 in the next few months:

• Scrap ID's cards and dismiss them as not fit for purpose, then apologise and point out how much you have saved by not going ahead with it
• Allow protests in Parliament Square and protests of the right to assemble in groups larger than 2 - lord knows they are going to increase, but so what? People need to let off steam
• Remove innocent people from the DNA database - accusations can damage a persons life, non more so than the feeling of violation, knowing that somewhere out there someone can see all your details. Even more shocking when you consider the police are targeting problem children and harvesting their DNA for future use.

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on the new English Democrat mayor

The English Democrats have their first elected Mayor.

The party which was born out of the Campaign for an English Parliament has won the Mayoral election in Doncaster, their candidate Peter Davies winning with 25,344. In recent times the party has come under criticism for being racist.

Among his planned policies:

• a cut in councillor numbers from 63 to 21
• scrapping the authority’s newspaper
• capping of the mayor’s salary at a maximum £30,000 a year
• referendum on the future governance of the borough
• end to council literature being translated into other languages

Hmm

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on Labour winning this Thursday anyway

Gordon Brown may lose this Thursday, but Labour will still win regardless of the outcome. This is thanks to David Cameron.

If elections were truly European, this Thursday you would be voting for either the Party of European Socialists, the Movement for European Reform, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe or one of the other party groups in the European Parliament. Even though we aren't, secretly, we are.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the European Parliament is keen to make its presence felt, as a result an interesting state of affairs could develop this Thursday. Should the Predict 09.EU current prediction for the 2009 European Parliament elections hold true, the Party of European Socialists (of which Labour is a member) will become the largest party in the European Parliament.

This is significant as it is brought about solely by David Cameron's decision to leave the main EPP-ED party grouping and form his own party grouping with right wing parties from Poland and the Czech Republic.

The balance of power in Parliament, according to Predict09 would still be split 42% centre right and 40% centre left with the liberals in the middle on 12%. Below is the predicted makeup of the party groupings following the election:

Party Grouping	UK Party	Predicted MEP's	Percentage in Parliament
ID	UKIP	19	3%
non	two former Conservative MEPs	26	4%
Greens	Greens	42	6%
EUL		44	6%
UEN		62	8%
MER	Conservatives	64	9%
ALDE	Lib Dems	88	12%
EPP		184	25%
PES	Labour	207	28%

A second term Barroso presidency could not be guaranteed and one cannot rule out a PES member becoming President of the European Commission, if a compromise candidate between the centre-left and the liberals could be found. In addition, the composition is important as in the European Parliament Rules of Procedure (Rule 177 which isn't expected to be changed substantially in 2009):

Members of committees and committees of inquiry shall be elected after nominations have been submitted by the political groups and the non-attached Members. The Conference of Presidents shall submit proposals to Parliament. The composition of the committees shall, as far as possible, reflect the composition of Parliament.

Which means most committees would again have a larger PES representation, as it would be the largest party in the European Parliament. Coupled with this, the Polish sister party of the Conservatives in David Cameron's Movement for European Reform have stated that they will not be whipped, creating even more disorganisation in their structure.

David Cameron has unwittingly given Labour control of the European Parliament, he has done so by deciding to side with parties who believe global warming is a lie and that homosexuality is a disease. As the Guardian puts it:

If the EPP can claim to be an alliance of winners, Cameron's new caucus looks like a coalition of losers. In Poland, the Kaczy´nskis' party will lose the election this weekend, taking perhaps 15 of 50 seats. In government from 2005-2007, the Kaczy´nskis' PiS formed a coalition with extremists and ultra-nationalists, conducted witchhunts of opponents, pursued deeply illiberal policies and was turfed out of office as a national embarrassment.

[...]

In the Czech Republic, Topolánek has just been toppled as prime minister and his ODS will also probably lose the election. The party's founder and Topolánek's enemy, President Václav Klaus, is Europe's leading climate change denier and views the European Union as synonymous with the Soviet Union. Brussels is the new Moscow.

David Cameron having dodged the issue of the EPP since his election as Conservative Party leader, appears to have made a catastrophic decision. Expect U-turns come Monday, buried amongst Gordon Brown's reshuffle (or resignation).

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on the President of the European Commission

How Europe chooses its President:

The Council, meeting in the composition of Heads of State or Government and acting by a qualified majority, shall nominate the person it intends to appoints as President of the Commission; the nomination shall be approved by the European Parliament.

The Council, acting by a qualified majority and by common accord with the nominee for President, shall adopt the list of the other persons whom it intends to appoints as Members of the Commission, drawn up in accordance with the proposals made by each Member State.

The President and the other Members of the Commission thus nominated shall be subject as a body to a vote of approval by the European Parliament. After approval by the European Parliament, the President and the other Members of the Commission shall be appointed by the Council, acting by a qualified majority.

-Article 214 of The Treaty Establishing the European Community (as amended by Nice) Paragraph 2

What this means is Gordon Brown, Sarkozy, Merkel et al. (The Council) get together and after much discussion about fromage nominates a candidate for President of the European Commission (Monsieur le Président), the European Parliament elected by you and I then vote on if this is an acceptable candidate. If they say yes the candidate then puts forwards names of his Commissioners to The Council he would love to have in his College of Commissioners (his Cabinet, but try not to use that word), in effect these names are given to him by 'The Council' anyway as there needs to be one from each member state.

The full list is then voted on by The Council, and if this vote is passed the College and the President is presented to the European Parliament as a full body. If the European Parliament says 'we love 'em' then you would think that was the end of that, however, The Council has to again vote on the President and the Commission and his College as a full body, if this vote of The Council passes then we have an EU President and Commission.

The President is no ceremonial President. He or she directs the Commission politically (Article 217(1)), in effect ensuring that the College stays in check and doesn't mouth off outside, similar to the British cabinet. They allocate responsibilities no different to a British Prime Minister without outside approval (Paragraph 2), and can sack Commissioners without outside approval (Paragraph 4) although they do require the rest of the College of Commissioners to vote for this sacking. More importantly, the Commission has the sole right of legislative initiative not the Parliament.

Interestingly, should a Commissioner be sacked, the Council replaces them by a vote. Although the European Parliament may be consulted, their approval is not required. In 1999 however, due to pressure from the European Parliament over allegations of fraud, the entire Santer Commission resigned. Article 201 of the current Treaty gives Parliament the right to dismiss the entire Commission.

This shows that the European Parliament does have some power, which it is not afraid to use.

As the saying goes, the smaller the prize the more ferocious the fight, the European Parliament has proven itself effective in using every tool given to it by the Treaties, rejecting for example José Manuel Barroso's first list of Commissioners.

You can expect them to kick up even more of a fight when they reconvene in July.

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