How come, if we (UK) all voted on Thursday, the results aren’t available at exactly 21:00 tonight?

Because like everything else in this country, it doesn’t work.

😀

I thought it was because we were waiting for all the countries which are sensible enough to have elections on a Sunday ?

Oh – I can understand that we can’t announce until the ballot boxes have closed across the rest of the EU, but surely we could have had them all counted and ready to announce?

yup – which is 21.00 tonight

TandemJeremy – Member

yup – which is 21.00 tonight

Which has come and gone.

sorry – being hard of thinking Doh!

Looks like although we were amongst the first to vote our results will be up last. Probably down to a disagreement over expenses.

The Germans, Polish and others all voted today and we already have their results. 😕

Since when has vote counting been a matter of national pride?

I’m very proud of my ‘counting abilities’ CaptJon.

Results are starting to come in now – slowly.

so far 1 in 11 have voted Nazi, it could get worse, this is awful 🙁

The BNP now have their first MEP. For 70 years British fascists have been waiting for a serious electoral breakthrough. Today they got it.

In Yorkshire and Humber. Don’t you just wish that the Russian bomber that got to within 12 miles of Hull a few months back was carrying Nuclear weapons…

A very bad day for politics. They got their first seat with over 120,000 votes!

I really hope it’s a one off.

Next time it’ll be BNP and UKIP all the way if Brown and Cameron keep playing their games.

Not looking likely that the BNP will get another seat from London’s results.

So, just Northerners electing a BNP fascist Nazi dirty racist scum bastard to the EP, then. Nice, friendly, welcoming Northerners…

What shocks me is that around 300 million people didn’t even vote!

Maybe 60% of the EU population don’t think that the Brussels parliament is that important.

Perhaps they don’t know much about it.

Who knows, but with such a low turnout one could question the validity of the results!

They got their first seat with over 120,000 votes!

To put it perspective, Yorkshire and Humber has a population of approx 5.1 million.

So that’s about 5 million people in Yorkshire and Humber who didn’t feel the urge to vote for the BNP.

Still a bad day for everyone who is opposed to fascism though.

RudeBoy – your post was steeped in hate-filled racism 😯

sickening that nazis should win a seat 65 years after d-day

Soz, Ernie; but you hear so much of this ‘Northerners are so friendly etc etc’, and Southerners are ‘orrible and nasty, yet where did the BNP get elected?

**** disgraceful. I won’t go as far as saying that many people in the Yorkshire/Humberside area are thick ignorant Cs, but maybe more education is needed in those communities.

No intelligent free-thinking person would vote Nazi.

So, just Northerners electing a BNP fascist Nazi dirty racist scum bastard to the EP, then. Nice, friendly, welcoming Northerners…

Good point, we’ve got a rich history of it up there. You’d never see fascism in London.

Maybe 60% of the EU population don’t think that the Brussels parliament is that important.

Perhaps they don’t know much about it.

perhaps they exactly know what EU is all about hence not voting?

Ah, trailmonkey; ever heard of the Cable Street Riots?

Rock against Racism?

(See that middle tower block? That’s where I grew up!)

Yeah, I’m in the crowd. Easy when it’s on your doorstep. Takes conviction aged 13 when you’ve got to make the journey on a coach from Brum.

To put it perspective, Yorkshire and Humber has a population of approx 5.1 million.

According to http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/html/ukregion_38.stm the actual voting population is 3.8 million (I’m guessing 1.3 million children). Shockingly only 1.2 million could be bothered to vote – what a dismal, dismal turnout that is. I’d really hoped for more, had in fact hoped for more healthy turnout than usual, since my theory at least was that the right thinking needed to vote to keep out the BNP – I certainly made sure to vote myself. The trouble is, it would seem that 2.6 million aren’t actually bothered about the BNP getting in. I find myself in the slightly strange position of wishing another 10,000 people had got off their backsides and voted for Labour (it would have needed another 60,000 voting Conservative, and I can’t bring myself to prefer UKIP getting 27,000 more, assuming I’m understanding the PR system correctly). Half of the idiots who voted for the Socialist Labour Party would have been enough.

I apologise.

On reflection, I think I’m out of order, to blame ‘Northerners’, for returning the first fascist MEP in Britain. It is a minority of ignorant, bigotted individuals, who’ve voted BNP. As I’m sure there are in all areas of Britain. I do find it disturbing, that the BNP seems to enjoy more support in certain areas of the country, though.

TM; my point was, in response to your reference to Oswald Mosely’s Blackshirts, is that London is also the place where Racism and Fascism have met with great resistance, and it’s this that should be recognised, over the activities of a tiny minority of people over 70 years ago.

Presumably the current apathy is due to the recent expenses fiasco where as far as I know, the BNP remained blameless. A lot of people who would have normally voted would have seen that their normal preference was a bit of a dodgy character and not bothered. It’s not that more people have voted BNP but less people have voted traditionally… That’s an assumption, I’ve not checked on stats.

You don’t get more ‘dodgy’ than a racist neo-nazi thug with a criminal record samuri.

And the BNP certainly has plenty of them. In fact more than any other other party. By far.

Presumably the current apathy is due to the recent expenses fiasco where as far as I know, the BNP remained blameless.

How TF is that relevant? The BNP don’t (yet) have any MPs in Parliament, so therefore coon’t be involved in any expenses claim thingy anyway.

PS: I’d like to apologise for my earlier comments about Northerners. Bit tired, and angry at the election results. No need for my knee-jerk narrow minded comments. Sorry.

Bed time for RudeBoy.

PS: I’d like to apologise for my earlier comments about Northerners.

Excellent ! I’ve discovered your Achilles’ heel ……. it’s being called a racist !

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ho Ho …………. RACIST !

How TF is that relevant? The BNP don’t (yet) have any MPs in Parliament, so therefore coon’t be involved in any expenses claim thingy anyway.

He’s commenting on the reasons people did/didn’t vote, not on why they should (same comment goes to GG) – I reckon he’s right. Unfortunately those who vote BNP in general aren’t intelligent enough and/or don’t follow things well enough to know that the BNP members are far more corrupt than any member of a major party, and as GG points out actually have criminal records.

I am allowed to suggest BNP voters are a bit thick aren’t I (I’d expect to get told off for generalising like that about any other group)? Though I’ve just realised I’m being a little unfair – some of them probably want a convicted corrupt thug to vote for.

But that’s my point. People are associating the traditional parties with theft and deception and therefore are avoiding voting for anyone associated with them.

edit: And we’ve already seen that people too thick to fold a piece of paper over are voting for the BNP

Thats got to be a first! Rudeboy actually thinking and then making an apology!

Sickning.

Funny how the U.S. elects a Black President.

U.K. is going downhill. Can’t wait to leave now.

Having thought about this, the problem is the system used to elect MEPs. I’m not suggesting that PR is a bad thing, simply that there is more than one type of PR. Not totally sure I understand all the systems, but I think STV would have stopped the BNP getting in without disadvantaging the other minor parties – certainly if they’d been using that I’d have ranked all the parties all the way down (yes even the Socialist Labour Party) apart from the BNP, just so that my vote got transferred to whoever stood the best chance of keeping them out. I’m fairly sure that the vast, vast majority of those who voted for any of the other parties would rather anybody but the BNP, hence them getting one seat out of 8 in the NW on only 8% of the vote isn’t actually vey good democracy. In a way you could describe the system used as first past the post PR!

Looking at the NW vote, UKIP would have only needed another 2,000 votes to keep Griffin out – however unappetising UKIP might be, they’re vastly preferable to the BNP, and if I voted there I’d be kicking myself for not voting UKIP.

In a way you could describe the system used as first past the post PR!

This is the thing that I don’t quite understand – I am broadly in favour of PR but this seems an odd system.