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The European Elections
The European Parliamentary election results demonstrated a number of things. Voters clearly want politicians who are committed to principles and not their pockets. They also showed that voters do not want Britain to be integrated into a European super state and want a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. And they showed that the cosy consensus on free market capitalism shared by the leaderships of the three main parties at Westminster is not supported by the mass of working people.
First of all, most people did not vote at all which suggests little interest in the European Parliament. Secondly, the euro sceptic parties together secured a substantial majority of votes, and thirdly all three main parties did not do well.
28.6% for the Conservatives was hardly a vote of confidence. The Liberal Democrats came fourth, with a reduced vote at 13.7% and Labour on 15.3% came third behind UKIP. The Conservatives were cock-a-hoop, but 28.6% of the 34.3% national voter turnout means that less than one in ten voters actually turned out to support them. For Labour and the Lib Dems it was far worse of course, and a large vote for parties not represented at Westminster was a message for all of the big three.
The truth is that voter turnouts in Britain have been falling since the 1980s and the underlying cause is undoubtedly the narrowing philosophical and policy differences between the parties. Our Parliamentary leaders are quietly in agreement on globalisation, privatisation and free market capitalism. I have to say that I speak out against this economic conspiracy at every turn - and in my maiden speech in Parliament 12 years ago I said that I had come to Parliament to oppose neo-liberalism, which is jargon for unconstrained global capitalism run by bankers and the mega corporations. That neo-liberalism has brought us all to the brink of catastrophe, with governments now going into full reverse and using billions of pounds of taxpayers' money to shore up the banks - just in the nick of time. And it is not over yet.
If we are going to cope with economic crisis, climate change, inequality, economic instability and poverty, we are going to have to re-invent a social democratic world, like that established at the end of World War Two. This was a world of government managed economies, with substantial state sectors, redistributive taxation, publicly owned and publicly run public services and good worker and trade union rights.
This was also a world which worked, with full employment and jobs for all, with rising living standards and a high degree of equality and social justice. Banking was regulated and there were controls on finance capital and on trade. Labour and Conservative governments either supported or at least went along with these arrangements until the mad monetarists - led by the loopy Chicago economists under Milton Friedman took over and trashed that sensible post-war world.
I shall continue to argue for the creation of a modern version of that world, and any party which puts such proposals into its manifesto will surely do well at the next election. Having argued publicly for such policies month after month during my time in Parliament, I hope that what I have been advocating was a small contributory factor to Labour's relatively good performance in Luton in the European elections. Labour's results were undoubtedly bad across the country as a whole, but remarkably good in Luton where we retained our position as the number one party and with a slight increase in our total votes since last time.
I shall continue to advocate democratic socialist policies.
Kelvin Hopkins MP
©Kelvin Hopkins 2009
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