Why the European elections matter

(Spoiler: if you support Brexit or Nigel Farage, don’t bother reading on)

These elections matter for two reasons. Firstly, at a national level they are effectively a referendum on Brexit, and on the two main parties. But at a European level they represent a coordinated move by right wing nationalist parties to take over the European Parliament and undermine it from within.

How you vote matters on both counts, which is why this is not a normal British election, using instead something called the the D’Hondt method which assigns seats on a proportional system.

Firstly, let’s look at the UK. If you oppose Brexit then you are faced with a number of parties that are openly anti-Brexit. These are the Liberal Democrats, Greens, and Change UK in England, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the SNP in Scotland.

Labour has not come out as anti-Brexit. Whilst many good Labour politicians, and the Labour mayor of London, are trying to campaign as anti-Brexit, pro-European politicians, Jeremy Corbyn and his team are undermining this by continuing to be ambiguous on Brexit. This is because Jeremy Corbyn wants to force a general election more than anything else. He also wants the UK to leave the EU, so he is trying to play a clever tactical game that will somehow not stop the UK leaving the EU, but will force the Conservatives to fail…