Simon Edge’s guide to the European elections

You wouldn’t normally put the words ‘exciting’ and ‘European elections’ in the same sentence, but this week’s poll to elect the UK’s 73 representatives to the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg (it still sits in both places) is far from normal.

The campaign has been dominated by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), whose sudden rise either represents a popular uprising against establishment politics and the tyranny of the European Union, or an ugly xenophobic rejection of the spirit of tolerance and diversity that has become a hallmark of modern Britain. Given that UKIP campaigned stridently against gay marriage and many of its candidates explicitly court the hardline anti-gay vote, there are no prizes for guessing which view we take here at Attitude.

What exactly are we voting for?

The Europe-wide election is for all the seats in the European Parliament. In this country they are organised into 12 electoral regions – London, South East England, South West England, East of England, East Midlands, West Midlands, North West England, North East England, Yorkshire and the Humber, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – which each have several seats. You vote for a party not a person, and the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are taken from a party list – so if a party gets one seat, the top candidate on the list is elected, while if it gets two, the top two are elected, and so on. Unlike elections to the House of Commons which use the first-past-the-post system, these are held under proportional representation, meaning that small parties get a look in as well as big ones. In Northern Ireland they use a system called single transferrable vote (STV). On Thursday the voters of England and Northern Ireland are also electing their local councillors. That’s the reason there has been such a focus in the past few weeks on people like Ukip candidate Gordon Ferguson, who thinks Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem voters should all be hanged. This scary extremist is standing for election as a local councillor.

Who can vote?

Anyone over 18 who is a British citizen living in the UK, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen living in the UK, or an EU citizen living in the UK can vote – although EU citizens can only vote in the Euro elections if they are not voting in their home member state. But you had to register by May 6. If you did, you should have your polling card by now. You don’t need to take it with you to vote.

Why do the elections matter?

Normally, not many people think they do. Last time we elected MEPs, in 2009, only a third of those eligible to vote bothered to do so. The vast majority of peoplE – including the politically savvy – can’t name their MEP, and it’s not as if we’re electing a European government: There’s no winner, and the parties simply sit in groups in the European Parliament, but the relevant strength of the various groupings does have some influence on EU policy, and the election is also importance as a litmus test of political feeling at home. If UKIP is the most popular party, as opinion polls are now suggesting, it will strengthen the Europhobic wing of the Conservative Party and could shift the entire centre of gravity of British domestic politics to the right.

How will it affect the LGBT community?

Directly, not that much. If UKIP had triumphed before gay marriage had passed into law, David Cameron would have come under greater pressure to ditch the policy in order to appease his right-wing backbenchers, but now we’ve achieved full legislative equality in Britain (though not in Northern Ireland) there isn’t any specific looming danger. On the other hand, many people would feel it’s a step backwards to be represented by people who say gay marriage caused this winter’s floods, and it doesn’t say a lot for the spirit of tolerance in 21st century Britain if we elect a party led by a man who says he’d be upset if Romanians move in next door.

So who else should we vote for?

On LGBT issues, all the parties have decent credentials nowadays. The Tory-led government gave us same-sex marriage, with the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary all arguing passionately in favour. On the other hand the policy actually originated with the Lib Dem junior partners in the government, who have the best record on gay equality of the major parties at Westminster. And it wouldn’t have got through without the support of Labour MPs, whose government previously delivered an equal age of consent, abolished Section 28 and made it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality in employment or the provision of goods and services. So which party you supports depends more on your personal politics. If you think Labour wrecked the economy with wasteful spending and mismanagement, you should probably vote Tory. If you are appalled by the government’s welfare cuts, you should probably vote Labour. If you were horrified by the Iraq war, Tony Blair’s contempt for civil liberties and Gordon Brown’s grovelling to bankers, then you may want to vote Lib Dem or Green (parties that are currently neck and neck in the opinion polls). And in Scotland and Wales of course you have the choice of the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru. In Northern Ireland, the province’s own parties are standing.

What about LGBT candidates?

The most famous one is standing down. Michael Cashman was the EastEnders star who set up Stonewall before getting elected as Labour MEP for the West Midlands in 1999. He is retiring this year. One of the few LGBT MEPs standing for re-election is Nikki Sinclaire, also a West Midlands MEP, who was elected for UKIP but left the party after a bust-up with Nigel Farage. She’s since continued to attack him in highly personalised terms in the media, while he called her ‘mad’ in an interview with Attitude. Now sitting for her own single-issue We Demand A Referendum party, she was openly lesbian when she was elected and has recently come out as transsexual, making her Britain’s most senior openly trans politician. The Lib Dem MEP for the East of England, Andrew Duff, is also openly gay. He is standing for re-election alongside several out LIb Dem candidates including Jonathan Fryer in London and Giles Goodall in the South East of England (which includes Brighton).

What is the outcome likely to be?

It’s anyone’s guess. If UKIP do as well as predicted, and go on to win the Newark by-election on June 5, it could throw the Tory party into turmoil and do lasting damage to the Conservatives at next year’s general election – to the benefit of Labour, the Lib Dems or both. But it could also send out a depressing message about the kind of country we are. An existing UKIP councillor is on record as saying he’d like to shoot one “poofter” to see if it would encourage another 99 to convert to heterosexuality. You’d think that publicity like that would have destroyed the party, but it doesn’t seem to have put off their vocal, passionate supporters, whom one of their leaders has described in quasi-Fascist terms as “the People’s Army”. If you want to stop this army taking over the country we have all worked to build, then all you need to do is vote. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, and under proportional representation it won’t be wasted. But make no mistake, if you remotely care about this, you need to go to the polls tomorrow (May 22). An abstention is a vote for UKIP.

Words: Simon Edge