Denial continues as European elections see record low turnout
The real story about today’s results for the European parliamentary elections is one that is barely being talked about: turnout fell to a new record low of 42.8 percent. Since it is compulsory to vote in some European countries — Greece, Belgium, Cyprus and Luxembourg — that is an astoundingly poor figure.
The obvious conclusion to draw is that a solid majority of European voters feel little or no connection with the European project being pushed on their behalf and without their consent. The fact that turnout is falling rather than rising in European elections suggests that the premises underlying the integrationist model of European cooperation are false — the peoples of Europe are not merging into a single European people; they are less not more focused on EU politics; they are more not less focused on the domestic arena.
But the situation is even worse than the raw turnout figures suggest. In several countries in Europe, many people who did actually participate in the election voted for parties which either reject outright or are sceptical of the European Union. In Britain, for example, the United Kingdom Independence Party beat the ruling Labour Party into third place. Combined with the Conservative Party — itself eurosceptic — more than 40 percent of those British voters who could be bothered to vote plumped for mainstream parties which are sceptical of the European Union.
The terrible turnout in these elections comes in the wake of a series of referendums in recent years on closer integration which have been rejected by voters and then ignored by Brussels. It is a drip drip process in which the people of Europe become ever more angry at the way things are going and the elites in Europe continue to deny that there is a problem. We are heading for a big and painful clash with reality.