IN the excellent brochure produced for last weekend's Annual Conference there were 16 pages dedicated to next year's European Elections.
It was a briefing for delegates on the D'Hondt voting system, which is used for these elections, as well as the results the last time the elections were contested in 2004 and the changes that have taken place since then.
With the Conference having effectively launched our campaign for June 2009, it is worthwhile taking a closer look at the North West constituency in these elections where BNP chairman Nick Griffin, is our lead candidate and where many political pundits believe the BNP has its best chance of success.
Nick will give the election in this constituency a certain celebrity status with the media spotlight focussing on the BNP's high profile chairman and while this will no doubt help our campaign, it will be the hard work by our election teams in the 43 local authorities that make up the North West Euro Constituency which will in the end decide whether we win our first seat in Europe or not.
Back in 2004 we came agonisingly close to winning a seat - 31,727 votes short which was just 1.5% of the total vote. Unfortunately this time around because of the new countries joining the European Union, Britain has lost a number of its seats in the European Parliament and in the North West we now have just eight seats up for grabs rather than the nine in 2004. But thankfully, because of the nature of the D'Hondt voting system, that doesn't make that much difference. It just means that that based on 2004 voting patterns we would need another 33,842 votes (1.6%) to take the last and eighth seat on offer.
But of course, the voting patterns next June will be very different from 2004 because of the collapse of the UK Independence Party which could mean that as much as 90% of UKIP vote will go elsewhere. While we will hope to pick up some of this, the lion's share will go back to the Tories from where it came, and because the Tories took that 8th seat in 2004 this might raise the percentage needed to win that seat. However this might well be compensated by the fall in the Labour vote which could once again drop the percentage needed to win the eighth seat back to around 8%.
European Election
North West Constituency
June 2004
Labour Party 576,388 (27.3%)
Conservative Party 509,446 (24.1%)
Liberal Democrats 335,063 (15.8%)
UK Independence Party 257,158 (12.2%)
British National Party 134,959 (6.4%)
Green Party 117,393 (5.6%)
Liberal Party 96,325 (4.6%)
English Democrats Party 34,110 (1.6%)
Respect 24,636 (1.2%)
Countryside Party 11,283 (0.5%)
ProLife 10,084 (0.5%)
Independent 8,318 (0.4%)
Total votes: 2,115,163
2004 9 Seats:
1st seat - Lab 27.3%
2nd seat - Con 24.1%
3rd seat - LD 15.8%
4th seat - Lab 13.7%
5th seat - UKIP 12.2%
6th seat - Con 12.1%
7th seat - Lab 9.1%
8th Seat - Con 8.0%
9th Seat - LD 7.9%
BNP 31,727 votes short of a seat last time with 9 seats available.
BNP 33,842 votes short of a seat based on 8 seats.
BNP would need to poll a total of 168,801 votes to win a seat in June based on 2004 turnout and vote split.
More info on the D'Hondt Voting System here
Tomorrow I'll take a more in-depth look at the votes needed in the 43 local authority for the BNP to win a seat, and the results we have achieved in these areas in local elections over the past 18 months.
1 comment:
Judging by UKIP's recent refusal to enter into an election pact with the BNP it's clear that UKIP want to distance themselves from the BNP. In so doing UKIP have demonstrated how close they are to the Tories. My assessment is that UKIP are effectively the Tory right that political correctness deemed beyond the modern Tory pale. As you say, many UKIPpers will scuttle back to the Tory fold.
I don't think too many white Labour supporters could ever be attracted to UKIP because of UKIP's Tory underbelly. The fact that many white Labour supporters are sick of political correctness, multiculturalism, EU meddling and mass immigration means that their new natural home is the BNP rather than UKIP.
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