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Europe
Voters Reject French/German Government’s Iraq policy
2004-06-13
This is the BBC and of course this not their headline because that would require honesty and intellectual coherence.
Early results from elections to the European Union parliament show gains for opposition parties across Europe. Governing parties in Germany, France and Poland have suffered dramatic losses, while many Euro-sceptic parties have performed well at the polls.

Davids Medienkritik sez Schroeder and the SPD in general "crashed."
The SPD and Chancellor Schroeder are on their way out. Today, Sunday, June 13, the Socialists registered their worst election loss in postwar history, dropping at least 7 percentage points to a projected 22%. The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) took advantage of the Socialist's collapse to claim two times as many votes with a projected 45% result, giving them the largest number of seats from Germany's 99 designated seats in the European parliament.
Posted by:Phil B

#13  Brown's scuppered a few of Blair's EU dreams (he effectively vetoed the UK's adoption of the euro, and has been responsible for the repeated postponement of a euro referendum, IIUC, and I think he was one of the ones pressuring Blair to go for a referendum on the constitution). I don't know how much of his apparent euroscepticism is ideologically-driven, or simply to piss off Blair and his legacy-chasing, however.

I'm not sure how good a PM Brown would make. I do think he's a shade more old Labour than Blair, which, IMO, can't really be good news, though his actions on Europe look more pragmatic than Blair's.
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-06-14 6:15:18 PM  

#12  Brown being more euro-sceptic than Blair, one presumes. Is that correct? I know he has doubts about the Euro but didn't realise he was anti-constitution. I think Brown may make a decent leader of the Labour Party - at least the economy's been decently run for a while... I definitely sense a sea-change amongst the population regarding Europe - thankfully.
Posted by: Howard UK   2004-06-14 6:29:35 AM  

#11  Mine too. But the risk is the Tories might go nuts again over Europe as a result of the UKIP threat and go for each others' throats, leaving Labour looking like the only credible governing party, and free to pursue a decidedly pro-European agenda. Which presumably they would do under Blair. But if Brown got the Labour leadership, signing the constitution and joining the euro might be dead in the water. That would make life harder for the Tories, and leave the Lib Dems sucking up any floating pro-Euro voters. I think it's going to be an interesting time in politics as regards the EU, and events could either work for the Eurosceptics, or possibly against them. Amazing that UKIP came second place in quite a few many regions, eh?!
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-06-14 5:38:41 AM  

#10  Yes, good to see. Got one of my votes - let's hope it puts the Euro-constitution to bed once and for all.
Posted by: Howard UK   2004-06-14 5:22:26 AM  

#9  Howard - UKIP did do rather well, didn't they?! :)
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-06-14 5:20:30 AM  

#8  That above comment referred to your first remark, btw. That the EU voters are disillusioned is spot on.
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-06-14 5:19:50 AM  

#7  If anyone's ever 'up for' a war , it's the Tories!
Posted by: Howard UK   2004-06-14 5:19:02 AM  

#6  Stephen - that's completely untrue. The Conservatives supported the Iraq war, and were more united as a party on that issue, than Labour. They have made a few discontented noises in the last six months, but official policy is still pro-war. Their complaints have often been along the lines of the need for more troops to be sent as reinforcements.

Where did you get the idea they were anti-war?
Posted by: Bulldog   2004-06-14 3:56:06 AM  

#5  Ah, another case of BDS. A lot of that going around, it seems.
Posted by: jackal   2004-06-13 11:09:05 PM  

#4  Stephen, thats my read on it too. If there is a common thread its an anti-EU vote.
Posted by: phil_b   2004-06-13 11:01:43 PM  

#3  Jackal,the Tories have caught the hate-the-man-hate-the-policy virus.Whatever may be sentiments of individual members,the Tory Party has been against Blair's Iraq policy.

The big story is how disillusioned European voters are w/EU,and the disconnect between populance and media/political elites.
Posted by: Stephen   2004-06-13 10:51:31 PM  

#2  Correct Me if I'm wrong (as if I need to say that here...), but aren't the Conservatives more pro-Iraq than the Labour as a whole? Granted, Blair is Labour, but so are the far-left anti-Americans. It seems that voting Tory might mean that Blair wasn't pro-US enough.

That would be like people in the US voting Democrat because Bush hasn't been aggressive enough in the war.
Posted by: jackal   2004-06-13 7:37:30 PM  

#1  I just watched the BBC news. Truly unbelieveable! The British and Italian governing parties do badly becuase of Iraq. The French and German governing parties do badly because of economic and social policies. BTW, the French gov got hammered far worse than Blair or Belusconi.
Posted by: Phil B   2004-06-13 7:05:40 PM  

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