European Elections: A vote for democracy?
This is about the European elections that take place tomorrow (Thursday 23rd May) if you live in the UK or the Netherlands.
I'll be voting tomorrow. I did vote for Brexit – I'm not happy with the way the European Union is just growing and growing, and it's not the most democratic institution. It's very bureaucratic.
My vote had nothing to do with immigration. That's the way that this issue has been stereotyped, but I'm completely happy with immigration. I'm not xenophobic – I've got lots of friends from all over the world, including Europe – people I know who have moved to the UK from all parts of Europe. And I want that to continue.
I'm all for freedom of movement – that's one aspect of the EU that I do like. I want to be able to live in other countries if I so choose.
So that's not the issue for me. It's things like VAT – we don't really have much say over that taxation… this video isn't about those issues in any case. It's just that the debate gets so polarised, and that really annoys me. So I just wanted to get that out of the way.
Does this mean that I'm going to vote for the Brexit Party? I'm not sure. I haven't decided who I'm going to vote for yet.
The important issue that most voters ignore
I think there's one issue that almost always gets overlooked when people go to the polls. And that is, the fact that the people that we vote for are meant to represent us in Parliament – whatever parliament that is.
Many people will vote passionately for a particular party, and then that party will often just pay attention to the demands of big business rather than their constituents.
And we're really losing that aspect of democracy. I sometimes vote "None" in Westminster elections, because I think the Westminster political system is totally corrupt.
People say, "Our ancestors fought and died for the vote." But I would question that. I think they fought and died for democracy. And just because you have the vote, it doesn't necessarily follow that you have democracy.
The fundamental thing is, that the person you vote for – if they get elected to Parliament – is meant to represent us, the voters.
In the past, I've written to my MEPs (Member of the European Parliament) – you don't just write to one MEP. In Scotland there are six who represent this area.
So I wrote to my MEPs on a couple of issues – TTIP and digital rights. I only received two replies, and one was saying that they were too busy to reply, or that it wasn't their area of expertise or something. One MEP did reply, and he gave very comprehensive replies.
So if that person is on the ticket, I might vote for him, regardless of party.
Basically, it's about democracy, so if I do vote for the Brexit Party, and if their candidate wins, I'll expect them to represent me in the EU – and of course, we should be out of the EU by now! We were told that we were going to be leaving on May 29th. But I'm very doubtful that we will ever actually leave.
So the polls are open tomorrow (Thursday) in Scotland, and I'll see what happens when I go there, because I'm not sure what this ballot form will look like.
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