Will the EU break-up before it can become a world power?

[GoodSarmatian]

...and beating Labour into 2nd place in the last Euro elections are the actions of a "tiny and unpopular" party . I am not saying UKIP is large and important as the CON/LIB/LAB party but these words have precise meanings and they do not describe UKIP accurately.

How was voter participation for the EP elections ? It's usually depressingly low in most countries and my guess is that most Brits just don't care and the UKIP guys fell strongly enough about the EU to actually go out and vote.

 

[Quackers]

Turnout was 34% or 15 million people.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

But turnout was nearer 60 odd % in the General Election and UKIP got a severe beating. Not even the (former, although he's back in charge now) leader having a publicity seeking light aircraft crash could help them.

 

[Quackers]

UKIP got 300,000 more votes in 2010 then 2005...almost polling at 1 million it is growing I am not making any predictions but "tiny and unpopular" :no:

 

[ParadigmShifter]

The more publicity they get the more people will realise how hopeless they are.

 

[onedreamer]

You two make wrong assumptions when you think that people always vote the same way and same party regardless of the context. I vote differently for regional, national and european elections. There are also certain categories of people who will also not vote in certain elections. A party could very well be strong at the EU elections but weak or "tiny and insignificant" at national political elections (PS, note that both are General Elections), for example because people who vote other parties do not go to vote at all for EU elections.

 

[gangleri2001]

As if world powers ever had a "voice" in foreign diplomacy. Unless you call the firing of cannons a voice.
Is your definition of world power "Political entity with a single voice in foreign affairs" ?

No, but having a unified diplomatic corps and military is a conditio sine qua non anything can't become a world power.

 

[abefar]

Hopefully

 

[Arakhor]

UKIP is tiny and unpopular...still larger and more popular then the Green party.

My left hand is more popular than my right hand. It's still an irrelevant statement.

 

[onedreamer]

No, but having a unified diplomatic corps and military is a conditio sine qua non anything can't become a world power.

Too bad that the EU does have a Foreign Minister so the EU does have a unique stance, this doesn't stop people and politicians accross Europe to have different and varying opinions and to voice them. Since currently the (developed) world lives in an age of relative peace and competition is almost entirely economical, considering that economy has become global, the statement that a world power is measured by its military is almost ludicrous. Think of a war between USA and China or any of these and Europe, it is unthinkable not just because of the dire material consequences of a war of such scale, but because countries do not have an independent or mostly independent economy anymore so a war among world economical powers is unthinkable because they would have nothing to gain and too much to loose. Armies of "world powers" nowadays are employed in poor countries in order to expand political-economical hegemony, and this is the reason why almost all such armies are now composed by professional volounteers.
The last thing that made me smile is the use of the verb "to become" when referring to Europe as a world power. As if Europe hasn't been in the first line of world events in the last 2k+ years...................

 

[Ekolite]

You two make wrong assumptions when you think that people always vote the same way and same party regardless of the context. I vote differently for regional, national and european elections. There are also certain categories of people who will also not vote in certain elections. A party could very well be strong at the EU elections but weak or "tiny and insignificant" at national political elections (PS, note that both are General Elections), for example because people who vote other parties do not go to vote at all for EU elections.

This is absolutely true. EU elections suffer from pitifully low voter turn-out, meaning that generally speaking it's only the people who feel really strongly about it who go to vote. This artificially inflates UKIP's proportion of the votes. The majority of people aren't that bothered about the EU, they'll listen to the news and sometimes be critical of what it's doing, and sometimes be in support of it; in much the same way as they think of their national government. If everyone voted in the elections we would see the big (national) parties triumph and UKIP fading away back into the miserable political backwaters it came from.