Well this can't be good...
Brown a big loser as Europe veers to right
I'd be fascinated with my fellow European chewers insider takes on this and what it means for the continent and if they saw it coming. It feels like this has been on the cards for a while now...
Brown a big loser as Europe veers to right
Quote:
| RIGHT-WING political wind has blown across Europe, sweeping the far-right British National Party into the European Parliament and delivering another humiliating blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party. As the results of the four-day poll rolled in, a record low turnout saw electoral gains for unaligned, far-right and anti-immigration parties in the Netherlands, where anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders won a seat, and in Austria, Belgium, Britain and Slovakia. In Hungary, the anti-Semitic and anti-Roma (Gypsy) extremist party, Jobbik, also won a seat. Voters have also returned the centre-right bloc, dominated by Germany, France and Italy, to its ruling position, and given a resounding two-fingered salute to the European left, who failed dismally despite economic uncertainty and a social climate that might have been expected to earn them support. The British Labour Party, Germany's Social Democrats and the French and Italian Socialist parties have all suffered historic defeats in an election in which just 43 per cent of the 375 million eligible voters bothered to cast their ballot. This was the lowest level of participation since the European Parliament began 30 years ago. |
