Vote for Daisy!
Vote for Daisy!
In the 2006 parliamentary elections in the Netherlands, the Party of the Animals won 180,000 votes and two seats in parliament, standing on a platform of animal welfare. Think about it. It was only 1.8% of the vote, but just imagine that group of 180,000 standing outside your house, all of them convinced in a parliamentary election that the one issue that matters above everything else in the rights of animals. That’s a lot of people.
What fascinated me about this is that I’m not convinced you could find 2% of the Irish population willing to effectively sacrifice their votes on such a niche issue. Of course, as our electoral system isn’t truly proportional, we wouldn’t get any TDs elected on this sole platform anyway, but it must say something about the Irish voter. There are Dutch voters voting on obscure issues like this, and setting up parties to deal with them.
Meanwhile, in Ireland 65% of the electorate will vote for Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, who stand for, what exactly? Oxygen? The sky? The Earth to rotate around the Sun? When we debated the treaty in 1921 we debated what sort of country we wanted to be. Now, as Emily O’Reilly has pointed out, the Dail doesn’t really even debate anymore. For all the good it does, we’d might as well have a part-time Dail like one of those US state legislatures. After all, after electing the Taoiseach, it does little of actual use.
Wan, it is touching, isn’t it? My favourite was a guy who went line-by-line through the Spoofer’s Guide to the Lisbon Treaty to explain to me why it wasn’t funny. Line by line. It was kind of like former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau being told about himself “Finally, Canada has a politician worth asassinating!”
Jason you must be so proud. Your site has gotten
popular enough that you even have your own trolls
lurking about spouting nonsense. Gone are the days
of the cat and Bjorn the Norwegian with the bearded
federalist fetish…
Politbureau would be a great name for a Brussels based office stationary brand.
Well actually, old chap, your primary tier of local guvmint (Dail) is as much use to the Irish electorate as a chocolate teapot now that control of the Country has been ceded & subsumed within the Brussels Politbureau.
Once the realisation of this sinks in, you are going to find lotsa minority/protest Parties springing up all over the EUSSR.
Much good it will do them.
Hope this helps !
Kind regards