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AHC: More/Different Parties in UK EuroParl Delegations

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As RyanF noted on the Lifeboat, this subforum is looking a bit forlorn at the minute, so here's a discussion topic.

What would it take to get the Kleinpartei(en) of your choice into the European Parliament? What would they get up to once elected, and how would their (slightly) increased profile influence the course of British and European politics?

Bonus points if you can get a smaller party elected before the transition to PR in 1999 (I'll accept increased seats for the Lib Dems pre-1999 as satisfying this AHC) and if you can keep the Greens or UKIP out.

I obviously have my own ideas, but would be interested to hear any and all suggestions.
 
Sometime early in 2004 Robert Kilroy-Silk realises just how incompetent UKIP are as a party, he later finds himself with Paul Sykes and a large quantity of gin. Once the gin is nearly gone Kilroy-Silk brings up the issue of the incompetence of Knapman, UKIP and moots forming his own party - Sykes tells him how right he is and assures him he is his mate.

A few days later Kilroy-Silk, with a few UKIP figures for window dressing, announces the launch of his own party. Sykes has no idea why Kilroy-Silk has done this, no recollection of agreeing to fund it, and soon resolves to bring his funding back to the Tories since the Euroscpectic vote will probably be split.

Without Sykes' money and Kilroy-Silk's celebrity endorsement (he brought Joan Collins on-board), UKIP go slightly backwards from their 1999 result but keep their three MPs. Kilroy-Silk himself is elected for *Veritas, who manage to break 5% across the country.

Fast forward five years to 2009, and Kilroy-Silk has done fuck all for five years. Ever since the 2005 GE where he failed to retain his deposit. Sykes has fallen out again with the Tories, but the BNP are surging and might split the euroscpectic vote with UKIP - who are being dismissed from some quarters as the posh BNP.

Veritas* will not be fielding candidates at the 2009 Euro elections, UKIP haven't had the prominence they had OTL 2004-09, and neither has Sykes money. UKIP will be lucky to get half the seats they did OTL, most of which will likely go to the Tories. The BNP will probably gain and additional seat bringing their total to three. Where will the rest of UKIPs votes go? The English Democrats might gain a seat out of it, and considering the nadir Labour were in at the time No2EU might scrape a seat out of it - though things being equal they would still struggle against Scargill's SLP.

Obviously a lot more thought needed but that's one way to get some minor eurosceptic parties elected.
 
The opposite of a silly thing I did in the other place - improved Nationalist performance in the late 60s and early 70s leads to stronger English regionalist parties (MK, *Yorkshire Party) with a degree of co-operation and sharing of ideas to drive localist agendas. By the time of the change to PR regional lists, MK and YP are easily over the 5% threshold, and a couple of others are close. The pro-EUness of the groups could be linked to how much funding their region has benefitted from
 
The opposite of a silly thing I did in the other place - improved Nationalist performance in the late 60s and early 70s leads to stronger English regionalist parties (MK, *Yorkshire Party) with a degree of co-operation and sharing of ideas to drive localist agendas. By the time of the change to PR regional lists, MK and YP are easily over the 5% threshold, and a couple of others are close. The pro-EUness of the groups could be linked to how much funding their region has benefitted from

Or inversely proportional.
 
From the Norn Iron perspective there’s only one realistic addition, given that all of the big four have had lengthy goes in the theee Northern Irish seats (and indeed the DUP and UUP have held them uninterrupted since 1979). The only other person with any real chance is Jim Allister, former DUP MEP and one-time one man opposition.

Jim did run to retain his seat in 2009 under the turquoise banner, but ended up a distant fifth and was eliminated at the second could. In 2014 though he actually bettered his result, although he was still eliminated at count six after Alliance transfers boosted the SDLP lead on him from four thousand to twenty six thousand.

Now it might be a little tricky, but it could be possible to narrow the gap - the important one being that between Jim and the UUP (since whichever is eliminated would likely transfer overwhelmingly to the other over the SDLP, as happened with Jim’s votes IOTL). The UUP actually had a decent election in 2014, especially in the locals (this was back when they were crowing about increasing their vote share for the first time in years, and the DUP calling the leader “0.9% Nesbit”). But it is possible for the UUP to do more poorly - make NI21 more successful instead of self-immolating for instance, or just up the air of general crapness about the party at the time. Add a little swing to the TUV to a lowered UUP vote and maybe some more UKIP transfers for Jim and he might be able to close the gap (about 8,000 at count one, 13,000 at count six).

Probably tricky, but it’s the best bet in this seat at least.
 
Top stuff, lads. Jim Allister being in Brussels during the whole Brexit thing is a bit of a horrifying idea.
The opposite of a silly thing I did in the other place - improved Nationalist performance in the late 60s and early 70s leads to stronger English regionalist parties (MK, *Yorkshire Party) with a degree of co-operation and sharing of ideas to drive localist agendas. By the time of the change to PR regional lists, MK and YP are easily over the 5% threshold, and a couple of others are close. The pro-EUness of the groups could be linked to how much funding their region has benefitted from
Bear in mind that Cornwall is only a small part of the South West constituency, roughly 11% of the total electorate. In 2014, Molly Scott Cato edged the final seat in the South West with... 11% of the regional vote, so MK would need to win pretty much all of the Cornish vote to get a seat.
 
The difficulty in this is that there were very few parties that came close to winning seats but didn't IOTL.

The Greens didn't really come close in any particular constituency, just beat the Social and Liberal Democrats to third place and tallied a fair share of the vote nationally. Even after the advent of PR it seems most parties would need to already have some level of support to make a splash and the low turnout doesn't bode well for minor parties with such a limited number of seats per constituency up for grabs.

Some other possibilities...

Billy Fizz and Ken Clarke have a lager drinking contest sometime during the Conservative leadership election of 1997, and John Redwood wins. The Pro-Euro Conservative Party might win a seat or two in 1999.

More Labour MPs leaving the party over Iraq might lead to a Left List in 2004.
 
The difficulty in this is that there were very few parties that came close to winning seats but didn't IOTL.

The Greens didn't really come close in any particular constituency, just beat the Social and Liberal Democrats to third place and tallied a fair share of the vote nationally. Even after the advent of PR it seems most parties would need to already have some level of support to make a splash and the low turnout doesn't bode well for minor parties with such a limited number of seats per constituency up for grabs.

Some other possibilities...

Billy Fizz and Ken Clarke have a lager drinking contest sometime during the Conservative leadership election of 1997, and John Redwood wins. The Pro-Euro Conservative Party might win a seat or two in 1999.

More Labour MPs leaving the party over Iraq might lead to a Left List in 2004.
This is part of the reason why I asked the question - anyone who suggests the Greens winning a seat in 1989 is automatically going on my ignore list.

There were a couple of occasions where smaller parties got close to winning a seat, principally the BNP on various occasions. George Galloway wasn't too far off a seat in 2004, so a few different circumstances during the short campaign (or, as you say, a larger split) would get him in, which leads to a few interesting questions. I don't think he'd make much of an impact in Brussels, and he'd probably still embarrass himself on reality TV, but there's a greater chance that he doesn't personally contest Bethnal Green and Bow and, if he does, he may well lose. Now - if he wins, he is probably replaced in Brussels by the next guy on the List, Unjum Mirza, who was an SWP member. And if Respect is getting around 8% in the Euro elections in London, they're almost certainly getting more than 5% in the London Assembly elections on the same day. The first two people on the Assembly list just happened to be SWP members (although Oliur Rahman has had an... interesting political career). As one of the main reasons for the SWP split was that they weren't winning any seats out of the deal, the split is probably delayed - and you might just get an early Comrade Delta scenario bringing down Galloway as well as the SWP.

2004 also saw Martin Bell in the East of England and Steve Radford of the Liberals in the North West getting non-zero proportions of the vote, but I don't think either is terribly likely or terribly full of ramifications. Same for Christine Oddy (deselected Labour) in the West Midlands in 1999.

The other one I quite like is the possibility of the SSP in either 1999 or 2004 - especially 1999, as Hugh Kerr was very English and pretty much detested by the rest of the party. You'd probably have more of an idea of the impacts of this than I do.
 
The obvious thing would be to have a single national constituency which would make it much easier for a thinly spread microparty to get a seat - though it would have to be just Great Britain with NI still separate, of course.
If anything wouldn't this just screw regional parties?

Anyway, the Scottish Greens weren't too far off a seat in 2014, so it's probably not impossible to elect Maggie Chapman, but I'm not sure how to do it seeing as they'd need to leapfrog UKIP and UKIP Scotland seemed to be entirely driven by the 'just turn up anyway regardless of campaigning or actual physical organisation' vote.
 
If anything wouldn't this just screw regional parties?

Anyway, the Scottish Greens weren't too far off a seat in 2014, so it's probably not impossible to elect Maggie Chapman, but I'm not sure how to do it seeing as they'd need to leapfrog UKIP and UKIP Scotland seemed to be entirely driven by the 'just turn up anyway regardless of campaigning or actual physical organisation' vote.

I think the Greens might have been able to leapfrog UKIP in 2014 had the independence referendum campaign been further along than it was OTL, or had Coburn been more prominent during the campaign.
 
I think the Greens might have been able to leapfrog UKIP in 2014 had the independence referendum campaign been further along than it was OTL, or had Coburn been more prominent during the campaign.
Did UKIP really have that much of a campaign in Scotland? UKIP Scotland has always been a four-men-and-a-dog operation subsisting on a well-known brand, I'm not sure if the people willing to vote for them despite them barely actually existing would really have been put off in sufficient numbers by Coburn.
 
Did UKIP really have that much of a campaign in Scotland? UKIP Scotland has always been a four-men-and-a-dog operation subsisting on a well-known brand, I'm not sure if the people willing to vote for them despite them barely actually existing would really have been put off in sufficient numbers by Coburn.

Nah there wasn't much of a campaign, what little exposure they had was just through osmosis of them being in the news all the time in an English context, the leapfrogging would almost certainly be down to the Greens doing better than UKIP doing worse.
 
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