Political Earthquake?

The result of the European elections was described by the French Prime Minister as "an earthquake".  Every article I have read has its own analysis and, as always, we are in danger of paralysis by analysis.  What does the apparent anti-European swing, notably in France and the UK, really mean?  Well, let me give you a personal view.  I believe what we have recently witnessed is a symptom of a disaffection by voters with politics and politicians.  The state of the world economy can at best be described as fragile and individual nations are experiencing varying degrees of economic discomfort.  This is particularly evident in Europe where 26 million are out of work.  The widespread austerity programmes continue to leave a bitter taste and frankly, a large proportion of the population is totally pissed off!

Now, in my opinion, the reason many people do not have faith in politicians, or indeed the political system, is because promises of economic recovery fail to materialise.  Why?  Well maybe it's because what is being promised is never achievable.  We are being seduced by the promise of economic growth and I don't know of any political party that would have the balls to shy away from that commitment.  Yet to believe in perpetual growth on a finite planet, one must be mad or an economist!  But because most leaders haven't taken that fact on board, the world's economy is in a state of rebalancing, which essentially means the richer developed countries will take some pain, whilst the poorer developing countries will see some gain.  Now that seems logical to me yet no politician will ever admit it and consequently nations try to fight it.  We produce things we don't need merely to create employment and demonstrate economic growth.  In the process we deplete valuable natural resources and pollute the atmosphere.

So in my opinion the result of the European elections is not necessarily people saying they want to be in or out of Europe, but people protesting against their lot with a capital P.  Let's be thankful that the European protests are mainly through the ballot box rather than on the streets.  People are not stupid and they really care about issues like poverty, housing, food security, wealth distribution, atmospheric pollution, etc, etc, etc.  How we organise ourselves to tackle these issues is far less important than understanding the solutions.  Outdated political ideologies, dogma and rhetoric are boring.

So let these election results be a wake up call.  We need to be honest about the global issues, what needs to be done and the impacts on our personal situations.  It's not going to be easy but with good, strong leadership, based on honesty and transparency, there must be a sporting chance of success........we'll see!