The victory of UKIP, Independents and Danish People's Party

  Yesterday night, Sunday 25^th of May 2014, the European Parliamentary elections results were announced. Each member country opened their poll stations on different days from the 22^nd to the 25^th of May. On the 22^nd of May, the election process started in several countries in the European Union such as the U.K. Others like Denmark opened their polls on Friday, 23^rd of May, or yesterday, 25^th of May, for example Ireland or Spain. Results show an increase of the euroskepticism with the strong support to political parties such as UKIP and a huge support also to the conservative parties.

U.K., Ireland and Denmark joined the E.U. in 1973. Some people argue that the U.K. decided to enter this international organization for mainly economic reasons. U.K. never wanted to be involved in all the aspects regarding the Community, they only wanted to get the benefits from the free trade and bring prosperity to their country. Therefore, due to the economic crisis many British citizens are questioning their membership to the E.U., which explains the rise of the popularity of UKIP.

On the 22^nd of May, citizens in Britain sent a message of discontent previously shown in the results of the Local council elections. UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party) became the centre of attention after it’s success at the local polls. Although they failed to gain any council, the anti-European Union, anti-immigration party of Nigel Farage won 163 councillors.

The main goal of this populist party is to get the country out of the European Union. Farage declared after his party landed major blows on the Tories and Labour in local polls: “The Ukip Fox Is In The Westminster Hen House”. Just a week before the European Parliamentary Elections, this was said to predict the results of the Euro voting. This rise of the antiEU party also was significant in the last European Elections of 2009 in which they won a 16% of the votes. UKIP was behind the conservatives with a 26% and ahead of the Labour party, which got a 15.3%. Comparing these results with the ones released yesterday we can see the increase in UKIP which gained a 27.5% of the votes and have won 23 members of the European Parliament (MEPs); Labour Party with a result of 25% with 18 MEPs and Conservatives obtained a 24% of the votes.

The results of main Irish political parties in the elections are: the Independents with a 24% of the Irish votes; Fine Gael which yesterday won a 22%; Fianna Fáil Party with a 22%; Sinn Féin 17%. These results are quite different from the ones obtained in 2009, when the Independents were not as strong as they turned out to be in this European election.

In Denmark, the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) has had a huge increase in its support comparing yesterday’s results (27%) with the ones obtained in 2009 (15.3%). Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiet) on the other hand, decreased it’s popularity getting a 21.5% in 2009 and in 2014 a 19.10% of the votes. Venstre, Denmark’s Liberal Party (Venstre, Danmarks Liberale Party) also decreased their number of votes, in 2009 they obtained a 20.2% and in 2014 a 16.70%,

Overall,the results show a huge increase in the importance and popularity of certain eurosceptic political parties such as UKIP, together with the extrem right wing parties such as Le Front nationale (French). All these MEPs will represent citizens of the member states of the European Union in the European parliament. The right or conservative partoes have won the more seats in the parliament and we will have to wait another 5 years to experience the next european parliamentary elections.

Paula Padrino