Next week I shall be putting some x's in some boxes, and as a result some people will represent me and the views of my fellow constituents on a local and a European level. I'm very excited, especially about the European elections, as there are lots and lots of people anxious to be my MEP.In the interests of balance and fairness, I've read most of the electoral material that's been shoved through my letterbox, and made a discovery. Most of the people asking for my vote don't seem to have the faintest idea what the European Parliament is for, or what their potential job as an MEP entails.
Starting with the "big three" of politics - Labour haven't sent anything, but that may just be because they've read the Lib Dem leaflet with the scary graph showing that LABOUR CAN'T WIN HERE. There's even an arrow pointing at Labour's tiny 8% they achieved last time to highlight how pitiful you would be...
The Lib Dems also have a picture of their MEP showing concern for potholes in Woking, or something equally irrelevant. Unless there's an EU road repair fund that Surrey have managed to tap into.
The Tories have lots of shiny pictures of David "Dave" Cameron, but are basically campaigning on the "it's all that Labour Party's fault" front and hoping that we'll just use every election between now and the general one to kick Gordon Brown's sorry arse. For everything. I still blame him for those floods. It never flooded when Tony was in charge.
So nothing on "Europe" from the main parties. What about the others?
Well, most of the rest are firmly Eurosceptical. And they will gain many votes. But not from me. And here's why.
Europe is undoubtedly there. A quick glance at most atlases, SatNavs, BBC Weather Maps, Google Earth, Dad's Army title sequences, etc will confirm the existence of a large land mass to the south and east of Britain, a peninsula of the same land mass to the north and east, and our chummy little Guinness-quaffing, Eurovision-host-supplying friends to the west. And there's the Shetlands to the north, confirmed by Martin Clunes' recent series on islands to be illegally annexed by Scotland, so technically they're also part of That Europe. Britain is surrounded, central to Europe, in spite of what UKIP and the BNP would have you believe. Anything that David Walliams can get to without the aid of transport can't be that far away.
Most of the Eurosceptic literature involves playing on fears about millions of immigrants "coming over here and taking our jobs". At this point it's important not to differentiate between Poles, French, Australians, Ghanaians or Iraqis. Nor should we take account of the millions of Brits working in Europe, Dubai or doing bar work in Sydney because that's different. They're British, goddammit, so they're not freeloading, or avoiding taxes, or surfing. The main thing is that Britain's quite full enough of foreigners, and we won't be British any more if we keep letting them in, so we should get out of Europe right now. God Save The King!
But where would we go? And what is the Britishness we are clinging to so desperately? The quaffing of large quantities of Danish lager, driving German cars while chatting on Finnish mobiles, eating Italian food and drinking French wine. The whole history of Britain is one where Europeans invade, bring useful things, then moan when the next lot come and invade and threaten to destroy their "Britishness". One of our UKIP candidates has a Dutch name, bless him.
So whatever the shortcomings of the European Union may be, I for one will be celebrating the chance to vote in the European elections next week, will be voting for a party that believes in Europe as a basic concept, and is campaigning on issues that the European Parliament actually has some necessary control over.
And while I'm not in the business of electioneering, if you're contemplating voting for UKIP or the BNP, please go and watch their Election Broadcasts (available on the BBC i-Player and other media outlets). Never mind what they're saying, the production values alone should be enough to scare the pants off you.
