Not surprisingly, there were little about the EU elections in the Norwegian media. Mostly, the discussion was about two things, right-wing extremists joining the European parliament and the Swedish Piratpartiet taking place.
The most interesting I think is the total collapse for the social democratic side, I was kinda’ expecting the opposite, looking in the capitalistic disaster-mirror for the last year, I you would’ve guess that the parties standing for that kind of politics getting a real blow, but no.
Given voter anxiety and anger at the misdemeanors of bankers, rising joblessness, failing mortgages and a worsening economic crisis, there were expectations that voters would lash out at incumbent governments, blaming them. This would have disproportionately hit the centre-right parties dominating the countries of the EU, the European parliament, and the political appointees running the European commission. It did happen to a small degree. But centre-left governments in power in Britain, Spain, Portugal, Hungary and Austria suffered much bigger losses – the Hungarian socialists, the Austrian social democrats and Gordon Brown’s Labor slumping to historic lows.
And there was no refuge in opposition. French, Italian and Polish social democrats were thrashed. The two social democratic parties that are junior coalition partners in the Netherlands and Germany also returned their worst ever results.
The poor working-class white vote is going from social democrats to the anti-immigrant extreme right in the Netherlands, Britain or Austria, while middle-class liberals and public sector workers who used also to vote centre-left are turning to the Green.
It’s time for the pro-European to step up in Norway, and start having this discussion, what is our role towards the union in the future and what should be done! It’s only a matter of time and we should join as soon as possible!