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Category: EU matters

Who will be the UK’s next Man in Brussels?

Who will be the UK’s next Man in Brussels?

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  By this time next year, there’ll have been plenty of time to pick over the results of the European and local elections, for analysts, activists, elected members and party leaders alike.  The local elections are something of a mirror-image to this year’s: heavily weighted to urban areas, including London.  Combined with European results, they hold a very miserable prospect for both governing parties.  So much so that talk of leadership change is likely, though the chances of actual change…

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Survation poll on the UK withdrawing from the EU

Survation poll on the UK withdrawing from the EU

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Survation have carried out a poll for Sky News, they asked: “Do you think the UK should remain a member of the EU?” The changes are from the Survation poll for the Mail on Sunday in January (note the question then was slightly different to the question asked in the Sky News Poll), as we can see this represents a 6.5% swing in favour of those wishing for the UK to remain in the EU since January. I found this bit…

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Comres: European Election poll

Comres: European Election poll

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Comres has conducted a poll for Open Europe on the European elections next year, the changes are from the European elections in 2009, The fieldwork was from the 22nd until the 24th of May, and 2003 adults were surveyed UKIP will be delighted with this poll, the Tories will be alarmed to be polling at 21% but delighted they’re only 2% behind Labour. The Lib Dems are polling higher than they did in 2009. The other salient parts (from the…

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Are Mandelson, Alexander and Clarke the best pro-Europeans can do?

Are Mandelson, Alexander and Clarke the best pro-Europeans can do?

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Henry G Manson on those FOR the EU This week we’ve seen growing numbers of politicians past and present suggest that they’d be prepared to vote for Britain to leave the European Union in a referendum. Public opinion is currently leaning towards exit. The Prime Minister has declared he wants Britain to remain within the EU on new negotiated terms, but his own party is so divided that he can’t be relied upon to make a passionate case for this….

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Why I am betting that the Conservatives have a better than 9pc chance of winning most votes at the 2014 Euros

Why I am betting that the Conservatives have a better than 9pc chance of winning most votes at the 2014 Euros

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Last week in a thread on which party would come out with most votes at next year’s Euro elections Richard Nabavi suggested that the best value bet was the 10/1 which is still available from Ladbrokes on the Conservatives. His reasoning was that these are a set of elections where the Tories have traditionally done well irrespective of how they’ve been performing in national Westminster polls. Even, as the interactive chart above shows, in the dark days for the party…

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The harsh fact for the Tories is that parties that appear divided get punished by the voters

The harsh fact for the Tories is that parties that appear divided get punished by the voters

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Welcome to a week that looks set to be dominated by Tory divisions on Europe.Familiar? goo.gl/wOAWX twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 13, 2013 The Indy on Sunday’s John Rentoul summed this up well in an excellent blog yesterday:- “That’s the news list gone for most of the week, as the vote on the symbolic Eurosceptic amendment in the Commons will wipe out most else, not least because of the unfamiliarity of a whipped abstention by government ministers. What are…

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Miliband rules out an EU referendum promise: A strategic mistake or a correct reading of the public mood?

Miliband rules out an EU referendum promise: A strategic mistake or a correct reading of the public mood?

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No EU referendum from Lab – EdM making this the big divider for GE2015. goo.gl/xFQSK twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) May 11, 2013 Osborne’s biographer, the, FT’s Janan Ganesh thinks that EdM has this right? Tories convinced EdM’s non-offer of referendum will hurt him. If they knew how little ppl care about Europe, their world would fall apart. — Janan Ganesh (@JananGanesh) May 11, 2013 The latest issues polling from Ipsos-MORI Miliband might be right on the salience of the…

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LAB remains an odds-on favourite to win most votes at EURO2014 but don’t rule out Ukip

LAB remains an odds-on favourite to win most votes at EURO2014 but don’t rule out Ukip

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Which party will get most votes in the 2014 EU elections -chart from Oddschecker showing the most popular bets twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/st… — Mike Smithson (@MSmithsonPB) March 23, 2013 This could be the opportunity for Farage? There is little doubt that the big story in British electoral politics at the moment is the rise of Ukip. In recent weeks this has moved from just something that is seen in the polls but to the party doing well in the first past the…

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