Saturday 3 October 2009

Minor Parties European Election Spending

The Electoral Commission have released campaign expenditure for parties who spent under £250,000 in the European elections. The full figures are available to view here.

There are two sets of figures that stick in my craw. The 153,236 votes (1.01%) cast for
No2EU came on the back of a campaign costing £118,326.

The
Socialist Labour Party won 173,115 votes (1.14%). And the cost of their campaign? £5,354.

Per vote, No2EU spent 77p and the SLP three pence(!) I'm lost for words.

Here are the figures for other left campaigns:

Scottish Socialist Party - 10,404 votes (0.07% - Scotland only), campaign cost £4,733 (45p/vote).

Socialist Party of Great Britain - 4,050 votes (0.03% - London only), campaign cost £3,760 (92p/vote).

12 comments:

Tom said...

'Socialist': value for money. Same with 'Labour'.

Phil said...

Definitely - I know a couple of pissed off non-politicos who voted SLP because they have socialist in their name. There's a lesson there.

Jim Jepps said...

No one buys votes of course... but here are a few extra stats for the collection

Mebyon Kernow
13,886 GBP 14,922 Votes
93.1 pence per vote

Christians
222,251 GBP 249,493 Votes
89.1 pence per vote

Animals Count
4,512 GBP 13,201 Votes
34.2 pence per vote

Scottish Greens
11,108 GBP 80,442 Votes
13.8 pence per vote

English Democrats
37,500 GBP 279,801 Votes
13.4 pence per vote

Phil said...

Too much time on your hands tonight, Jim? lol

Salman said...

It's not that surprising that NO2EU, a party launched only a few weeks before the elections, should have to spend so much more than the SLP who have the benefit of years of contesting, even if they never get anywhere. Moreover, I'm not that sure anyone, outside the hard left, really knew what NO2EU was about, or that they were a left-wing party. I'm willing to bet that most people who had never heard of them before would assume they were a right-wing party from their name alone, and with UKIP and the BNP around, there were far more established anti-EU parties to vote for.

Jim Jepps said...

You started it!

Phil said...

My thoughts exactly, Salman.

Incidentally for left watchers some updates on the CPB split here.

Joseph Edwards said...

Yeesh. For a left-winger, I really don't watch the left as much as you'd think, and this is a good reminder why. It's just plain depressing.

Phil said...

One of my comrades says *not* watching the left is a precondition for healthy socialist politics, lol.

ajohnstone said...

Ahhh...but since the SPGB only ask people who understand and agree with the idea of socialism and want socialism to vote for them , they received 4050 socialist votes.
The others appealed for votes on a whole platform of reforms and got non-socialists votes .

Phil said...

And there lies the reason why the SPGB's idealist approach has never exerted any influence over British politics in the 100 years of its existence.

Cue Darren with a smart alec reply ;)

Joseph Edwards said...

I personally doubt there are only 4,000 people who would genuinely want socialism in Britain. Lord knows something's wrong with the world if that is the case.