If a British Red-Green alliance occurred for Europe....

The European elections are now just over a month away, and there have been rather interesting developments in some European nations recently, according to www.europedecides.eu.

This relates to protest movements mainly but also other European list coalitions you may not have heard of until now. Key examples include the Anders list in Austria, a coalition between the Pirate Party and Communist Party of Austria , an alliance of regionalist parties in Spain, various alliances in Croatia (like one between a women's rights party and a party advocating for unemployed people), and the Olive Tree (Elia) of Greece (PASOK is getting desperate now!)

One type of alliance which would have been nice in Britain, given the low swing (average of 1.6%) we need to get more Green MEPs and also our left-wing leanings by European Green standards, is a red-green alliance, which will occur in Portugal (between the Communists and Ecologists there), Italy (via the Tsipras list, which Left Ecology Freedom are part of) and partly in Spain (United Left and Initiative for Catalonia Greens). Even though the two main socialist groupings, No2EU and Socialist Labour, polled enough votes together in each region to split our vote and halt our advance in the European elections of 2009, a  red-green alliance sadly will not happen for Britain in the Euro elections this year, although at least Left Unity will help Peter Cranie and the Greens in North West England in his mission to get elected and also unseat BNP MEP Nick Griffin, and helpfully they will help us elsewhere as they know they are not ready to contest European elections yet.

 If such an alliance did happen,though, I believe it would greatly increase our chances of electing 4 or 5 more Green MEPs this year, as vote splitting would be avoided and as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I also hope that in areas with local elections this year, as many Greens as possible will stand to get out the Euro vote.

 Alan.

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