By Martin Banks - 26th May 2009
This is a long-established pattern where UK voters don't really understand what the EU elections are for
Andrew Cooper
Next month's European elections could turn into a 'massive' protest against national governments, according to a new study.
The study, by the London School of Economics and Trinity College Dublin, argues that while the MPs' expenses scandal may be a very British issue, people across Europe are fed up with their governments for their own particular reasons.
It suggests that mass-abstention is the biggest threat, with EU-wide turn out predicted to be only 30 per cent.
A common thread, it says, is the global economic downturn and unemployment, with many voters determined to punish ruling parties for, in their view, either causing or mishandling the crisis.
The report comes in the wake of the latest opinion polls in France, which show that an increasing proportion of French voters will either abstain in the 4-7 June poll or desert candidates of mainstream parties in favour of ultra-left parties.
Credited with only 21 per cent of the votes, the French Socialists have so far failed to attract voters who could, if anything, be tempted to use the elections to vote against Nicholas Sarkozy's government.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the UK Independence Party will spend in excess of €2m over the next fortnight to target Labour supporters for the first time in the elections.
The party is hoping to match its performance in the 2004 elections when it seized 16 per cent of the votes, beating the Liberal Democrats and taking more than half of those received by Labour and Conservatives.
Andrew Cooper, a director of Populus, the company that conducted the poll, said, "This is a long-established pattern where UK voters don't really understand what the EU elections are for."
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