My postal ballot form arrived yesterday for the European elections. Unusually for me, I was sufficiently organised to arrange a vote this year.

I wasn't sure who to vote for. I've always voted Labour before (the party of the current government). But this time I just couldn't. They've been such a disappointment, constantly chasing the polls instead of doing the right thing, giving Bush legitimacy for his adventure in Iraq and all the rest of it. One day historians will discuss why this government, which has a huge and unassailable majority, has been so consistently unable to do the right thing.. So it was the first time in my life I've been a floating voter.

I took a look at my ballot paper, and it wasn't a very inspiring selection. As well as the three major parties, there was a bunch of weirdies like the Green socialist alliance, the UK Independence party, RESPECT and a couple of independents, plus the Greens and, rather disconcertingly, the British National Party - a bunch of racist thugs that are gaining ground in some of the more depressed parts of the UK where people are only too wiling to blame immigrants rather than themselves for their plight.

Given that choice, is it really any surprise that the turnover will be so low?

The really depressing thing about politics in the UK at the moment is that it's so nationalistic. None of the major parties are positive about the EU, having been bullied into negativity by the press over the last ten years or so. Which means there's no real way for anyone who is interested in making the UK drag itself into the heart of Europe to express themselves.

There's a good article about it from today's paper here if you're interested.

I think the way the recent accession of ten countries to the EU was handled says it all really. Most of these countries used to be in the Warsaw Pact, and even fifteen years ago the idea that places like Estonia, Hungary and Poland would be in the EU would have been laughable. It is a triumph of the ways of Western Europe over the forces of fascism and communism that we have got to where we are today, and here in Paris there were quite a lot of celebrations, as there were in states all over the EU.

And what happened in Britain? Dozens of scare stories about how people from the new member states would be flooding into the UK to find work, taking our jobs and probably shagging our women with their swarthy foreign ways. Not pleasant - and almost certainly wrong. The net migration is much more likely to be the other way, as expat Poles, Czechs and so on take advantage of the new advantages EU membership provides to go home and build their own economies.

Still, that doesn't sell papers, does it?

These people should be ashamed of themselves.