How you voted

The Gloucester Citizen has published all the figures for how Gloucestershire voted for Europe. You can read it in full here - http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/Euro-elections-Ukip-polls-Gloucester-claims-seats/story-21143192-detail/story.html#ixzz32uDZeY4w

In Stroud...

CON 11,451

UKIP 9,348

LAB 7,071

GREEN 6,528

LIB DEM 2,488

There’s a very small distance between Labour and the Greens. No doubt, that Molly Scott Cato was Stroud’s very own candidate, and we have a strong Green base here impacted on those numbers.

Normally at General Election time, we settle out into being a Conservative/Labour marginal and those who do not naturally belong to either tribe pick the party they find least offensive. Was UKIP a protest vote? Europe plays to their only well-known policy, while voters have tended to be less keen to give them power at Westminster. Will that hold true next year? With such a tight gap between Labour and the Greens, and the way the Conservative/UKIP numbers stack up, assuming that’s really a right/left split, the old ‘vote Green get blue’ line isn’t holding up.

Unless of course a lot of traditional Labour voters picked UKIP.

What’s missing from these figures is the number of people who did not vote for anyone. We don’t know if that’s a silence of apathy, dismay, disgust, or not knowing enough to feel able to choose. Across the country about two thirds of voters did not vote. From what I picked up at the count, Stroud districts tended to do slightly better with a lot of 40-50% turnouts. It’s not much of a democracy if less than half of those who should have a say actually make their choice known.

Your vote will make a difference. Your absence of a vote will also make all kinds of differences, and not ones you get much say in, which is not how it should be. In fact Stroud is beginning to look like a four way marginal  which might mean will get more national coverage in the run up to the General election.