I can perfectly understand why many people won't bother to vote in the forthcoming European elections. From my interaction with the public, I find the general opinion to be one of substantial indifference. The consensus seems to be that the EU is remote and that most could not be bothered with it. I found it hard to find anyone prepared to pretend that this exercise is (a) about Europe, or (b) terribly democratic.
It is evident that more people are figuring out that since we joined the EU, parliament has become ever more excluded from its role of making our laws and shaping the way we are governed.
By far the greater part of our legislation no longer has anything to do with us. Much of it is decided in Brussels, it is imposed on us by way of statutory instruments and diktats drafted by anonymous officials.
Many are confused by this surrender of sovereign power, but if one was never taken in by propaganda and really understood the dynamics of government we would not be. The EU and its NGO culture thrives because it is convenient. On the one hand, it allows governments to by-pass the restrictive and time-consuming processes of democracy and, on the other, it relieves politicians of the tedium and sheer hard work of law-making, giving them more time to enjoy the trappings of power and indulge in their party political pettiness.
Outsourcing has the additional benefit of allowing governments and politicians to concentrate on pursuing their own personal agendas and micro-managing our lives, with ever more trivial and intrusive legislation and edicts. As long as the EU and the ‘civil-society' are looking after the shop, the MPs can play to their hearts' content.
It is hardly surprising then that, with honourable exceptions, our political class speaks almost entirely in clichés, bristle with moralistic self-righteousness, have little idea of how we are actually supposed to be governed and are completely detached from the rest of us.
Having given away their powers and lost their self-respect, they are now fast losing ours. This is the real message for those who bother to digest what the public really thinks.
How else would you explain all the fuss about a sixth seat in the EP yet no debate on the fact that Malta will lose its automatic right to a commissioner and to a veto? How would you explain the fuss about giving athletes the right to vote for the EP yet no debate on the right for the public to vote on the Lisbon Treaty?
Why isn't the public allowed a vote on mass immigration? Why is the creation of a multi-cultural society being imposed using propaganda, lies and institutionalised oppression? Those who object are ostracised as racists, much like those who are critical to the direction the EU has embarked upon are called ‘europhobes'. Why is it that every time some European country votes no it is forced to vote again - until it says yes?
Increasingly, given that they have no right to vote on the issues that deeply affect them, the only recourse left to the public is to petition. We seem to have regressed to an early Medieval age when the serfs of a monarch petition him for relief from their problem.
We are threading unto dangerous ground. People are losing their faith in the institutions and their representatives. Nature hates vacuums and history demonstrates that people won't rest easy when they are told to eat cake.
This election is not about Europe, it is about the way we are governed. Freedoms are hard earned but easily lost if we lose vigilance.
This is what spurs me on, and in my opinion staying at home on June 6 will only serve to uphold those who are interested in maintaining the status quo.
Change needs effort and I'm ready to fight for it - Are you?