germinal - october 2012
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Germinal October 2012TRANSCRIPT
brusselslabour.eu
C ommunal elections will be held on 14 October. Here are some tips on how to
vote, as well as some information on the elections brought to you by some of the candidates from Brussels Labour.
How to vote
Many of you will be voting in Belgium for the first time, so here are some tips for you to keep in mind on 14 October:
make sure you have your convocation de vote with you when going to the polling station;
take your passport or ID card with you; work out which list (party and number) and
even which candidate(s) you wish to vote for.
Upon arrival at the voting station on 14 October you will be given a card and shown to a voting booth with a computer and digital pen. Once you have inserted the card into the computer the screen will ask you to choose your language, then the list you want to vote for, and then you can choose to vote for individual candidates.
Tales from the campaign trail: Brussels Labour candidates
Brussels City (1000) – Jo Wood
Campaigning as a candidate for the PS-SP.a list in Brussels has been fascinating. This election is historic: for the first in communal
elections history, more non-Belgian EU candidates are standing for elections across the 19 communes than ever before.
My list, led by Freddie Thielemans, the current Mayor of Brussels, is made up of 49 men and women representing all walks of Brussels life. Many sister parties are represented, with candidates from Brussels Labour, PASOK, the French PS, PSOE and the Italian PD. Campaigning has involved leafleting from house to house, talking to people at markets and brocantes, attending small local meetings (known as 'tupperwares'), rallies and writing personal letters to voters.
The final week of the campaign involves attending expat hustings (my target audience) and leafleting. We hope to get enough socialists elected to have a strong majority, build a coalition and hold the city.
Compared to British local elections which are relatively low-key, Belgian government ministers are standing here in Brussels. For example, Joelle Milquet, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior, is standing on the CDH list, but has no intention to take up her seat. Some find this normal, others not so.
One certainty is the high turnout. Compulsory voting means that the campaign is one of ideas and commitments, and not 'getting the vote out'. The issue for non-Belgian EU voters is how to vote - you need to know the name and number of the list (the PS/SP.a is Number
Think European, vote local: Brussels Labour and the communal elections
Jo with fellow PS/SP.a candidate Ans Persoons
11 in the Brussels region) and the candidates you wish to vote for. If you are not sure which of the candidates to support then vote for the list. You can vote for one or more candidates on the same list.
If you registered to vote, then congratulations: you will be involved in a interesting experiment in European democracy where nationality will not make a difference, and where all registered residents will have a say on how their city is run.
Woluwé-St-Pierre (1150) - Belinda Pyke
On the Sunday before the election (7 October), half of the PS-SP.a list in Woluwé-St-Pierre cycled to all corners of the commune, leaving elements of their manifesto at key places.
Fitting, then, that the bike ride ended at the square where Eddy Merckx, probably the best ever cyclist, grew up. There is just one Socialist on the council at the moment but there are high hopes of getting at least a second seat this time round. There are five Belgian candidates on the list, including myself for Brussels Labour. Woluwe-St-Pierre recorded a 20% electoral registration rate among non-Belgian residents, the highest rate in Brussels.
Brussels Labour hosts ‘Meet the candidates’
Brussels Labour held a meeting in the 'Local de campagne' on Rue du Midi, near the Grand’ Place (see photo, right).
A panel of five Socialist candidates - Juta Buysens (SP.a, Forest), Delphine Houba (PS, Brussels), Belinda Pyke (Brussels Labour, Woluwé-St-Pierre), June O'Keefe (Brussels Labour, Etterbeek) and Jo Wood (Brussels Labour, Brussels) all described the campaign from their perspective.
PS/SP.a candidates make their mark near the childhood home of Eddy Merckx
Brussels Labour held a well attended and lively Summer Social in July. Thank you to all of those who joined us, and to Maggie Coulthard and Peter Wragg for hosting the event so successfully once again.
The Winter Social takes place on Wednesday 5 December, hosted by David Earnshaw & Jo Wood.
More details will follow in due course, and we look forward to seeing you there.
Brussels Labour is preparing to celebrate its 40th anniversary next year with a series of events. An important part of our celebration will be telling the story of our branch against the backdrop of the UK’s relationship with the EU. We’ve been contacting former executive members and speakers to ask them for their memories but we want to hear from all members:
How did you get to know about Brussels Labour? Do you remember the first meeting or event you
attended? What were your impressions? Do you have any photos of meetings or events?
If you’d like to contribute your memories, please contact Belinda Pyke at [email protected]. More information is online at brusselslabour.eu/bl40.
brusselslabour.eu
T he Dutch election, which took place on 12 September was by far the most
memorable in the country's recent political history.
Party fortunes changed dramatically during the course of the campaign; pollsters proved unable to keep up with fast-changing voter sentiment and were ultimately confounded; and instead of sending a warning to Brussels, Dutch voters ended up warming to Brussels.
After a very strong campaign under its new leader, Diederik Samsom, Dutch Labour did particularly well; the Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) came second, with 38 seats in the new Parliament to the 41 of the conservative Liberals, Prime Minister Rutte's VVD.
Two populist parties on left and right were leading in the polls until just a few months before the election - Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) and Emile Roemer's Socialist Party. They were relegated to third and fourth place. Labour and the Liberals are now in talks to form a grand coalition.
So how did Labour come from far behind to overtake the Socialists and almost pip the Liberals to the post? When the outgoing coalition government collapsed in April,
Labour was in a perilous state. Job Cohen, the former Mayor of Amsterdam, had just resigned after two largely unsuccessful years as leader. For his successor, Diederik Samsom, who had been elected only the previous month, it seemed the election had come too soon.
But Samsom, a 41-year old former Greenpeace activist turned MP, had been preparing his stint at the helm for years. As soon as the party elected him, by an overwhelming margin, in a one member, one vote ballot, he published a 'pre-manifesto' which shifted Labour's policy platform sharply to the left. He then launched a nation-wide campaign tour that didn't stop until the day of the election.
While other party leaders were on holiday, with PM Rutte famously snapped bare-chested on the boat of a wealthy friend, Samsom was talking to voters, listening to their concerns and honing his message.
When the election campaign proper started in mid-August, Samsom was ready for battle. When viewers judged Samsom to be the winner of the first major televised debate in a long series, organised (but not co-ordinated) by the Netherlands' eclectic mix of public, semi-public and private broadcasters, he developed a momentum which he never lost.
Winning debate after debate, making no mistakes, he went from strength to strength in the polls. Labour started the campaign on around 15-17 virtual seats; it ended up with more than double that on election day. Thorough preparations and a more leftist set of policies, as well as boundless energy and a new presidential look (sharp suit, trimmed hair) all contributed to Samsom's success.
But his biggest asset, and arguably Labour's biggest vote-winner, was his perceived honesty, which set him aside from other party leaders.
Labour stages remarkable comeback in Dutch polls
Dutch Labour leader Diederik Samsom celebrates the election results
Unlike Rutte's Liberals, who promised every tax payer a 1000 euro bonus, or Roemer's Socialists, who said he would put an end to austerity while staying in the euro, Samsom told voters straight-up that times were tough, and would remain so for a long time. But, he said: “we should at least make sure that voters know where we're heading and that the burden is fairly shared”.
When in one TV debate a voter asked him to provide guarantees of what he would do, Samsom responded: "I won't give you guarantees. But I will tell you what my compass is. And I will govern accordingly."
Time will tell whether Samsom stays true to his word. But when contemplating Dutch Labour's fairy tale rags-to-riches story it is important to bear one thing in mind: despite its impressive result, Labour has not won a general election since 1998 - that's fourteen years ago.
Samsom's campaign success threatens to obscure the fact that at its core, Dutch Labour - like its sister parties everywhere - is torn between the pull of its traditional instincts and the need to modernise and adapt to a new political, social and economic reality.
Until that conundrum is resolved - and in the Dutch system of proportional representation it may well take a realignment of parties across the political spectrum - it is unlikely that Labour will ever take first place in an election again, with or without a dynamic new leader.
Anyone with an interest in European politics came away revitalised and optimistic about Labour’s commitment to internationalism, and its prospects for the 2014 European elections. The European events were lively, well attended, and set out the pro-European case very well.
Brussels Labour’s fringe, co-hosted with the Labour Movement for Europe, was a case in point. Over 150 of the party faithful battled across a very rainy Manchester on Sunday lunchtime to hear a well-informed debate on “Europe – moving beyond austerity onto plan B”. It was a pleasure to see our former Treasurer and current Shadow Europe Minister, Emma Reynolds, speaking next to the Brussels Labour banner.
At the EPLP reception, S&D Group Leader Hannes Swoboda received the evening’s biggest cheer when he said "we need a strong Labour, in a strong Britain, in a strong Europe."
One theme that came across from all European events was that the UK is just about the only country which sees its relationship with the EU not in terms of whether it should move left or right but rather if we should be in or out. Glenis Willmott's plenary speech argued cogently for Labour to set out a progressive vision for Europe. Although Ed Miliband's speech as leader was light on detail, he gave a clear commitment to engagement in Europe and internationalism.
Frazer Clarke
A longer version of this article is online at brusselslabour.eu/?p=1095
Brussels Labour took part in the joint Fabians-FEPS Roundtable on ‘Rebuilding the European Left’ at this year’s conference. The event brought together John Denham MP (PPS to Ed Miliband), Axelle Lemaire (Socialist party (PS) MP in the French Parliament), Urban Ahlin (Swedish SDP politician) and Marcus Roberts (Deputy General Secretary of the Fabian Society).
Many of the audience were keen to stress that the Labour Opposition should regard our European policy as a domestic rather than foreign issue. The roundtable then discussed the route François Hollande took to achieve the Presidency and debated whether there are lessons that can be learnt and used by other centre-left parties across the EU.
One of the attractions for the French electorate was the honesty and balance with which the PS conducted the Presidential campaign. There was also a discussion about the steps that the PS had taken to involve non-party members in policy development and whether this was a risk worth taking for the long-term gains that the Party is now reaping.
Whilst there is a lot that can be learnt from the PS about winning an election, a challenge for any newly-elected party, is securing victory in subsequent elections. The group recognised that this is not always easy, particularly because governments are constantly affected by major international events that are more often than not beyond their control..
Emma Eatwell
The Fabian/FEPS paper is online at feps-europe.eu » bbc.in/SCEFvF
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Events calendar at bit.ly/xnZxns
L ooking ahead to the Brussels communal elections, Brussels Labour decided to
turn its attention to Belgian politics, inviting Pascal Smet to speak at its meeting on 20 June.
Pascale Smet is a Belgian social democratic (SP.a) politician and Flemish Minister for Education, Youth Equal Opportunities and Brussels Affairs.
He shared with Brussels Labour his experiences of running the city, in particular having previously held office in the Brussels-Capital government as Minister for Mobility and Public Works from 2004-2009.
He is also standing on the PS-sp.a list in Brussels in the communal elections on 14 October (with fellow SP.a member Ans Persoons and Brussels Labour’s Jo Wood - see photo, right).
Pascal Smet is known as a keen and sometimes outspoken advocate for reform of the political structures of the Brussels region. He argues that the existing complex and multilayered system of government means that "everyone has authority but nobody is responsible".
In a country where politics is traditionally divided along linguistic and regional lines, he welcomes the decision of the French-speaking PS and Dutch-speaking SP.a to stand together on a single list in the Brussels communal elections.
Pascal Smet believes that such initiatives represent the best way of creating a strong alliance to bring about social progress in Brussels and to improve the quality of life of its residents.
Words: Isobel Findlay Photographs: Toni Cowan-Brown
‘Everybody has authority, but no-one is responsible’
Venue tbc Square Ambiorix 6, 1000 Brussels