European Parliament - votes of equal value.

The European Parliament is about to make a terrible mistake. Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty the Strasbourg Assembly has had to submit its composition to the Heads of State and Government - which this time is due to be modified in order to integrate Croatian MEPs after their country enters the Union on July 1st.
With each European election it has to reflect - slightly more each time - demographic reality - according to the degressive proportionality principle. This concept, designed for the occasion, guarantees the representation of all of the States, whatever their size, but it also aims to organise progressively the fair representation of all European citizens. Today a Maltese MEP represents 69,352 voters whilst a French MEP represents 883,756, a Luxemburger 87,476 whilst a German represents 826,704 voters. It would be difficult to be more unjust! Moreover it is because of this imbalance that the German Constitutional Court does not recognise the democratic nature of the European Parliament, and in many Member States it is the main reason behind the challenge made to the representativeness of the only european institution elected by direct universal suffrage.
Whilst the Parliament has witnessed an increase in its powers, this situation has to be corrected if it wants finally to assert itself as the voice of the citizens, who think that European integration is too distant and not democratic enough.
However Mssrs Gualtieri et Trzaskowski, the project's rapporteurs, want to put a rule to the vote of their colleagues on 11th March, which is contrary to the treaty. In their opinion the formula "no one loses and no one gains more than one seat" is the only one "likely in the present text - to lead to a majority in Parliament" .... and to vital unanimity in the European Council. And so the grand democratic principles are being rolled back because they are difficult to implement.
The European Union, its institutions and also its Member States, have to stop doing this sort of thing immediately, since it is heading directly towards a trial of legitimacy.
A democratic European Parliament, in other words one that is representative, is necessary now more than ever before if we are to gain citizen support for the European project. And as long as the European leaders confuse compromise with cop-out, dialogue with weak consensus, democratic principles with the facility of gradual opting out, we shall not win back the vital confidence of the populations in the construction of a united Europe.
Let us hope that the Strasbourg Assembly rejects this poor proposal or at least that one head of State rejects this cheap decision. It would comprise the first step towards healing Europe of the sickness which is undermining it.

A British MEP represents approx 600,000 voters.   It is time this undemocratic imbalance was rectified.   The vote of each voter in Europe should have an equal value.

Conservative grassroots

The Conservative grassroots are withering - and the party leadership has no plan to revive them.

By Paul Goodman
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I went to Eastleigh on Wednesday to "add my strength to yours", as Fotherington-Thomas used to say in the Molesworth books, and was given pledge letters to deliver in two areas. There will always be errors in a canvass, but three of the households to which the letters were addressed had UKIP posters in a window, two had Liberal Democrats ones, and a smattering had posted notices saying "No more by-election leaflets, please" (or less polite variants on that theme.)

On my way back to the campaign office, I ran into a Conservative MP who was also a senior member of the campaign team. He said that pledge letters had not necessarily been sent to voters who had been canvassed, but to those who had been identified by Mosaic - the "unique consumer classification based on in-depth demographic data". It's a statement of the obvious that seeking to identify voters through Mosaic is no substitute for having local people on the ground.

As I pointed out in the Daily Telegraph last week, Eastleigh is an extreme example of a problem that has haunted the party for years, and is coming home to roost now we're in government. We are feeling the consequences of the decline of political party membership - in my view, more than Labour, which has the trade unions to fall back on in election campaigns. (They ran an effective 'ground war" in 2010, despite Brown's dire "air war", helping to hold a vital tranche of midlands and northern marginals.)

During the course of this Parliament, Tim Montgomerie and I have been told, during three visits to CCHQ, first, that local Associations were more of a hindrance than a help at the last election; second, that they are indispensable to winning seats (the senior party figure we met told us said that CCHQ was considering presenting awards at the annual conference to Associations with big membership increases) and, third, that local Associations are past their sell-by date as a vote-gathering force, and that local networks of leafletters are more reliable.

I agree that the old-fashioned Association model doesn't work, but this chopping and changing is alarming. More importantly, those local networks don't cut the mustard. Leafletters have their limits. Local activists involved in "social action" - many of those I know and have known are involved in local charities and voluntary groups and clubs - are effectively ambassadors for the party. This is no less true of councillors.

I got a text this morning from a campaigning Conservative MP which reads as follows:

"Eastleigh is not just UKIP but crap party organisation, second-rate officials, and centre not understanding letting grassroots wither. Need mass membership prog and clearout of current officials many of whom have been there for years."

In response to which - and in summary - three points:

·    A poor craftsman blames his tools, so I'm reluctant to lump the blame for Eastleigh on officials. But my source is well-informed about how the party machine now works. As Tim Montgomerie wrote earlier today, we'll return to the subject soon.

·    The party sought to follow the Obama campaign during the Eastleigh contest by building up an Obama-style database of voters. But "boots on the ground" were essential to Obama's campaigning strategy. The Tories had few indigenous ones in Eastleigh.

·    David Cameron has sought to follow Tony Blair by defining himself against his party. ("I am the heir to Blair.") Downing Street isn't slow to point out that he polls ahead of it. But while this may help the Conservatives in the short-term, it is harming them in the long - even in the medium. Boosting your own brand at the expense of your party will - arguably - bring it benefits for as long as it wins general elections. But it didn't win the last one. And Cameron may well not be in Downing Street after the next.

 Response to Paul:

"It was all so predictable. The destruction of the Party's "grass roots" has been going on for some years. As a membership organisation the Conservative Party is in terminal decline. By the time of the General Election it will consist solely of Councillors, their families and friends, and there will be fewer of them than there are today.
If the Party had been a democratic organisation it would have kept in touch with the membership which keeps it in touch with the electorate. It has failed and now the chickens are coming home to roost. How sad that those in power refuse to give up any of their power even if the end result is that they cease to have any power at all".