Elections to the European parliament can be awkward for admirers of the EU. A ballot in every member state is the most directly democratic feature of the union’s institutional architecture and such a poll should, in theory, bind millions of people in a sense of collective political enterprise.
In practice, it rarely feels that way. Awareness of the parliament’s functions is thin. Turnout is low. Parties tend to reserve their best candidates for domestic races. An election of apparently minor consequence invites protest voting, which yield MEPs who have no interest in doing the job properly.
Britain has exemplified that problem. The European parliament gave Ukip a platform and finance when Nigel Farage was unable to capture a Westminster seat. Now Mr Farage sees next month’s ballot as the chance for more wrecking, this time at the head of a new Brexit party. It is still possible for the vote to be aborted, if Theresa May’s EU withdrawal agreement is approved in the next couple of weeks. That seems unlikely. The Conservatives look incapable of rallying behind Mrs May and, for the same reason, are in no fit state to contest an election. The likelihood of leave voters registering their impatience as support for Mr Farage is high.
By contrast, opposition to Brexit is spread between a number of parties. Even if their aggregate score demonstrates a strong body of remain-leaning opinion in the country, the signal will be weakened by fragmentation. That is not a new phenomenon. The prolonged failure of pro-Europeans to mobilise around a single compelling message was partly responsible for Brexit in the first place. One consolation is that the election of MEPs in May would be about Europe in ways that previous ballots have not. It will not be a proxy for other domestic grievances. Our future as part of a continental project should be central to the debate.
Unusually, the same is true in many EU states. Britain is not the only country grappling with the tensions that arise when identity politics collides with the strategic logic of multinational economic and political cooperation. In France, Emmanuel Macron has tried to present himself as the champion of a pan-European, liberal and modernising front to hold back a populist tide. He presents himself as the antithesis to Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s far right.
On another axis, the EU’s main centre-right group, the European People’s party – which includes Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats – recently suspended Fidesz, the xenophobic anti-immigration party led by Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Mr Orbán’s authoritarianism has long offended the EPP, but some in the bloc fear that expelling Fidesz could embolden the nationalists and weaken the centre ground.
Those tensions might not be uppermost in every voter’s mind, but questions about the future of the EU will feature more in this campaign than usual. There is a sense that the very character of the project is in play. Global challenges, from an increasingly assertive Chinese superpower to an increasingly unreliable American one, make the stakes much higher. Whatever other issues get tangled up in the campaign, our MEPs would be actors in an emerging battle for the soul of the European project, some on the side of nationalist sabotage and xenophobia, some in defence of liberalism and pluralism. Equivalent choices will confront voters in other countries. There is an irony and an opportunity here. The elections could nurture the spirit of democratic participation in a continental project that such ballots have previously failed to ignite.
