Joint elections are aimed at damaging UKIP

The British government is pressing ahead with plans to hold local and European elections on the same day.

Gordon Brown says that it's to save money and increase voter turnout at European elections byt that's only a half truth.

Yes, increasing voter turnout is one objective. European elections are an exercise in apathy for most voters in the UK - some petitions on the Downing Street website get more signatures than the average turnout for a European election. Getting more people to vote in them will give the British government some useful propaganda - how can the likes of UKIP argue that nobody is interested in the EU other than when we can get out if so many people make the effort to vote in European elections?

Of course, holding one election will also save money - there's no denying that. Instead of paying people twice to work the polling stations, the counts and stuff envelopes full of fraudulent postal votes they can pay them once.

But the main reason is to deprive UKIP of support. At the last European elections, UKIP gave the eurofederalist British establishment the fright of its life by taking a hefty slice of the MEP pie. Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems all stand on a eurofederalist ticket, to varying extents and they know that UKIP is the only eurosceptic party that can give them a run for their money. The defecion of two Lords and an MP from the Conservatives to UKIP in protest at David Camorons love affair with the EU worried the Conservatives more than they let on - there is support for UKIP from the ground up in the Conservative Party but the almost certain knowledge that they will form the next government is too tempting for most of them to vote with their feet.

By holding local elections and European elections on the same day, the big three know that they will gain many more MEP votes than they would have done witha seperate European election. People voting Labour or Conservative or Lib Dem for their local council are far more unlikely to put a cross in the UKIP box for the MEP list. Some will instinctively vote for the same party for both because they're voting for their chosen party, not the one that represents their views on the EU. But most will vote for the same party because they will be worried that they're going to put their cross in the wrong box and inadvertently vote for the wrong party in the wrong election. You can rest assured that the ballot papers will make it as complicated and ambiguous as is legally allowed to ensure that UKIP are deprived of as many votes as possible and Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib Dems will all three be complicit in this because they have nothing to lose.

Joint local and European elections will harm UKIP but, most importantly, they will harm our country, our economy and our jobs because cheating the country out of a eurosceptic voice in Europe will only strengthen the stranglehold the EU has over us.