It's time for politicians to listen

After local elections in the UK David Cameron admits his party must deliver some "answers" after UKIP's election "earthquake" shakes politics.

The Prime Minister conceded his party had to start delivering on immigration and welfare reform, and said the public had become "frustrated" with the status quo. There is no group of people more frustrated than those expats living in Europe who are denied the vote.

It is time that politicians in the UK started listening to the people instead of forcing through their doctrine policies.

Ed Miliband defended the party's campaign and said “people were turning to UKIP to express their discontent with the way the country is run”. “ people feeling that the country just does not work for them and so what you are seeing in some parts of the country is people turning to UKIP as an expression of that discontent and that desire for change."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg admitted the party had had a bad night but said: "Actually I think in the areas where we have MPs where we have good organisation on the ground ... we are actually doing well."

THEY STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND. The electorate want politicians working for them.

UK politicians are looked upon as pariahs. They have lied continuously, they have flouted their positions and ignored the wishes of the electorate, and finally they were caught with their hands in the till. No wonder Brits are disenchanted with British politics,

And that explains the rise and rise of Nigel Farage and his anti EU party. Or is it just in the UK that voters are disenchanted with Europe

A recent poll is the latest evidence that voters in France and across the continent perceive the EU as remote and unaccountable, which is expected to boost support for far-right, anti-EU parties in countries such as France, Britain, the Netherlands and Hungary.

A mere 18 percent of the 1,048 people questioned late last month said they were “confident” about the future of the European Union, with just 2 percent claiming to be “enthusiastic”.

 Only 51 percent of French still want their country to belong to the 28-nation bloc. That was down from 67 percent a decade ago, according to the CSA survey for BFMTV news channel.

The CSA poll showed that voters - 70 percent of them - are disillusioned with the European Union because of its failure to help stem rising unemployment in France, which has a record 3.3 million people out of work.

Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said they were disappointed with the EU because of the decline of social protection, while 60 percent cited growing numbers of immigrants as another reason for falling out of love with the European project masterminded by France and Germany.

France’s far-right Front National, led by Marine Le Pen, is tipped to spearhead a surge by populist parties across Europe in the vote for the EU's only directly elected body.

Polls show that the anti-immigrant French party is in pole position alongside the mainstream centre-right UMP, with President François Hollande's ruling Socialists trailing in third place. 

This looks all too familiar in the UK.

In the same way that UKIP are frightening the mainstream party’s in the UK, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party is poised to win a double-digit percentage of France’s 74 seats in the 751-member Parliament.

Do expats care? Of course they do

Being disenfranchised back home has left expats starving to participate in the democratic process, but for British expats in France the stakes are also uniquely personal.  Apart from the local elections, the EU elections are the only election some expats are allowed to vote in.

I'm British, I live outside the UK and I've done so for more than 15 years. Accordingly, the British government very unfairly denies me, and people like me, the right to vote in parliamentary elections,

Expats are free to live and work in France as long as they like without any special authorization from the government, and for that they are denied the vote.

Most of those same expats however are obliged to pay their taxes to the UK government. One without the other is WRONG!