It's absurd and sad, but that's how these elections work. The elections for the EU Parliament are second-order elections where people often vote differently from how they vote in national elections. Many people feel that they don't matter much, and see them as a low-cost opportunity to voice their dissatisfaction with their governing party(ies). So they vote for other parties, and what better protest than to vote for a protest party of some kind? Also, because people feel that there is less at stake than in national elections, there is less reason to vote strategically (supporting another party than the most preferred one because the preferred one is too small to make a difference in the national elections, is not a member of a possible governing coalition, and so forth) - and use the EP elections to vote for their preferred party. Also, a little less academically, I think it's almost become a "thing" to vote for - uhm - somewhat eccentric parties in the EP elections. It's sorta "cool" to be able to vote for the Pirate Party. And the small parties know to work with this public mood.
elfshadow wrote: Could someone possibly give a brief background to this ignorant American? I only know the very basics of UK and EU politics so I'm a rough on some of the processes in the article that Iavas posted. It sounds like the BNP is a pretty extremist fringe party (I'm looking at some of their platform points and kind of going into shock). How were they able to get two seats in the EU Parliament? I seem to recollect that the EU Parliament elections have pretty low voter turnout and are the weakest of the three branches of the EU governance. Is it not very difficult for a minority political party to win one of these seats?
I guess, coming from an American political perspective, it seems almost absurd that such an extremist party could actually have enough votes to win a seat in an international governing body. But third-party candidates are so rarely elected here that I suppose that gives my perspective a bit of a bias.
This would probably change (somewhat) if people stopped feeling the the EU elections were second-order and not so important. But the low turn-out shows that we are far from there yet. The European Parliament has been gradually strengthened since it became an elected body in 1979, but I think it needs to be stronger still, and more visibly so, for people to feel that their votes really matter for policies at the European level.