just don't ask me/what my politics are
Jun. 1st, 2004 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pm215In an attempt to convey slightly more than the usual couple of bits of information to my elected representatives, I wrote a letter to my MEP. (For those who don't read NTK, the LibDem MEPs all voted in favour of software patents despite party policy to the contrary.) Dunno whether it will achieve anything, but I suppose it makes me feel better :-)
Dear Baroness Nicholson,
I am writing as a constituent and a long time Liberal Democrat voter to let you know that I do not feel able to vote for you in the forthcoming elections for the European Parliament.
I vote Liberal Democrat in UK elections because your policies broadly fit with my opinions and beliefs. As an extension of this I have voted Liberal Democrat in European elections on the assumption that a Liberal Democrat MEP would uphold the same policies and ideas at a European level.
I was therefore surprised and disappointed to find that on an issue I feel strongly about -- the extension of the patent system to software -- Liberal Democrat MEPs voted contrary to the policy set by the UK Liberal Democrat party.
Software patents are a bad idea because they are mostly useful to large companies who can afford to build up a large patent portfolio and who have the resources to defend against patent lawsuits. For small businesses and independent programmers such as myself they are generally useless, sometimes inconvenient and occasionally dangerous.
It is for reasons like these that the 2003 Liberal Democrat Conference voted in favour of ``resisting wider applications of patents in this area''. However when the issue came before the European Parliament recently you and other Liberal Democrat MEPs voted generally in favour of software patents.
It seems likely that the European Parliament will have to vote again on this topic; I shall be monitoring the voting records of Liberal Democrat MEPs. If you begin to follow party policy again I may be able to resume voting for you. However, in these elections I am afraid I shall be voting for the Green Party.
