UKIP's amazing numbers and how the UK election might affect vapers.

I am content with how the election turned out. The system we use here in the UK is very strange - lopsided. Check out the image I have given you here.



It shows what REALLY happened in this election, and how it should be if our system were fair.  Us Vapers COULD be in a far worse situation. This is an excellent analysis of our situation now from UK Politics and Ecigs

May 2015 Update

UK General Election update, May 8th 2015
Conservatives achieve a big win, hold government, and increase their seats to a clear majority of 331 (in practice probably a 12 seat clear majority) - all contrary to every poll, all of which predicted a hung parliament or even a narrow Labour win. This is the worst general election poll mistake in memory.
Labour lose seats, LibDems are virtually wiped out with a massive loss, and the minor parties - Greens and UKIP - do very badly (1 seat each). Cons took seats from everyone, especially off LibDems. SNP made massive gains in Scotland and almost achieved a whitewash. Northern Ireland was mostly held by the Unionists, with SinnFein taking some seats now they have renounced violence. In Wales, the nationalist party PC took some seats but didn't do particularly well.
The scale of the Con win was such that three other party leaders resigned (Lab, LibDem, UKIP).
UKIP were expected to do much better, but local election results are never equalled in the national election for minority parties: people have to vote tactically to keep their most-disliked party from power. UKIP got nearly 13% of the vote but one seat instead of the 84 seats they would have under PR, proportional representation. Some of their number claim this is not a democracy, it is a 2-party state, and they have a point.
How this affects the UK - EU question
In practice, the result probably does not affect the UK's membership of the EU that much: a referendum was always likely under the Cons due to a substantial number of backbenchers demanding it; but the result was and is still likely to be around a 60% nationwide vote to stay in. People don't like change, and if they see no drastic reason to vote for change, they won't.
How this affects vapers
Surprisingly, Cons are probably the vapers' best bet (not UKIP): the kippers completely messed up the EU parliament vote on the new TPD for reasons unknown - some of the 9 kipper MEPs voted for, some against, and some didn't vote at all. Who knows why; they clearly can't organise anything properly.
Cons on the other hand voted 19 out of 20 MEPs against the anti-ecig TPD, and this is a good record for honesty and good organisational skills*. Lab and Greens have a 3-line whip against vaping and will do whatever they can to ban it in order to protect tobacco tax revenues and pharma profits.
* Let's be charitable and overlook the possibility some may have connections with the cigarette trade, the TPD being, as usual, as anti-cigarette trade interests as it is now anti-vaping (though not anti-cigarette sales per se, of course).
Essentially this means that we can expect a sympathetic ear when the the new TPD is transposed, though for all practical purposes vaping faces some degree of ban in the UK via restrictive regulation. As the law comes from the EU, the most corrupt political structure in the world, nothing else can be expected. We won't know what degree of ban will be imposed until around 2017 - 2018, when the enforcement structure is finally in place and the regulations are fully enforced. As the Dept of Health is owned by pharma and will control enforcement, we can expect that EU regulations will be enforced to the hilt.
Unless, of course, legal challenges to the TPD (Article 20) are successful - in which case everything goes on hold for a while. All our hopes are pinned on the legal challenge/s, since otherwise you can expect that - eventually - only cigalikes in tobacco flavour sold on the high street will be left on sale legally (no ecig websites as that is 'cross-border adverting' and 'cross-border marketing', which will be banned). That means 99.99% of products will go black market, almost all current vendors will shut down or go offshore, prices will skyrocket, and quality will fall through the floor. Safety will take a big dive as it always does with prohibition.
If that happens, it will be the first time in history that the public have to go to the black market in order to stay healthy and achieve a normal lifespan.