BRITONS blaming the UK’s failure at the
Eurovision Song Contest on an alleged political vote against
Brexit Britain are just looking for excuses, say Eurovision experts.
As Brit hope SuRie goes into tonight’s big final a YouGov poll showed a whopping 75 per cent of Britons think Britain doesn’t have chance because EU and international politics are reflected in the voting.
But a host of Eurovision experts have told Brits to stop whinging and are adamant the competition has stamped out political voting – and that each song is simply judged on its artistic merits.
William Lee Adams, founder of the world’s most visited website focusing on Eurovision, Wiwibloggs, told Express.co.uk: ”The British media will try to rationalise a poor result by blaming Brexit, political voting or even reaction to the Skripal poisoning.
“But in reality these are just excuses.
“I seriously doubt that 16-year old girls in Moldova and drunk party-goers in Sweden will be voting on anything other than the music."
To prevent countries from favouring their neighbours and not the best songs, the organisers of Eurovision have introduced new rules in the last decade, said Benny Royston, Eurovision Song Contest commentator.
He told Express.co.uk: “The power of politics has been reduced by separating neighbouring countries during the rounds of semi-final and giving more powers to the jury rather than the people voting from home.
“Now the Eurovision is just about the music, the political vote doesn’t affect the contest anymore.
“We saw last year that Brexit didn’t influence the vote as many EU countries gave many points to the UK.
“If the Balkans wanted to back Russia after the accusations made by the UK over the poisoning of the Skripals, Moscow would not have been eliminated in the first place.”
Many countries identified as part of the Balkan and former Soviet Union bloc accused of voting only for each other, including Romania, Poland, Latvia and Montenegro, didn’t make it to the final.
And Paul Jordan, another Eurovision commentator, argued that if these countries were to take a political stance, they would probably choose to vote for the UK to stand up to Russia.
Speaking to Express.co.uk he added: “Last year we did fairly well despite Brexit because people on a Saturday night don’t want to think about politics, and the same will happen tonight.”
SuRie’s song Storm is not tipped to come out as a winner against the 25 other countries, but Eurovision expert Benny Royston believe she will make an impression.
He told Express.co.uk: “We have a chance, not a very big one, but a chance indeed.
“The song is incredibly popular in the arena, the crowd loved it.
“It is by far one of the best songs the UK brought to the Eurovision in its history, but the problem is that there are so many good songs that it will be difficult for it to stand out.”
The show will air tonight on BBC One and will see last year’s winner Salvador Sobral performing on stage.