The next elections to the European Parliament to be held in the U.K will take place on Thursday June 11th. 2009.
European elections are quite different to national or local elections in that instead of small local constituencies, the UK is divided into twelve larger regions. Each regional constituency has between three and eleven Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) according to the size of its population.
Currently in the Eastern “Region” (or what I prefer to call the Eastern counties) there are 7 MEP’s, all of whom represent the whole of the Constituency.
They are 3 Conservatives, 2 U.K.I.P, 1 Labour and 1 Liberal-Democrat. Prior to 2004 Conservatives held 4 seats and when the Parliament first had direct elections in 1979 we held all the seats in the six Eastern counties.
We plan to campaign hard and predict that we will regain at least one seat in 2009.
Below I reproduce more general information on Elections for the European Parliament. If you have any specific questions that are not covered please do not hesitate to ask me using the “contact John” web page.
Elections in the European Union take place every five years by universal adult suffrage. 785 MEPs are elected to the European Parliament which has been directly elected since 1979. No other body is directly elected although the Council of the European Union and European Council is largely composed of nationally elected officials.
Between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of new UK laws are estimated to have had their origins in the European Union. The European Parliament's main role is to analyse and amend all EU legislation, firstly through its committees and then in the full session. It is the only directly elected European Union institution and in most policy areas it has the right to throw out proposals entirely if it does not support them.
The European Union has a multi-party system, with numerous parties. Often no one party has a chance of gaining power alone, and parties must work with each other to form coalitions. However it should be noted that as no government is formed as a result of the elections, there are no permanent, formal coalitions.
The two major parties are the conservative European People's Party and The socialist Party of European Socialists. In addition to these there are numerous other groups ranging from Communists to, Greens.These parties together form the seven (from January 2007 to November 2007: eight) recognised groups in the parliament;
