2014 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom European Parliament election, 2014

22 May 2014
73 seats to the European Parliament
Leader David Cameron Nigel Farage Party Conservative UKIP Alliance ECR EFD Leader since 6 December 2005 5 November 2010 Last election 26 seats (including 1 UCUNF) 13 seats Current seats 26 seats 9 seats   Leader Ed Miliband Nick Clegg Party Labour Liberal Democrats Alliance S&D ALDE Leader since 25 September 2010 18 December 2007 Last election 13 seats 11 seats Current seats 13 seats 12 seats
Map of the European Parliament constituencies in the United Kingdom.
Incumbent Leader of Largest Party David Cameron Conservative

The United Kingdom's component of the 2014 European Parliament election is scheduled to be held on Thursday 22 May 2014, coinciding with the 2014 local elections in England and Northern Ireland.

Most of the results of the election will be announced on Sunday 25 May, after voting has closed throughout the 28 member states of the European Union.

In total, 73 Members of the European Parliament will be elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation. England, Scotland and Wales use a closed-list party list system of PR (with the D'Hondt method), while Northern Ireland use the Single transferable vote (STV).

Current MEPs by European Political Group

Since the last election, there have been various changes to the UK MEP breakdown. A 73rd UK MEP (Anthea McIntyre, Conservative) was allocated in December 2011 to the UK because of the Treaty of Lisbon. There have been various defections:

• one Conservative MEP (Edward McMillan-Scott) defected to the Liberal Democrats (March 2010);
• one Conservative MEP (Roger Helmer) defected to UKIP (March 2012);
• two UKIP MEPs (David Campbell Bannerman in May 2011; and Marta Andreasen in February 2013) defected to the Conservatives;
• one UKIP MEP (Nikki Sinclaire) left the party and later founded the We Demand a Referendum party;
• one UKIP MEP (Mike Nattrass) left the party in September 2013 and later founded An Independence from Europe;
• one UKIP MEP (Godfrey Bloom) left the party in September 2013 and sits now as an independent;
• one BNP MEP (Andrew Brons) left the party and later founded the British Democratic Party.

The Ulster Conservatives and Unionists - New Force (UCUNF) electoral pact between the Conservatives and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in Northern Ireland was dissolved.

Thus, the following parties currently have MEPs representing the UK:

Key to political groups of the European Parliament (UK)
Party				Faction in European Parliament
	Brexit Party	29			Non-Inscrits	57
	DUP	1
	Liberal Democrats	16	17		Renew Europe	108
	Alliance	1
	Green	7	11		Greens–European Free Alliance	75
	SNP	3
	Plaid Cymru	1
	Labour	10			Socialists and Democrats	154
	Conservative	4			European Conservatives and Reformists Group	62
	Sinn Féin	1			European United Left–Nordic Green Left	41
Total		73		Total		750

Voting system and regional representation

As has been the case since 1999, the election is conducted in a total of 12 electoral regions: using the regional Party-list proportional representation system, in each of the government's nine English regions, Scotland and Wales, but the Single transferable vote system in Northern Ireland. As a result of the Treaty of Lisbon coming into force, the UK became entitled to a 73rd MEP as from November 2011. The Electoral Commission performed a reallocation in keeping with the same procedures they used to allocate 72 MEPs and an extra Conservative MEP was allocated to the West Midlands constituency based on the 2009 vote.

Electoral region	Representation in 2009	Representation in 2014	Net Gain/Loss
East Midlands	5	5
East of England	7	7
London	8	8
North East England	3	3
North West England	8	8
South East England	10	10
South West England1	6	6
West Midlands	6	7	+1
Yorkshire and the Humber	6	6
Wales	4	4
Scotland	6	6
Northern Ireland	3	3

¹ Includes Gibraltar, the only British overseas territory which is part of the European Union.

Returning officers

The European Parliamentary Elections (Returning Officers) Order 2013 provides for the designated Returning Officer for each electoral region to be the council official responsible for elections in each of the following Westminster constituencies: Kettering for the East Midlands, Chelmsford for the Eastern region, Lewisham, Deptford for the London region, Sunderland Central for the North East region, Manchester Central for the North West region, Falkirk for Scotland, Southampton, Test for the South East region, Poole for the South West region, Preseli Pembrokeshire for Wales, Birmingham Ladywood for the West Midlands region, and Leeds Central for the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Parties & candidates

39 parties are standing a total of 747 candidates. The Conservative Party and UKIP are standing candidates in every region, as are the three Green parties (the Green Party of England & Wales, the Scottish Greens, the Green Party in Northern Ireland) between them. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the BNP are standing a full slate of candidates in all the regions in Great Britain (i.e. excluding Northern Ireland). The English Democrats and An Independence from Europe are standing a full slate of candidates in all the English regions. The Harmony Party are standing in four regions and the Christian Peoples Alliance are standing in three regions. No2EU are standing a full slate in seven regions, while Britain First and the Socialist Party of Great Britain are standing full slates in two regions each. Other parties are only standing in one region.

Party	No. of regions in which party is standing	Total no. of candidates	Number of MEPs before election	European political party/ EP group
4 Freedoms Party	1	8	0	European People's Party
An Independence from Europe	9	60	1	none
Animal Welfare Party	1	8	0	none
Britain First	2	10	0	none
British National Party	11	70	1	none
Christian Peoples Alliance	3	24	0	none
Communities United	1	8	0	none
Conservative Party	12	71	26	Conservatives & Reformists
English Democrats	9	60	0	none
Europeans Party	1	6	0	none
Green Party of England & Wales	10	64	2	European Green Party/Greens & Free Alliance
Scottish Greens	1	6	0	European Green Party
Green Party (Northern Ireland)	1	1	0	European Green Party
Harmony Party	4	5	0	none
Labour Party	11	70	13	Party of European Socialists/Socialists & Democrats
Liberal Democrats	11	70	12	ALDE/Liberals & Democrats
Liberty Great Britain	1	3	0	none
National Health Action Party	1	8	0	none
National Liberal Party	1	8	0	none
No2EU	7	46	0	none
Peace Party	1	10	0	none
Pirate Party	1	3	0	none
Plaid Cymru	1	4	1	European Free Alliance/Greens & Free Alliance
Roman Party	1	1	0	none
Scottish National Party	1	6	2	European Free Alliance/Greens & Free Alliance
Socialist Equality Party	1	8	0	none
Socialist Labour Party	1	4	0	none
Socialist Party of Great Britain	2	14	0	none
UKIP	12	71	9	Freedom & Democracy
YOURvoice Party	1	3	0	none
Yorkshire First	1	3	0	none
We Demand a Referendum Now	1	7	1	none
Traditional Unionist Voice	1	1	0	none
Sinn Féin	1	1	1	EUL-NGL
SDLP	1	1	0	Party of European Socialists
Democratic Unionist Party	1	1	1	none
Alliance	1	1	0	ALDE
NI21	1	1	0	none
UUP	1	1	1	Conservatives & Reformists

Retiring/resigned incumbents

Conservative

• Struan Stevenson (Scotland)
• Sir Robert Atkins (North West England)
• Giles Chichester (South West England and Gibraltar)
• Robert Sturdy (East of England)

Green

• Caroline Lucas (South East England) - Resigned 17 May 2010 & replaced by Keith Taylor

Labour

• Michael Cashman (West Midlands)
• Stephen Hughes (North East England)
• Arlene McCarthy (North West England)
• Brian Simpson (North West England)
• Peter Skinner (South East England)

Liberal Democrats

• Diana Wallis (Yorkshire and the Humber) - Resigned 31 January 2012 & replaced by Rebecca Taylor
• Liz Lynne (West Midlands) - Resigned 4 February 2012 & replaced by Phil Bennion
• Sharon Bowles - (South East England)
• Rebecca Taylor (Yorkshire and the Humber)

UKIP

• John Bufton (Wales)
• Trevor Colman (South West England and Gibraltar)
• Derek Clark (East Midlands)
• Godfrey Bloom (Yorkshire & Humber), currently sitting as an independent

Debates

On 20 February, the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg used his weekly phone-in show on LBC 97.3 to challenge the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, to a live public debate on the UK's membership of the European Union. Clegg said, "he is the leader of the party of 'out'; I am the leader of the party of 'in'. I think it's time we now have a proper, public debate so that the public can listen to the two sides of the argument and judge from themselves." Farage accepted, but said he would also like to see Ed Miliband and David Cameron participate.

The first hour-long debate between the two men was held on 26 March 2014 and was broadcast live on television by Sky News and on the BBC News Channel. The debate was hosted by LBC and moderated by Nick Ferrari. After the first debate, a YouGov poll asked "Who performed better?", with 57% saying Farage did better compared to 36% for Clegg.

The second debate was held on BBC Two on 2 April in a special programme called The European Union: In or Out, moderated by David Dimbleby. Farage was again seen as outperforming his rival, with a snap poll by YouGov showing 68% of people thought he did better in the debate compared to 27% for Clegg. A snap Guardian poll also showed that 69% thought Farage won the debate.

Despite David Cameron and Ed Miliband declining to participate in the leaders' debates, the Conservative and Labour parties were represented in a lower-profile debate on the BBC. On 13 February Andrew Neil hosted a four-way debate on the BBC's Sunday Politics programme. The Conservatives were represented by Syed Kamall MEP, Labour by Richard Howitt MEP, the Liberal Democrats by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP and the UK Independence Party by Patrick O'Flynn, the party's Director of communications and an MEP candidate.

Opinion polls

These opinion polls are for Great Britain and generally exclude Northern Ireland. The methodology used for these polls broadly corresponds to that used for Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election; see that article for the methodology used by each polling company. YouGov have experimented with different methods of polling for these elections, using their own method for their 8–9 January 2013 poll and another corresponding to that used by Survation and ComRes for their 10–11 January 2013 poll (both below) and argue that their method gives more accurate answers. Data for these polls are generally gathered at the same time as the data for General Election polling.

2014

Date(s) conducted	Polling organisation/client	Sample size	Con	UKIP	Lab	Lib Dem	<span	style="color:White;">Others]]	Lead
27-30 Apr	YouGov/The Sun	5,331	22%	28%	29%	9%	13%	1% over UKIP
24-28 Apr	TNS	1,199	18%	36%	27%	10%	9%	9% over Lab
25-27 Apr	ComRes/ITV News	2,052	18%	38%	27%	8%	14%	11% over Lab
24-25 Apr	YouGov/Sunday Times	1,835	19%	31%	28%	9%	13%	3% over Lab
21-22 Apr	YouGov/The Sun	2,190	22%	27%	30%	10%	11%	3% over UKIP
15-17 Apr	ICM/Sunday Telegraph	2,000	22%	27%	30%	8%	13%	3% over UKIP
11-13 Apr	ICM/The Guardian	1,000	25%	20%	36%	6%	13%	11% over Con
3-7 Apr	TNS	1,193	21%	29%	30%	9%	11%	1% over UKIP
4-6 Apr	Populus/Financial Times	2,034	27%	25%	31%	10%	7%	4% over Con
3-4 Apr	YouGov/Sunday Times	1,998	22%	28%	30%	9%	10%	2% over UKIP
4 Apr	Survation/Mail on Sunday	1,001	21%	27%	34%	9%	9%	7% over UKIP
2-3 Apr	ComRes/The People	2,067	22%	30%	30%	8%	10%	Tie
2 Apr	Broadcast of The European Union: In or Out debate.
27-28 Mar	YouGov/The Sunday Times	1,916	24%	23%	32%	11%	10%	8% over Con
26-27 Mar	YouGov/The Sun	2,039	24%	26%	28%	11%	11%	2% over UKIP
26 Mar	LBC radio debate on the European Union between the Lib Dems' Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage of UKIP.
20-21 Mar	Survation/Mail on Sunday	1,000	28%	23%	32%	7%	10%	4% over Con
17-18 Mar	YouGov/Times	2,284	24%	23%	32%	10%	11%	8% over Con
12-13 Mar	ComRes/Independent on Sunday	2,001	21%	30%	28%	8%	13%	2% over Lab
7-9 Feb	ICM/The Guardian	1,002	25%	20%	35%	9%	11%	10% over Con
14–15 Jan	YouGov/The Sun	1,893	23%	26%	32%	9%	10%	6% over UKIP
3 Jan	Survation/Mail on Sunday	1,001	23%	26%	32%	9%	10%	6% over UKIP

2013

Date(s) conducted	Polling organisation/client	Sample size	Con	UKIP	Lab	Lib Dem	<span	style="color:White;">Others]]	Lead
21–22 Nov	Survation/Daily Star	1,006	24%	25%	32%	8%	12%	7% over UKIP
11 Oct	Survation/Mail on Sunday	1,017	21%	22%	35%	11%	11%	13% over UKIP
22–24 May	ComRes/Open Europe	2,003	21%	27%	23%	18%	11%	4% over Lab
17–18 May	Survation/Mail on Sunday	1,000	20%	30%	31%	8%	11%	1% over UKIP
17–18 Jan	YouGov/The Sun	1,912	30%	12%	38%	13%	7%	8% over Con
10–11 Jan	YouGov/The Sun	1,995	24%	19%	36%	12%	10%	12% over Con
9–10 Jan	ComRes/Sunday People	2,002	22%	23%	35%	8%	12%	12% over UKIP
8–9 Jan	YouGov/The Sun	1,980	27%	17%	38%	12%	6%	11% over Con
5 Jan	Survation/Mail on Sunday	772	24%	22%	31%	11%	12%	7% over Con
4 Jun 2009	European Parliament election, 2009 (United Kingdom) Results	15,136,932	27.7%	16.5%	15.7%	13.7%	25.6%	11.2% over UKIP

Scottish polls

Date(s) conducted	Polling organisation/client	Sample size	SNP	Lab	Con	Lib Dem	UKIP	<span	style="color:White;">Others]]	Lead
11-22 Apr 2014	YouGov/Edinburgh University	1,014	33% (3)	31% (2)	12% (1)	7%	10%	7%	2% over Lab
14-16 Apr 2014	ICM/Scotland on Sunday	1,004	37% (3)	28% (2)	11% (1)	7%	10%	6%	9% over Lab
4-7 Apr 2014	Survation/Daily Record	1,002	39% (3)	30% (2)	14% (1)	6%	7%	5%	9% over Lab
17-21 Mar 2014	ICM/Scotsman	1,010	41% (3)	29% (2)	13% (1)	5%	6%	6%	12% over Lab
21-24 Jan 2014	ICM/Scotsman	1,010	43% (3)	24% (2)	14% (1)	6%	7%	6%	19% over Lab
4 Jun 2009	European Parliament election, 2009 (Scotland) Results	1,104,512	29.1% (2)	20.8% (2)	16.8% (1)	11.5% (1)	5.2%	16.6%	8.2% over Lab

Welsh polls

Date(s) conducted	Polling organisation/client	Sample size	Con	Lab	Plaid	UKIP	Lib Dem	<span	style="color:White;">Others]]	Lead
11-22 Apr 2014	YouGov/Cardiff University, Edinburgh University, IPPR	1,027	18% (1)	39% (2)	11%	20% (1)	7%	6%	19% over UKIP
10-12 Feb 2014	YouGov/ITV	1,250	17% (1)	39% (2)	12%	18% (1)	7%	7%	21% over UKIP
2-4 Dec 2013	YouGov/ITV	1,001	20% (1)	41% (3)	13%	13%	8%	5%	21% over Con
4 Jun 2009	European Parliament election, 2009 (Wales) Results	684,520	21.2% (1)	20.3% (1)	18.5% (1)	12.8% (1)	10.7%	16.6%	1% over Lab

London polls

Date(s) conducted	Polling organisation/client	Sample size	Con	Lab	Lib Dem	Green	UKIP	<span	style="color:White;">Others]]	Lead
7-9 Apr 2014	YouGov/Evening Standard	1,209	25% (2)	33% (3)	11% (1)	5%	24% (2)	3%	8% over Con
4 Jun 2009	European Parliament election, 2009 (London) Results	1,751,026	27.4% (3)	21.3% (2)	13.7% (1)	10.9% (1)	10.8% (1)	15.9%	6.1% over Lab

See also

• List of political parties in the United Kingdom
• Members of the European Parliament for the United Kingdom 2009–2014
• Next United Kingdom general election
• Opinion polling for the next United Kingdom general election
• Proposed referendum on United Kingdom membership of the European Union
• Newark by-election, 2014

External links

• UK European Parliament Information Office
• Euro Election 2014