European Elections - East Midlands

1.25.09pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 5th May 2009

In the first in a series of looking at each of the regions (and nations) for the European Elections I today examine the East Midlands.

The East Midlands will this year be electing five MEPs, down from 6 in 2004.

In 2004 the Conservatives topped the poll with 26.4% gaining 2 MEPs, UKIP were second with 26.05% and 2 MEPs, Labour third with 20.97% and 1 MEP and the Liberal Democrats took the last MEP with 12.94%. The BNP were fifth with 6.53%, the Green Party sixth with 5.45% and Respect took 1.42%.

Roger Helmer (Conservative) was first elected, followed by Robert Kilroy-Silk (UKIP, but now Veritas or whatever he wishes to call himself this week), then Philip Whitehead (Labour), Chris Heaton Harris (Conservative), Derek Clark (UKIP) and Bill Newton Dunn (Liberal Democrat).

I suspect the UKIP vote will reduce massively in this region, the 'Kilroy-effect' last time boosted UKIP everywhere but more so in the East Midlands, Labour will also lose votes as Derby, Leicester and Nottingham will not have local elections - there will be elections in the 'shire' counties of Derbyshire, Lecistershire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire which will surely help the Conservatives.

I can see no circumstances where the Conservatives will not top the poll again this time, but suspect Labour will overtake UKIP. However I think it is entirely possibly that the Conservatives have double the Labour vote giving them the first two seats and Labour the third seat. If not The Conservatives will certainly be double the vote of UKIP or the Liberal Democrats so the first three seats will be two Conservatives and one Labour.

The real question is will UKIP or the Liberal Democrats take third place and the fourth seat, the fifth seat will be between whichever of UKIP and the Liberal Democrats do not come third and potentially the Conservatives if they are approaching three times the vote of the fourth placed party.

I can't see the BNP gaining enough votes across the East Midlands to win the fifth seat (they would, in my opinion need around 13% to be in with a shout).

As with all the regions I will have a quick look at the Liberal Democrat list. The list is headed by current MEP Bill Newton-Dunn, who was first elected as a Conservative MEP and defected but then held the seat as a Liberal Democrat. Bill has announced he will not serve a full five year term so second on the list, Ed Maxfield, is very important as although it is highly unlikely they will be elected they will almost certainly take the seat at some point. Third is Denise Hawksworth, fourth is Deborah Newton-Cook and fifth is David Perkins.