The European elections on May 23rd are fast approaching and it has now been confirmed that the UK will be electing MEPs (members of the European Parliament), after it was initially thought Britain would have left the EU two months ago.
The European Parliament creates laws and approves budgets for the European Union, and is made up of elected members from all 28 member states. Currently, the European Parliament is made up of 751 MEPs, with 73 of these coming from the UK. Parties from across Europe work together in separate groups, based on ideology, to pass legislation.
EU elections have a different voting system to other elections held in the UK. In the Scotland, Wales and England, MEPs are elected using the D’Hondt method, a voting method which is more proportional than first-past-the-post.
Voters cast their ballot for a party, rather than an individual candidate, with candidates running on a party list.
This video from the BBC’s EU election coverage in 2009 explains how the D’Hondt method works.
South East England elects ten of the UK’s 73 MEPs. The region covers Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey and West Sussex.
At the last EU election, South East England elected 4 UKIP MEPs, 3 Conservatives, 1 Labour, 1 Lib Dem and 1 Green.
Candidates
Brexit Party
- Nigel Farage
- Alexandra Phillips
- Robert Rowland
- Belinda de Lucy
- James Bartholomew
- Christopher Ellis
- John Kennedy
- Matthew Taylor
- George Farmer
- Peter Wiltshire
Change UK
- Richard Ashworth
- Victoria Groulef
- Warren Morgan
- Eleanor Fuller
- Robin Bextor
- Nicholas Mazzei
- Suzana Carp
- Phil Murphy
- Heather Allen
- Diane Yeo
Conservative Party
- Daniel Hannan
- Nirj Deva
- Richard Robinson
- Michael Whiting
- Juliette Ash
- Anna Firth
- Adrian Pepper
- Clarence Mitchell
- Neva Sadikoglu-Novaky
- Caroline Newton
Green Party
- Alexandra Philips
- Elise Benjamin
- Vix Lowthion
- Leslie Groves Williams
- Phelim Mac Cafferty
- Jan Doerfel
- Larry Sanders
- Isabella Moir
- Oliver Sykes
- Jonathan Essex
Independent
- Jason McMahon
Independent
- David Round
Independent
- Michael Turberville
Labour Party
- John Howarth
- Cathy Shutt
- Arran Neathey
- Emma Christina Turnbull
- Rohit Dasgupta
- Amy Fowler
- Duncan Shaw Thomas Enright
- Lubna Arshad
- Simon Burgess
- Rachael Ward
Liberal Democrats
- Catherine Bearder
- Anthony Hook
- Judith Bunting
- Martin Tod
- Liz Leffman
- Chris Bowers
- Giles Goodall
- Ruvi Ziegler
- Nick Perry
- John Vincent
Socialist Party of Great Britain
- Mandy Bruce
- Raymond Carr
- David Chesham
- Robert Cox
- Michael Foster
- Stephen Harper
- Neil Kirk
- Anton Pruden
- Andrew Thomas-Emans
- Darren Williams
UK European Union Party
- Pacelli Ndikumana
- Clinton Powell
UKIP
- Piers Wauchope
- Liz Phillips
- Daryll Pitcher
- Toby Brothers
- Tony Gould
- Clive Keith Egan
- Troy De Leon
- Alan Harvey Stone
- Judy Moore
- Pat Mountain
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