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European Parliament Elections Bill

I am not sure that I do; if that is the situation, it is very unsatisfactory. Members of the European Parliament should be elected to represent their constituents, just as we are, but as soon as people become European Commissioners, they have to give up their allegiance to their home country and do everything in the name of the Commission.

There are some good examples of Members of the European Parliament who are acting in their constituents’ interests. I hope that many more will do so. The Bill would help facilitate that, as its purpose is to ensure that there is a system of open rather than closed lists. Anyone whose candidature was put before the electors at an election could have a cross put beside their name and that the elector would not just be ticking a list for a particular party membership.

At the moment, someone who wants to vote Conservative in the European elections in the south-west of England, where my constituency is, will have no say over the order of preferences for Conservative candidates. If the person thinks that the fourth or fifth candidate on the Conservative party list is the best, they have no opportunity of voting for them because the list has been sorted out by the party in private sessions and a Conservative vote is deemed to be for the first candidate—and, if there are sufficient votes, the second candidate and so on. That is completely different from what most would see as a fair election: one in which they can choose the candidate for themselves.

The present system gives a lot of undue power to political parties and makes it more difficult for strong and independent voices to get elected to the European Parliament. It also creates all sorts of perversities—for example, if someone elected on one party list to the European Parliament then chooses to change party, as often seems to happen, they retain their position in the European Parliament, but for the different party, without any opportunity for the electors in their region to select somebody else.