Standing for the European Parliament

Mebyon Kernow – the Party for Cornwall has just announced that we will be putting forward a list of candidates for the ‘South West Region’ seat in the European Parliament.

As well as well as Cornwall, the constituency covers Bristol, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and the island of Gibraltar. Six MEPs will be elected via a list form of proportional representation.

This is not something we are doing lightly.

Democracy in Cornwall is at a vital crossroads and June 4th will be an important day for the future direction of our politics, with elections to both the new single tier council and the European Parliament.

It is our hope that people will take the opportunity of the elections on June 4th to demand a better deal for Cornwall by sending a strong message to both London and Brussels by voting MK.

After all is said and done, we are the only political party that does not have political masters outside of Cornwall to please.

It will be a hard fight for the Euro-seats however,

Six MEPs will be elected via a list form of proportional representation and it may be estimated that a political party would need to poll 150,000-160,000 votes in order to win a seat. And yet in the 2004 elections, 141,140 valid votes were cast in Cornwall – less than needed to win a seat!

What is more - the deposit to stand is £5,000 and parties lose this deposit unless they poll over 2.5% of the vote. In MK’s case, this equates to more than 25% of the Cornish vote.

Mebyon Kernow has also committed itself to continuing the fight for a Cornwall-only Euro-constituency that would give Cornwall a real voice at the heart of Europe.

Help us to make a success of this campaign.