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The European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2009 European Parliament election, the voting for which was held on Thursday 4 June 2009, coinciding with the 2009 local elections in England. Most of the results of the election were announced on Sunday 7 June, after similar elections were held in the other 26 member states of the European Union. Scotland declared its result on Monday 8 June, as counting in the Western Isles was delayed due to observance of the Sabbath.
In total, 72 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation. (This figure would have been 73 if the Lisbon Treaty had entered into force by June 2009.) England, Scotland and Wales used the D'Hondt method of PR, whilst Northern Ireland used Single Transferable Vote (STV). Owing to the expansion of the European Union, the number of members elected for the United Kingdom was fewer than in 2004. This is because the total number of MEPs increased temporarily with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, but was subsequently reduced again in accordance with the Treaty of Nice. The number of members elected from each region was modified by the Boundary Commission and Electoral Commission, based on the size of the electorate in each region.
Notable outcomes were the significant drop in support for the Labour Party, who came third, and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) finishing second in a major election for the first time in its history. This was the first time in British electoral history that a party in government had been outpolled in a national election by a party with no representation in the House of Commons. Also noteworthy was the election of two British National Party (BNP) candidates. It was the first time the Scottish National Party won the largest share of the European election vote in Scotland,[1] and it was the first time since 1918 Labour had failed to come first in a Welsh election.[2] It was the Democratic Unionist Party's worst ever European election result: the party had previously topped the poll in every European election in Northern Ireland since the first one in 1979.[3] It was also the first time an Irish Republican topped the poll with Bairbre de Brun coming first with 125,000 votes.
Contents |
Source: BBC News As the total number of UK seats went down compared to the 2004 election, the number of seats won in the 2004 elections is recalculated as it were in 2009 elections. Both figures are included in the table below, with the relative seat changes figures taking into account the changes in seat numbers per region.
Turnout across Great Britain was 15,136,932, representing 34% of the electorate
| Party | Votes | Vote % | % Change |
Seats | Seats Change |
Relative Seats Change |
Seats % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | 4,198,394 | 27.7% | +1.0 | 25 | −2 | +1 | 37.7 | |
| UKIP | 2,498,226 | 16.5% | +0.3 | 13 | +1 | +1 | 18.8 | |
| Labour | 2,381,760 | 15.7% | −6.9 | 13 | −6 | −5 | 18.8 | |
| Liberal Democrat | 2,080,613 | 13.7% | −1.2 | 11 | −1 | +1 | 15.9 | |
| Green | 1,223,303 | 8.1% | +2.4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2.9 | |
| BNP | 943,598 | 6.2% | +1.3 | 2 | +2 | +2 | 2.9 | |
| SNP | 321,007 | 2.1% | +0.7 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2.9 | |
| Plaid Cymru | 126,702 | 0.8% | −0.1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1.4 | |
| English Democrats | 279,801 | 1.8% | +1.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Christian/Christian People's Alliance (Joint Ticket) |
249,493 | 1.6% | +1.6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Socialist Labour | 173,115 | 1.1% | +1.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| NO2EU | 153,236 | 1.0% | +1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Scottish Green | 80,442 | 0.5% | 0.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Jury Team | 78,569 | 0.5% | +0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| UK First | 74,007 | 0.5% | +0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Libertas | 73,544 | 0.5% | +0.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Jan Jananayagam (Independent) | 50,014 | 0.3% | +0.3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Pensioners | 37,785 | 0.2% | +0.2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Mebyon Kernow | 14,922 | 0.1% | +0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Animals Count | 13,201 | 0.1% | +0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Scottish Socialist | 10,404 | 0.1% | −0.3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Duncan Robertson (Independent) | 10,189 | 0.1% | +0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 15,072,325 | 69 | -6 | 0 | 100 | |||
| Party | Candidate | Seats | Loss/Gain | First Preference Votes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | % of vote | ||||||
| Sinn Féin | Bairbre de Brún | 1 | 0 | 126,184 | 25.8 | ||
| Democratic Unionist | Diane Dodds | 1 | 0 | 88,346 | 18.1 | ||
| Conservatives and Unionists | Jim Nicholson | 1 | 0 | 82,892 | 17.0 | ||
| SDLP | Alban Maginness | 0 | 0 | 78,489 | 16.1 | ||
| Traditional Unionist Voice | Jim Allister | 0 | 0 | 66,197 | 13.5 | ||
| Alliance | Ian Parsley | 0 | 0 | 26,699 | 5.5 | ||
| Green (NI) | Steven Agnew | 0 | 0 | 15,764 | 3.2 | ||
| Turnout[4] | 488,891 | 42.8 | |||||
Source: BBC News
As has been the case since 1999, the electoral constituencies were based on the government's nine English regions, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, creating a total of 12 constituencies. On 31 July 2007, in line with the required reduction in representation from the United Kingdom, the Electoral Commission recommended reductions in representation from Scotland, and from 5 English regions, resulting in new representation as below:
| Constituency | Representation in 2004 |
Representation in 2009 |
Net Gain/Loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| East Midlands | 6 | 5 | −1 |
| East of England | 7 | 7 | No Change |
| London | 9 | 8 | −1 |
| North East England | 3 | 3 | No Change |
| North West England | 9 | 8 | −1 |
| South East England | 10 | 10 | No Change |
| South West England1 | 7 | 6 | −1 |
| West Midlands2 | 7 | 6 | −1 |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | 6 | 6 | No Change |
| Wales | 4 | 4 | No Change |
| Scotland | 7 | 6 | −1 |
| Northern Ireland | 3 | 3 | No Change |
The recommended changes were approved by the UK Parliament in 2008.[5]
1 Includes Gibraltar, the only British overseas territory which is part of the European Union.
2 Had the Treaty of Lisbon come into force prior to these elections, the UK would have been entitled to a 73rd MEP. Were the Electoral Commission to perform a reallocation in keeping with the same procedures they used to allocate 72 MEPs, the extra MEP would have been allocated to the West Midlands constituency,[6] preserving its representation at 7 rather than reducing it to 6.
Source: The Electoral Commission
In the run up to the election, several polling organisations carried out public opinion polling in regards to voting intentions in Great Britain (i.e. the UK excluding Northern Ireland, which is always excluded from such voting intention surveys). Results of such polls are displayed below.
ComRes, ICM, Populus and YouGov are members of the British Polling Council, and abide by its disclosure rules. BPIX is not a member of the BPC, and does not publish detailed methodology and findings.
| European Parliament Election – Opinion Polling | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firm/Client | Survey end date | Con | Labour | UKIP | Lib Dem |
Green Parties* |
BNP | SNP | Plaid Cymru |
Others |
| YouGov/Daily Telegraph | 3 June 2009 | 26% | 16% | 18% | 15% | 10% | 5% | 4% SNP + PC | 6% | |
| ComRes/Green Party of England and Wales |
31 May 2009 | 24% | 22% | 17% | 14% | 15% | 2% | 3% | - | 4% |
| YouGov/Daily Telegraph | 29 May 2009 | 27% | 17% | 16% | 15% | 9% | 7% | 4% SNP + PC | 6% | |
| ICM/Sunday Telegraph | 28 May 2009 | 29% | 17% | 10% | 20% | 11% | 5% | 5% SNP + PC | 3% | |
| Populus/Times | 28 May 2009 | 30% | 16% | 19% | 12% | 10% | 5% | 2% | 1% | 4% |
| ICM/Guardian | 21 May 2009 | 30% | 24% | 10% | 18% | 9% | 1% | 4% SNP + PC | 3% | |
| YouGov/Daily Telegraph | 16 May 2009 | 28% | 22% | 15% | 17% | 7% | 5% | 4% SNP + PC | 1% | |
| BPIX/Mail on Sunday | 16 May 2009 | 30% | 17% | 17% | 15% | - | 5% | - | - | - |
| ComRes/UKIP | 14 May 2009 | 28% | 23% | 15% | 14% | 11% | 4% | - | - | 5% |
| YouGov/Sun | 14 May 2009 | 29% | 20% | 15% | 19% | 6% | 3% | 4% SNP + PC | 1% | |
| Populus/Times | 10 May 2009 | 34% | 25% | 6% | 20% | 5% | 2% | 4% | 2% | 1% |
| YouGov/Sunday Times | 8 May 2009 | 36% | 25% | 7% | 20% | 4% | 4% | 4% SNP + PC | 1% | |
| ICM/TPA | 4 May 2009 | 32% | 28% | 9% | 22% | 1% | 1% | 4% | 2% | - |
| YouGov/TPA | 8 January 2009 | 35% | 29% | 7% | 15% | 5% | 4% | 4% SNP + PC | 2% | |
| 2004 Election | 26.7% | 22.6% | 16.1% | 14.9% | 5.8% | 4.9% | 1.4% | 1.0% | 6% | |
| 2009 Election | 27.7% | 15.7% | 16.5% | 13.7% | 9.1% | 6.2% | 2.1% | 0.8% | 7.9% | |
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