PARWICH.ORG

This Thursday (23rd of May) we are voting in the EU Parliamentary election, note if you don’t cast your vote, someone else’s choice will win. In the last election in 2014 there was a disappointing 33% turnout for our region. The Parwich polling station is the Memorial Hall with voting from 7am to 10pm.

In our region, the East Midlands, we have five MEPs, which in the outgoing Parliament were:

• Rupert Matthews – Conservative (standing again)
• Emma McClarkin – Conservative (standing again)
• Rory Palmer – Labour (standing again)
• Margot Parker – UKIP
• Jonathan Bullock – UKIP (now standing for the Brexit Party)

In this election you vote by selecting your preferred party, however continue reading to find out about the very varied 2019 candidate lists.

In the past parwich.org used to contact all election candidates for comments on issues relevant to our readers, however given a poor response particularly from the EU election candidates we gave this up. One UKIP candidate even replied what happens in the EU Parliament is irrelevant to our Derbyshire village. Historically the only MEP that maintained regular contact with us was the LibDem, Bill Newton Dunn, who lost his seat in 2014.

Given there are so many people on the various candidate lists, there are 41 candidates going for five seats, those lower down on the lists of even a successful party are almost certain not to win a seat, indeed some 88% of the candidates will be unsuccessful.

Note. If a sitting MEP resigns or drops out for any reason, their seat goes with their party’s agreement to the next unelected person on their party’s regional candidate list, unlike Westminster where a by-election is called, this happened with three seats in the last Parliament, so it is not an insignificant factor.

In the upcoming election the candidate lists for the parties participating in the East Midlands are as follows (to find out more about the candidates see the site ‘Who can I vote for’ ):

Change UK

Was only founded this year specifically to campaign against leaving the EU, see Wikipedia; they don’t seem to have a regional website yet, but their national site gives information about their candidates. Note Change UK seems to be structurally a limited company and we have not been able to establish if it yet has any internal democratic party structure.

1. Kate Godfrey – a former Labour Party candidate, she is the only Change candidate with a background in politics, born in Derbyshire she has previously worked in conflict zones in Africa and Asia
2. Joan (Jo) Pons Laplana – he was born in Spain and currently works as an NHS nurse in Chesterfield
3. Narinder Sharma – he is currently CEO of a charity supporting carers
4. Pankajkumar Gulab – a retired head teacher and scientist he lives near Melton Mowbray
5. Emma Manley – A primary school teacher and Leicester University Lecture, she also has an interest in special educational needs provision and interestingly previously advocated for leaving the EU

Conservatives

The official Conservative Party website does not seem to have much information in the upcoming EU elections. It and the associated site Conservative Home have no specific biographical information on the individual candidates.

1. Emma McClarkin – she has been one if our MEPs since 2009, before entering full time politics she worked for the Rugby Football Union and in the European Parliament has an active interest in international trade (see http://emmamcclarkin.com/)
2. Rupert Matthews – he has been one of our MEPs since 2017, before entering the European Parliament he was a writer of children’s and history books as well as books on UFOs and the paranormal (see https://www.rupertmatthews.org.uk/)
3. Tony Harper – Nottinghamshire born and bred, he is a retired police officer and currently a Conservative local Councillor (see https://www.tonyharper.org.uk/)
4. Brendan Clarke-Smith – he is a Conservative local Councillor in Newark
5. Thomas Randall – we have not found any biographical details from a web search

Green Party

Their national site has policy information and their regional site gives information on their candidates.

1. Kat Boettge – born in Germany, she has worked as a physiotherapist in the NHS for a number of years and has served as a Green local Councillor in Nottingham
2. Gerhard Lohmann-Bond – born in Germany, he has spent virtually all his adult life in the UK, he lives in South Lincolnshire and has worked as a translator as well as a stay at home father for his two sons
3. Liam McClelland – born in Derby, he worked in hospitality for a number of years and is currently completing a degree in Philosophy at Nottingham
4. Daniel Wimberley – living in the Peak District, he ran a family cycling business for a number of years and was previously a member of the Jersey Parliament
5. Simon Tooke – a retired fireman and database consultant he lives in Lincoln

Independent Network

The Independent Network has more than twenty thousand local Councillors nationally with the strap line # Vote for a Person, not a Party. Click here see their leaflet for the East Midlands EU elections. This network seems particularly strong in Lincolnshire where all their East Midlands MEP candidates are based.

1. Nick Byatt – a retired RAF officer he currently serves on his Parish Council and Community Police Panel in Lincolnshire (see http://www.lincolnshireindependents.org.uk/nick-byatt)
2. Marianne Overton – she is an active Lincolnshire local Councillor (see http://www.lincolnshireindependents.org.uk/marianne-overton)
3. Daniel Simpson – a local business owner, he has served as a local Lincolnshire Councillor (see http://www.lincolnshireindependents.org.uk/daniel-simpson)
4. Pearl Clarke – a former teacher, she is active nationally and internationally in the Catholic Church
5. Nikki Dillon – a Lincolnshire local Councillor (see http://www.lincolnshireindependents.org.uk/nikki-dillon)

Labour

The national Labour website only gives a list of the candidates’ names and the regional Party site seems less helpful, so far we have not managed to find a search facility on the regional site. Labour seems as poor as the Conservatives at promoting their candidates for these elections.

1. Rory Palmer – based in Nottingham, he born in Worksop and has has been our MEP since 2017, before becoming an MEP he had been a local Councillor and was the first Deputy Mayor for Leicester (see http://rorypalmer.org/ which redirects to his tumblr hosted blog, so it is easier to get biographical information from his page on the Labour in Europe site http://www.eurolabour.org.uk/rory-palmer-mep ).
2. Leonie Mathers – a former advisor to Yvette Coper MP, she has previously been a Labour candidate for the Sherwood constituency
3. Tony Tinley – he is a former Rolls Royce mechanic, currently working for the union Unite (see https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-tinley-9937393b/)
4. Nicolle Ndiweni – a Zimbabwe born business woman, she was until recently a Nottingshire local Councillor (see https://pindula.co.zw/Nicolle_Ndiweni)
5. Gary Godden – a former Police Officer and GMB Union apprenticeships co-ordinator

Liberal Democrats

Their national site lists the EU candidates with information on each of them.

1. Bill Newton Dunn – previously MEP for the former Lincolnshire constituency, he was our East Midlands MEP from 1999 to 2014, initially a Conservative he switched to the Liberal Democrats in 2000 because of Tory Euroscepticism, has written several biographies and speaks three other European languages, currently he is a local Councillor (see https://eastmidslibdems.org.uk/en/contact/bill-newton-dunn)
2. Michael Mullaney – previously working as a carer for the elderly and disabled, he is an active campaigner and currently a local Councillor, see https://eastmidslibdems.org.uk/en/contact/michael-mullaney
3. Lucy Care – born in Derby, she is a chartered engineer and former Derby Councillor (see https://eastmidslibdems.org.uk/en/contact/lucy-care
4. Suzanna Austin – a business owner, see https://www.libdems.org.uk/suzanna-austin-eastmids4)
5. Caroline Kenyon – trained as a barrister, she was formerly a journalist and now a Licolnshire business owner (see https://www.libdems.org.uk/caroline-kenyon-eastmids5)

The Brexit Party

The Brexit ‘Party’ was founded this year to specifically campaign for our leaving the EU without any ‘withdrawal agreement’. Their national website does not seem to yet provide any background information about their candidates, and the party has no published manifesto. However this significant lack of information does not seem to have caused problems for them in the polls. Note as a private limited company controlled solely by Nigel Farage as CEO and major shareholder, they have no membership or internal party democracy.

1. Annunziata Rees-Mogg – a former Conservative Party MP candidate, she is freelance journalist, author of a number of controversial articles on how wealthy investors can profit from socially adverse circumstances and sister of Jacob Rees-Mogg (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annunziata_Rees-Mogg)
2. Jonathan Bullock – was been our MEP since 2017, formerly for UKIP, he became an independent last year, and joined the Brexit Party this year, previously he worked in Westminster for various Conservative MPs, then in various public relations roles (see http://www.jonathanbullockmep.uk/)
3. Matthew Patten – former chief executive of the Mayor’s Fund for London he has had various roles as business and charity directors (see https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-patten-11430121/?originalSubdomain=uk)
4. Tracy Knowles – struggling to find any biographical information on line
5. Dr Anna Bailey – a Political scientist, author and Russophile (wording from top of her Twitter feed)

UKIP

The party’s national site just provides a list of candidate names.

1. Alan Graves Snr – a Derby Councillor and businessman, with his son Alan Graves Jr also sitting on the Council (see http://ukipderby.org.uk/team/alan-graves/)
2. Marietta King – a Rutland based business woman, she has run for the UK Parliament and is on the UKIP national executive (see https://www.ukip.org/ukip-representatives_cat-3.php)
3. Anil Bhatti – a previous parliamentary candidate for the constituency the Cities of London & Westminster
4. Fran Loi – county chairman for UKIP Notts (see http://ukipnottingham.org/)
5. John Evans – a Derby Councillor (see http://ukipderby.org.uk/team/john-evans/)

Independent Candidate

1. Simon Rood – a military veteran, he is campaigning on the single issue of members of the armed forces and veterans being charged for alleged crimes whilst serving in Northern Ireland, “when members of the IRA get immunity”.

Given the higher than normal interest in these upcoming elections and much discussion of tactical voting, we thought it worth explaining how the voting system for the EU Parliament works in England, Scotland and Wales:

The voting system – The D’Hondt System

In the EU elections MEPs are selected on the basis of the D’Hondt system (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-27187434 ), named after the nineteenth century Belgian lawyer and mathematician who devised it.

• This works by each voter indicating their preferred party, then the first seat is awarded to the party with the most votes. The first person in that party’s candidate list gains a seat. This party’s vote is then divided by two.
• The party then with the most votes gains the second seat which goes to the top person remaining on their candidate list. At this point that party’s current votes is divided by two plus the number of MEPs they already have, so if that party already had gained a seat in the first round, then their vote is divided by three, if not it is divided by two.
• The party then with the most votes gets the third seat, and again their vote is divided by two plus the number of seats they already have.
• This continues until all the seats are allocated. In our region, the East Midlands, we have five seats.

For example if in our region voting was as follows:

• Party A – 500,000
• Party B – 420,000
• Party C – 300,000
• Party D – 200,000
• Party E – 100,000

Round 1 Party A gains a seat which goes to the first candidate on their list and their vote is divided by 2 (2 + 0)

• Party A – 250,000
• Party B – 420,000
• Party C – 300,000
• Party D – 200,000
• Party E – 100,000

Round 2 Party B gains a seat which goes to the first candidate on their list and their vote is divided by 2 (2 + 0)

• Party A – 250,000
• Party B – 210,000
• Party C – 300,000
• Party D – 200,000
• Party E – 100,000

Round 3 Party C gains a seat which goes to the first candidate on their list and their vote is divided by 2 (2 + 0)

• Party A – 250,000
• Party B – 210,000
• Party C – 150,000
• Party D – 200,000
• Party E – 100,000

Round 4 Party A gains a second seat which goes to the second candidate on their list and their vote is divided by 3 (2 + 1 existing seat)

• Party A – 83,333
• Party B – 210,000
• Party C – 150,000
• Party D – 200,000
• Party E – 100,000

Round 5 Part B gains a second seat which goes to the second candidate on their list, the final seat.

So in conclusion this hypothetical example gives:

• Party A – two seats
• Party B – two seats
• Party C – one seat
• Party D – no seats
• Party E – no seats

How accurately this system represents the proportion of votes cast depends on the number of seats, so regions with more seats (eg the South East Region with 10 seats) have a much more representative balance of elected MEPs than the smaller regions (eg the North East Region with 3 seats). In smaller regions this system places the smaller parties at a definite disadvantage.

Many of those supporting staying in the EU are concerned that this system will favour the Brexit Party, polling highly with a clear ‘leave’ message, whereas the ‘remain’ vote is seen as split between a number of smaller parties. Because of this the tactical voting site Remain Voter was developed.