Next Elections to the European Parliament

'The people are the masters. We are the people's servants. Forget that and the people will soon show that what the electorate give, the electorate can take away' Tony Blair, May 1997.

The European Parliament Elections 1999

A system of proportional representation was be used to elect MEPs with the whole of Scotland as a single constituency. Each party put forward a list of eight candidates and the results were decided proportionally. A truly proportional system would allocate a MEP to a party which obtained 12.5 % of the vote.

This would have affected the 1994 election as follows:

Party	Logo	% vote	MEPs elected	MEPs by PR
Labour		42.5 %	6	4
Scottish National Party		32.6 %	2	3
Conservative		14.5 %	0	1
Liberal Democrat		7.2 %	0	0
Others		3.2 %	0	0

In an Independent Scotland, the numbers of MEPs would probably be increased to 16. In this case, the Liberal Democrats would be represented, and parties like the Greens, who obtained 7.2 % in 1989, could also win a seat in the European parliament.