The European Election on May 22nd is one of the largest elections in the world (although not as big as the Indian general election). Voters in 28 countries will elect 751 MEPs including 73 in the United Kingdom.

In the European Parliament national parties combine with others to make European groupings. The Conservatives sit with the Alliance of European Reformists and Conservatives, Labour sit with the Party of European Socialists, for example. In the parliament the right wing parties predominate with about 48% of the seats, parties of the left have about 30%, Liberals 11%, Greens 8%, Independents 3%. There tends to be more switching of parties in the European Parliament than at Westminster, especially the case with UKIP, they won 13 seats in 2009 but by 2014 they were down to 10 because they had 2 defections to the Conservatives, 2 resignations and one defection from the Conservatives to them. When a member leaves for any reason, there is no by-election but instead a replacement from the same party takes the seat.

How the election works

Each country organises their elections slightly differently. Great Britain is divided into 11 regions who elect MEPs from what is called a 'party list'. That is voters only vote for a party, who decides the order in which their candidates will be elected. The higher up the party list you are the better your chances of being elected. Hartley is part of the South East Region which elects 10 MEPs.

Unlike a general election, the seats are allocated more proportionally which means the seats a party wins better reflects the number of votes they get. A system called D'Hondt is used, which is not true proportional voting because it slightly favours larger parties over the smaller.

In this system you first count the total number of votes for each party and the first of the 10 seats is allocated to the party with the most votes, their total vote is then divided by 2 (that is 1 + the number of seats already won). When a party wins 2 seats, its vote is divided by 3 and so on.

In 2009 the South East Region votes and seats as allocated under D'Hondt are set out in the table below. The Conservatives got most votes with 812,288 and so got the first seat, their vote was then divided by 2, which meant for the next round UKIP topped the poll and got the 2nd seat. UKIP's vote was then divided by 2. For the 3rd seat the Conservatives were once again the largest party with 406,144 votes (half of 812,288) and so the seat was theirs, as they now had 2 seats their total vote was then divided by three.

Seat Number	CON	UKIP	LIBDEM	GREEN	LAB	Elected
	34.8%	18.8%	14.1%	11.6%	8.2%
1	812,288	440,002	330,340	271,506	192,592	CON
2	406,144	440,002	330,340	271,506	192,592	UKIP
3	406,144	220,001	330,340	271,506	192,592	CON
4	270,696	220,001	330,340	271,506	192,592	LIBDEM
5	270,696	220,001	165,170	271,506	192,592	GREEN
6	270,696	220,001	165,170	135,703	192,592	CON
7	203,022	220,001	165,170	135,703	192,592	UKIP
8	203,022	143,704	165,170	135,703	192,592	CON
9	162,458	143,704	165,170	135,703	192,592	LAB
10	162,458	143,704	165,170	135,703	96,296	LIBDEM
Total	4	2	2	1	1

The 2014 Campaign

A full list of parties and candidates is available from Southampton Council who are organising the poll in the South East. The parties standing are: 

Conservative*
Labour*
Liberal Democrat
Green*
UKIP*
An Independence from Europe*
BNP
Christian People's Alliance
English Democrats*
Harmony Party
Liberty Great Britain
Peace Party
Roman Party
Socialist Party of Great Britain*
Your Voice

(Starred (*) parties have circulated leaflets in Hartley)

The BBC website has summaries of all the parties' policies and links to their websites for more information.

No candidates are from Hartley, Longfield or New Ash Green. The English Democrats have 3 candidates from Dartford, while the Peace Party has one.

There have been no South-East only opinion polls, however many polling organisations split their results down by region. It should be noted that the lower numbers involved mean that statistically, these are not as accurate a reflection of voting intention as the national figures.

The average of two polls taken about 9 May gives a rough percentage poll for the South East (numbers in brackets are percent change since 2009) with the projected number of seats:

UKIP 37% (+19%) - 4/5 seats
Con 26% (-9%) - 3 seats
Lab 16% (+8%) - 1/2 seats
Libdem 10% (-4%) - 1 seat
Green 6% (-6%) - 0 seats

The Results

Each borough is counted separately, which gives us some idea of how people voted locally. These are not the same areas as parliamentary constituencies, Hartley's Euro vote is counted in Sevenoaks, rather than Dartford which is our Westminster seat.

Party	Sevenoaks	Dartford	South East
Conservative	11,182 34.8%   (-3.2%)	6,366 24.1%   (-4.7%)	723,571 0.7%   (-3.6%)
Labour	3,349 10.4%   (+3.7%)	5,323 20.2%   (+5.3%)	342,775 14.7%   (+6.4%)
Lib Dem	1,993 6.2%   (-4.6%)	766 2.9%   (-4.0%)	187,876 8.0%   (-6.1%)
Green	2,220 6.9%   (-3.7%)	1,276 4.8%   (-2.9%)	211,706 9.1%   (-2.6%)
UKIP	11,873 36.9%   (+18.3%)	10,758 40.8%   (+21.9%)	751,439 32.1%   (+13.3%)
Christian People's Alliance	222 0.7%	163 0.6%   (-1.1%)	14,893 0.6%   (-0.9%)
English Dem	233 0.7%	484 1.8%   (-7.6%)	17,771 0.8%   (-1.5%)
BNP	205 0.6%   (-4.0%)	307 1.2%   (-6.7%)	16,909 0.7%   (-3.6%)
An Independence from Europe	617 1.9%   (n/a)	663 2.5%   (n/a)	45,199 1.9%   (n/a)
Others	244 0.8%	274 1.0%   (-2.4%)	25,940 1.1%   (-3.1%)
Turnout	37.48%	37.02%	36.46%