1999 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom

1999 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom

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All 87 seats of the United Kingdom's seats in the European Parliament
Turnout	24.0% (12.4%)[1]
First party Second party Third party   Lab Leader Edward McMillan-Scott Alan Donnelly Robert Teverson Party Conservative Labour Liberal Democrats Alliance EPP PES ALDE Leader since 16 September 1997 1997 1994 Leader's seat Yorkshire and the Humber North East England South West England (defeated) Last election 18 seats, 26.8% 62 seats, 42.6% 2 seats, 17% Seats before 18 62 2 Seats won 36 29 10 Seat change 18 33 8 Popular vote 3,578,218 2,803,821 1,266,549 Percentage 33.5% 26.3% 11.9% Swing 6.5% 16.4% 4.3%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   UKIP Green Leader Michael Holmes N/A[a] Alex Salmond Party UKIP Green SNP Alliance N/A European Green Party European Free Alliance Leader since September 1997 N/A 22 September 1990 Leader's seat N/A N/A N/A Last election 0 seats, 1.0% 0 seats, 3.0% 2 seats, 3.1% Seats before 0 0 2 Seats won 3 2 2 Seat change 3 2 Popular vote 696,057 568,236 268,528 Percentage 6.5 5.3 2.5 Swing 5.5 2.3% 0.6%
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in the main table of results
Leader of Largest Party before election Tony Blair Labour Subsequent Leader of Largest Party William Hague Conservative

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The 1999 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's part of the European Parliament election 1999. It was held on 10 June 1999. Following the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, it was the first European election to be held in the United Kingdom where the whole country used a system of proportional representation. In total, 87 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom across twelve new regional constituencies.

The change in voting system resulted in significant changes in seats. The Conservatives won double the number of seats they had won in the previous European election, in 1994, while the Labour Party saw its seats reduced from 62 to 29. The Liberal Democrats saw their number of seats increase to 10 from just 2 in the previous election. The UK Independence Party (UKIP), Green Party and Plaid Cymru gained their first seats in the European Parliament.

A by-election to the British Parliament also took place on the same day in the Leeds Central constituency - Labour held the seat but with significantly reduced turnout.

The House of Commons Library calculated notional seat changes based on what the result would have been if the 1994 European elections had been held under proportional representation.^[2] The notional results and seat changes are shown in the results box for this article.

It was the first European Parliament election to be held since the 1997 general election which resulted in a change of government from Conservative to Labour.

Turnout was 24%, the lowest of any member state in the 1999 election where the EU average was 49.51%. It was also the lowest of any European election in the United Kingdom, and the lowest of any member state until the 2009 election and to date is the lowest turnout for any national election in the history of the United Kingdom.^[1]

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