East Midlands is a constituency of the European Parliament. For 2009 it elects 5 MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.

Boundaries

The constituency corresponds to the East Midlands region of England, comprising the counties of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Northamptonshire and the non-Metropolitan county of Lincolnshire.

History

It was formed as a result of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, replacing a number of single-member constituencies. These were Leicester, Northamptonshire and Blaby, Nottingham and Leicestershire North West, Nottinghamshire North and Chesterfield, and parts of Lincolnshire and Humberside South, Peak District, and Staffordshire East and Derby.

Members of the European Parliament

1999 - 2004

	MEP's Name	Political Party
	Nick Clegg	Liberal Democrats
	Chris Heaton-Harris	Conservative
	Roger Helmer	Conservative
	Bill Newton Dunn	Conservative (1999 - 2000)
		Liberal Democrats (2000 onwards)
	Mel Read	Labour
	Phillip Whitehead	Labour

2004 - 2009

	MEP's Name	Political Party
	Derek Clark	UKIP
	Chris Heaton-Harris	Conservative
	Roger Helmer	Conservative
	Robert Kilroy-Silk	UKIP (2004)
		Veritas (2004 - 2005)
		Independent (2005 - 2009)
	Bill Newton Dunn	Liberal Democrats
	Phillip Whitehead (Died 31 December 2005)	Labour (until 2005)
	Glenis Willmott (Appointed on 1 January 2006 to replace Phillip Whitehead)	Labour (2006 onwards)

Complaint against Kilroy-Silk

In August 2005, four of the MEPs for the region (Clark, Heaton-Harris, Helmer and Whitehead) sent a joint letter to President of the European Parliament Josep Borrell to complain of Kilroy-Silk: "He seems to have done little or no work as a constituency MEP for the East Midlands. This leaves five MEPs to do the work of six and the electorate have been short-changed". They went on to complain that Kilroy-Silk was not "fulfilling the pledge he made on becoming an MEP, to serve the electorate of his region" and to call for him to "either do the job for which he is paid, or get out and leave it to those who can." Such a complaint is unprecedented and Kilroy-Silk refused to comment on it; the European Parliament does not have any power to expel a member and Borell has taken no action.

2009 - 2014

	MEP's Name	Political Party
	Derek Clark	UKIP
	Bill Newton Dunn	Liberal Democrats
	Roger Helmer	Conservative
	Emma McClarkin	Conservative
	Glenis Willmott	Labour

Election results

Elected candidates are shown in bold. Brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won.

References