Devon and East Plymouth (European Parliament constituency)

Devon and East Plymouth
European Parliament constituency
European Parliament logo
Member state	United Kingdom
Created	1994
Dissolved	1999
MEPs	1
Sources

Devon and East Plymouth was a European Parliament constituency covering all of Devon in England, with the exception of the city of Plymouth. It was created in 1994 to replace the majority of Devon and a small part of Cornwall and Plymouth.

Prior to its uniform adoption of proportional representation in 1999, the United Kingdom used first-past-the-post for the European elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The European Parliament constituencies used under that system were smaller than the later regional constituencies and only had one Member of the European Parliament each.

The constituency consisted of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Exeter, Plymouth Sutton, South Hams, Teignbridge, Tiverton, Torbay and Torridge and West Devon.^[1]

The seat became part of the much larger South West England constituency in 1999.

Members of the European Parliament

Elected	Name	Party
1994	Giles Chichester		Conservative

Results

Only one election was held in the seat, in 1994. When nominations closed, it was revealed that Richard Huggett was a candidate with the description "Literal Democrat",^[2] a name very similar to that of the Liberal Democrats. The latter launched legal action in the High Court of Justice alleging that the Returning Officer had wrongly accepted a nomination which was designed to confuse voters. The Judge ruled that the nomination had to stand.^[3]^[4] Huggett won more than 10,000 votes, while Liberal Democrat candidate Adrian Sanders finished only 700 votes behind the winner. This prompted a change in the law, banning potentially confusing party descriptions.^[2]

European Parliament election, 1994: Devon and East Plymouth^[5]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Giles Chichester	74,953	31.7	N/A
	Liberal Democrat	Adrian Sanders	74,253	31.4	N/A
	Labour	Linda Gilroy	47,596	20.1	N/A
	Liberal	David Morrish	14,621	6.2	N/A
	Green	P. A. Edwards	11,172	4.7	N/A
	Literal Democrat	Richard Huggett	10,203	4.3	N/A
	Independent	J. A. Everard	2,629	1.1	N/A
	Natural Law	A. J. Pringle	908	0.4	N/A
Majority			700	0.3	N/A
Turnout				45.1	N/A
	Conservative win (new seat)

References

↑ "David Boothroyd's United Kingdom Election Results". Retrieved 20 January 2008.
1 2 "Research Paper, The Registration of Political Parties, Bill 188 of 1997–1998" (PDF). www.parliament.uk. 1 June 1998. The issue of misleading descriptions came to public attention in 1994 when Richard Huggett stood as the Literal Democrat candidate in the European Parliament elections in the constituency of Devon and East Plymouth.
↑ "Judge credited with thorough job". BBC News. 31 January 2000.
↑ Patricia Wynn Davies, "Historic win for Ashdown in West Country", The Independent, 13 June 1994.
↑ United Kingdom European Parliamentary Election results 1979–99: England: Part 1

External links

David Boothroyd's United Kingdom Election Results

1989–94 ← European Parliament constituencies 1994–99 → 1999–2004

England	Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes Birmingham East Birmingham West Bristol Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire East Cambridgeshire Cheshire East Cheshire West and Wirral Cleveland and Richmond Cornwall and West Plymouth Cotswolds Coventry and North Warwickshire Cumbria and Lancashire North Devon and East Plymouth Dorset and East Devon Durham East Sussex and Kent South Essex North and Suffolk South Essex South Essex West and Hertfordshire East Greater Manchester Central Greater Manchester East Greater Manchester West Hampshire North and Oxford Herefordshire and Shropshire Hertfordshire Humberside Itchen, Test and Avon Kent East Kent West Lancashire Central Lancashire South Leeds Leicester Lincolnshire and Humberside South London Central London East London North London North East London North West London South and Surrey East London South East London South Inner London South West London West Merseyside East and Wigan Merseyside West Midlands West Norfolk North Yorkshire Northamptonshire and Blaby Northumbria Nottingham and Leicestershire North West Nottinghamshire North and Chesterfield Peak District Sheffield Somerset and North Devon South Downs West Staffordshire East and Derby Staffordshire West and Congleton Suffolk and South West Norfolk Surrey Sussex South and Crawley Thames Valley Tyne and Wear Wight and Hampshire South Wiltshire North and Bath Worcestershire and South Warwickshire Yorkshire South Yorkshire South West Yorkshire West

Wales	Mid and West Wales North Wales South Wales Central South Wales East South Wales West

Scotland	Glasgow Highlands and Islands Lothians Mid Scotland and Fife North East Scotland South of Scotland Strathclyde East Strathclyde West

Northern Ireland	Northern Ireland

National

* Constituency created 1996; † Constituency created 1995

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 6/29/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.