LONDON — There has never been an election quite like it.
For starters, it was never meant to happen. Since the U.K. voted to leave the EU in June 2016 the assumption had been that its MEPs would leave the European Parliament for good in March 2019. Now the country will elect a whole new slate of 73 parliamentarians.
Stranger still, the uncertain Brexit timetable means that none of the 73 will know for sure how long they must serve. It is just about plausible that their term will be so short they never have to take their seats. Or they might be in office until October. Or beyond.
The two main parties, the Conservatives and Labour, are divided on Brexit and approach the election with trepidation. Neither has yet officially launched their campaign and neither has a clear vision for the future of the EU for the understandable reason that both still pursue a policy that the U.K. should be leaving it sooner rather than later. Into the void have sprung parties advocating clearer policies on either side of the polarized debate.
Each party’s slate of candidates was finalized this week. Here’s POLITICO’s guide to some of the key figures and eye-catching would-be MEPs for each of the main parties:
Geoffrey Van Orden, Conservative, East of England, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Photo courtesy of European Union
They don’t come more classically Tory than Geoffrey Van Orden, the former British Army officer who has represented the East of England since 1999. But UKIP took more than a third of a vote in the region in 2014. With the Brexit Party to contend with as well in this election, might he be the last Tory standing in the region?
Nationally the Conservative vote share is plummeting in the polls. POLITICO’s projection (based on an aggregation of recent polling) has them taking 12 seats, seven down on 2014.
Sajjad Karim, Conservative, North West England, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Photo courtesy of European Union
The longstanding MEP for the northwest is fighting to keep the seat he won back in 2004 as a Liberal Democrat, before defecting to the Tories.
A vice-president of the European Parliament’s anti-racism and diversity group, he has warned about rising Islamophobia in Europe and now finds himself in a European election battle against Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, the anti-Islam campaigner who is standing as an independent candidate in the region.
With the Brexiteer Conservative vote likely to be squeezed by the Brexit Party and UKIP, and pro-EU Tory voters tempted by Change UK and other pro-Remain parties, Karim could well be the last Conservative standing in his region, too.
Caroline Voaden, Liberal Democrat, South West England, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Former journalist Voaden will be hoping that the Liberal Democrats can begin to rebuild their electoral stronghold in the southwest of England, but will face competition from other parties vying for Remainer votes — notably Change UK and the Greens.
The Lib Dems, according to leader Vince Cable, were open to collaborating with like-minded pro-EU parties in this election, but were rebuffed. The party has been preparing for this election for some time — well before it looked likely they would happen — and certainly has more to gain from it than the two main parties.
The last European election took place around the time of the Lib Dem’s nadir in support during the coalition government years, and they currently have only one MEP. POLITICO’s projection has them bettering that, with seven seats this time around. Cable himself is due to stand down as leader the same month as the election.
Gerard Batten, UKIP, London, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Isabel Infantes/AFP via Getty Images
The UKIP leader has seen his party’s representation in the European Parliament hollowed out by former boss Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party before the election has even been held. Only three UKIP MEPs remain from a high of 24 after the 2014 election. Fourteen of them have switched allegiance to the Brexit Party.
Batten has moved UKIP in a stridently anti-Islam direction and has brought in online agitators like Carl Benjamin (also known as Sargon of Akkad) to stand for the party in the European election. The party’s campaign launch included Trump-like condemnations of political journalists present and the media in general.
UKIP took 17 percent of the vote in London in 2014. Batten’s main rival for strongly Euroskeptic votes this time around will be the Brexit Party’s lead candidate in the capital, businessman Ben Habib. POLITICO’s projection has UKIP taking six seats nationwide.
Gavin Esler, Change UK, London, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images
Former BBC presenter Esler was one of several public figures unveiled by Change UK following a rapid and not entirely smooth launch for the party that began life as The Independent Group of 11 rebel Labour and Conservative MPs only two months ago.
London, which voted 60-40 to Remain in June 2016, will be one of the party’s main targets for getting an MEP elected and Esler is top of the party list.
An assured television performer, he is likely to become one of the party’s most visible figures if elected, and told POLITICO that he wants to use the European Parliament as a “platform” to promote the importance of the EU to the U.K. and to challenge the narrative of the country’s best-known MEP, Nigel Farage.
Rachel Johnson, Change UK, South West England, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images
Yes, she’s Boris’ sister. She’s also a political commentator, newspaper columnist and former Conservative and Liberal Democrat.
Despite being the headline-grabbing candidate at the party’s campaign launch, she has said very little since. Her political pedigree and famous family is somewhat at odds with the party’s promise to transform politics and shake up the Westminster bubble. The party’s fortunes in the southwest, which was once a heartland for one of their main Europhile rivals, the Liberal Democrats, will be an interesting test of their claim to be the true party of Remain.
The party is currently projected by POLITICO to win four seats in this, its first electoral test.
Nigel Farage, Brexit Party, South East England, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
The man Donald Trump once called “Mr. Brexit” was contemplating life beyond frontline politics, but the delay to the U.K.’s departure has driven him back onto the campaign trail. Essentially a protest group demanding that the result of the 2016 referendum be delivered, the Brexit Party has nevertheless performed well in early polling. POLITICO’s projection currently has them winning 13 seats, coming second overall behind Labour. Farage’s goal, however, is to gain the most votes of any party.
His own status as an MEP is more or less assured, sitting top of the party list in the southeast of England, the region where he was first elected as an MEP 20 years ago.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, Brexit Party, East Midlands, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Yes, she’s Jacob’s sister. The other Rees-Mogg is also ardently pro-Brexit but has abandoned the Conservative Party, for whom she stood for parliament unsuccessfully in the 2005 and 2010 general elections.
At the head of the Brexit Party candidate list for the Leave-voting East Midlands region of England, it’s likely Rees-Mogg will be elected an MEP. She says there are no hard feelings between her and brother Jacob, chairman of the European Research Group of Brexiteer MPs, who backed Theresa May’s Brexit deal at the third time of asking in March.
“He understands that I feel this is the only way to get everyone’s voices heard, to get us out of Europe for the good of our democracy,” she said last week.
Magid Magid, Greens, Yorkshire and the Humber, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Photo courtesy of Magid Magid
The Green party’s great hope in the north of England has quite the backstory. Born in Burao, Somalia (in what is now Somaliland) he came to Sheffield, Yorkshire, at the age of 5 after six months in an Ethiopian refugee camp. He went on to study aquatic zoology at the University of Hull, was elected president of the students’ union and went on to become Sheffield’s youngest — and first Green — lord mayor, a position he will stand down from in May. Known for combining his ceremonial mayoral chain with T-shirt and baseball cap, he made headlines by banning Donald Trump from the city.
The Greens took 8 percent of the vote in the region in 2014 so will need to do significantly better this time to take one of the six seats up for grabs. POLITICO’s projection has the party taking five seats, up from three in 2014.
Claude Moraes, Labour, London, No. 1 on party’s regional list
Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images
Along with the party’s No. 2 candidate in London, Seb Dance, and European leader Richard Corbett, Moraes is set to be a prominent figure in Labour’s delegation in the new European Parliament.
Moraes, chair of the the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee, has pledged to fight “a progressive pro-EU campaign based on the positive EU benefits for all our communities.”
How well Labour do in heavily Remain-backing London, however, could depend on what message the party sends about its plans for a second referendum. The party is expected to take 20 seats, according to projections by POLITICO, unchanged from 2014, but a tally that would this time make them the largest U.K. party in the European Parliament.
Andrew Adonis, Labour, South West Region, No. 2 on party’s regional list
John Phillips/Getty Images
One of the most ardent pro-Remain voices in the U.K. political debate in recent years, Adonis is a Labour peer who served as a minister under former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He surprised many with his decision to stand for the party despite its equivocation on the issue of a second referendum.
He has already been attacked by former pro-Remain allies in Change UK for apparently swallowing Labour Party policy — which is to leave the EU if their form of Brexit is adopted, but to keep options, including a second referendum, open if that doesn’t happen.
Parties like Change UK with a firmer second referendum policy will paint Adonis’ conversion as evidence that the Labour leadership does not tolerate candidates who advocate a second referendum in all circumstances. The man himself stands a reasonable chance of being elected as Labour’s second MEP for the southwest, a region where Labour significantly increased its vote share at the last general election in 2017.
Christian Allard, SNP, Scotland, No. 2 on party’s regional list
A Frenchman who moved to Scotland in his twenties, Allard worked in the fishing industry for 20 years before becoming a member of the Scottish parliament from 2013 to 2016. Dijon-born Allard has been a vocal exponent of the Scottish National Party’s pro-immigration outlook.
The SNP, which is only standing in Scotland, currently holds two of the country’s six seats in the European Parliament and would have to perform exceptionally well to increase that count. Allard, second on the party list, looks likely to be elected. But the party’s overall performance will be an interesting test of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s recent push for a second referendum on Scottish independence, should Brexit happen, by 2021.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Independent, North West England
The anti-Islam campaigner, also known as Tommy Robinson, is an adviser to Gerard Batten’s UKIP but not a party member because of its ban on accepting former members of the English Defence League and British National Party. He has decided to stand as an independent in the northwest of England, accusing “the establishment” of “betraying Brexit.”
In a letter announcing his candidacy, he branded Farage “just another millionaire stockbroker who looks down on the working classes” and warned that the EU “won’t know what hit them” if he is elected.
With eight European Parliament seats up for grabs in the region, it can’t be ruled out that Yaxley-Lennon will secure enough votes to win a seat, and in the process a platform that would significantly raise his profile.
Other regional lists:
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