I am interested by your assertion that your preffered transfer of power should be from the council of ministers to the parliament. Surely the instituion more responsible for the undemocratic nature of the EU is the Commission. It is the power of the Commission that needs to be curbed. If you were drawing up a constitution for the UK that proposed the kind of power for the civil service that is wielded by the commission people would rightly condemn it as being profoundly undemocratic.

Most of the people I canvassed who were intending to vote BNP (apart from the one who tried to thump me) said that it was a protest vote – I hope so.

So where next for the EU then? The 3 main parties , all of whom are committed to remain in the EU, secured around 65% of the votes cast – so we are in for the next 5 years at least. It needs reform badly. I would like to see more power given to the elected EU parliament and taken away from the Council of Ministers.

Will UKIP voters return to the main parties for the General Election – or will David Cameron’s very pro-EU Euroepan Elections manifesto (I read it this evening) keep UKIP strong.

Which is all leading up to wondering if the size of ‘other’ votes will decide the next General Election – as electoral reform is unlikelt to happen by then

I am ignoring the BNP by the way – and yes I was nearly thumped by one of their supporters. However in view of the non-partisan nature of this web-site I refer readers to my blogs on the BNP, who have brought nothing but shame to this region.

There are only 5 seats in the East Midlands this time, not 6. However I was not aware of the bizarre rules you outline. I assumed that with 5 seats you need 20% to win – then the remaining votes are allocated to the next on the list – thus 20% for Tory 1 leaving 10.2 for Tory 2. If that is not how it is done then it seems a strange system. And you are therefore correct.

Very pleased to see UKIP presented a clear case on the EU, unlike the Tories who always claim to be anti-EU but are in fact the architects of British Membership of the EU.

There is no threshold of 20%. The vote for each party is divided by 1+number of seats already won, therefore when the Tories won their first seat their vote is halved – to 15.1% in this case. In the event there were 6 seats in this region the Conservatives would have won the next seat, their original vote having been divided by 3, putting them on 10.1%. Only for an imaginary seventh seat would it have then been close – between the BNP, a second Labour seat and a second UKIP seat which the BNP would narrowly have won. (Labour would then have won seat 8, UKIP seat 9, Conservatives seat 10)

If I were you I’d take more care when it came to throwing around accusations on the internet.

I see – yes maybe he meant that. However the LD vote in Leicester was not very high in 2004. There was quite a high vote for Respect though (9% infact) and I imagine that did swing back en masse.

Eric the fifth seat wasnt actually very close in the event. IN as much as it was close it was close between the LD and a third Conservative, followed by the BNP.
You suggested the Greens were in the running – if this region had twice as many seats the Greens would still not have won one of the seats on that vote share. There would have been four conservatives, 2 Labour, 2 Lib Dems and 1 BNP returened before a Green got a look in.