Wales Euros
Wales currently returns 4 members of the European Parliament.
In 2004 the region returned 2 Labour MEPs, 1 Conservative MEP and 1 Plaid Cymru MEP. For the Liberal Democrats or UKIP to gain an MEP here they would need to get at least 50% of the first placed party’s vote.
Sitting MEPs and 2004 Results
| 1. |  |
Glenys Kinnock (Labour) | 297,810 (32.1%) | (Will stand down at next election) |
| 2. |  |
Jonathan Evans (Conservative) | 177,771 (19.1%) | (Will stand down at next election) |
| 3. |  |
Jill Evans (Plaid Cymru) | 159,888 (17.2%) | |
| 4. | |
Eluned Morgan (Labour) | (148,905) | (Will stand down at next election) |
| -. | UKIP | 96,677 (10.4%) | ||
| -. | Liberal Democrat | 96,116 (10.3%) | ||
| -. | Green | 32,761 (3.6%) | ||
| -. | BNP | 27,135 (3.0%) | ||
| -. | Foward Wales | 17,280 (1.9%) | ||
| -. | Christian Democrat | 6,821 (0.7%) | ||
| -. | Respect | 5,427 (0.6%) |
2009 Candidates
| 1. |  Derek Vaughan. Born Aberfan. Educated at Swansea University. Neath Port Talbot councillor since 1995, council leader since 2004. |
| 2. |  Lisa Stevens. Born 1980, Llantrisant. Educated at Corpus Christi High School and Southampton University. Former journalist, now working for Glenys Kinnock and Eluned Morgan. |
| 3. |  Rachel Maycock. Born 1981, Llanfechain. Educated at Ysgol Uwchradd Llanfyllin High and Warwick University. Contested Montgomeryshire in 2007 Welsh elections. |
| 4. |  Leighton Veale. Born 1976, Swansea. Educated at Dwr y Felin School and Cardiff University. Public affairs officer. Merton councillor since 2002. Contested Brecon and Radnorshire 2005, South Wales West 2007. |
| 1. |  Kay Swinburne. Born 1968. Educated at Llandysul Grammar. Health economist and former investment banker. Hereford councillor. |
| 2. |  Evan Price. Educated at sandhurst. Barrister, specialisting in property, insolvency and commercial law, and former army officer. |
| 3. |  Emma Greenow. Economist. Formerly headed Jonathan Evans’ office. Educated at the University of Wales. Contested Bridgend 2007 Welsh elections. |
| 4. |  David Chipp. Contested South Wales East in 2007. |
| 1. | Jill Evans. Sitting MEP. Born 1959, Rhondda. Educated at University of Wales. Former regional organiser for the infertility support network. MEP for Wales since 1999. Contested Rhondda in 2007 Welsh Assembly elections. |
| 2. |  Eurig Wyn. Born 1944. Former BBC journalist. MEP for Wales 1999-2004. Contested Ynys Mon 2005. |
| 3. |  Ioan Bellin. Born Reading. Educated at Cowbridge Comprehensive and Aberystwyth University. Press officer and former journalist. Will contest Pontypridd at the next general election. |
| 4. |  Natasha Asghar. Educated at London University. Financial advisor. |
| 1. | Alan Butt Philip. Educated at Eton and Oxford University. Jean Monnet Reader in European Integration at Bath University, has lectured there since 1978. Contested Wells F1974, O1974, 1979, 1983, 1987. |
| 2. | Kevin O’Connor. Merthyr Tydfil Councillor. |
| 3. | Nick Tregoning. Swansea councillor. Contested Gower 2005 |
| 4. | Jackie Radford. Educated at the Open University and Swansea University. Former Bridgend councillor. Contested Ogmore 2005. |
| 1. |  John Bufton. Contested Monmouth 2005, North Wales 2007 Welsh elections. |
| 2. |  David Bevan. Contested Pontypridd 2005. Will contested Pontypridd at next general election. |
| 3. | Kevin Mahoney. Contested Vale of Glamorgan 2007 Welsh elections. Will contest Vale of Glamorgan at next general election. |
| 4. | David W L Rowlands. Contested Montgomeryshire 2003 Welsh elections. Will contest Clwyd South at next general election. |
| 1. |  Jake Griffiths Business environmental consultant. |
| 2. |  Kay Roney Born South Durham. Hospital administrator. Former Manchester councillor. |
| 3. |  Ann Were Contested South Wales East 2007. |
| 4. |  John Matthews Former Cynon Borough councillor. |
| 1. |  Ennys Hughes. Born Anglesey. Educated at University of Wales. Contested North Wales 2007. |
| 2. |  Laurence Reid. Born Northern Ireland. Educated at Belfast College of Technology. Retired cement works manager. Contested South Wales Central 2007. |
| 3. |  Clive Bennett. Born Cardiff. |
| 4. |  Kevin Edwards. Area sales manager. |
| 1. |  Bob English |
| 2. |  Richard Booth Born 1938. Educated at Rugby and Oxford University. Hay-on-Wye bookseller, and originator of the town’s reputation as a “book town”. Declared himself king of Hay-on-Wye in a 1977 publicity stunt. Awarded the MBE in 2004 for services to tourism. |
| 3. |  Liz Screen Contested Newport East 2005. |
| 4. | Judith Sambrook Contested Birmingham Erdington 2001, West Bromwich East 2005 |
| 1. | Paul Sabanskis Software developer |
| 2. |  James Eustace Born Ceredigion. Assistant project engineer with Network rail. |
| 3. | Neil Morgan |
| 4. |  Steven Partridge Leadership development trainer. Former merchant seaman. |
| 1. | Jeffery Green |
| 2. | David Griffiths |
| 3. | Alun Owen |
| 4. | John Harrold |
| 1. |  Robert Griffiths General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain. Contested Newport East 2001, Pontypridd 2005. |
| 2. |  Rob Williams Trade union convenor at Linamar Swansea. |
| 3. | Laura Picand Trade union official |
| 4. | Trevor Jones Secretary of Deeside TUC |
NB - The constituency guide is now archived and is no longer being updated. The new guide is at http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/2015guide
Yes, amazing result – massive drop for Labour. The Conservative Party and Plaid see modest gains, but enough to take the Conservatives to the top of the poll. Substantial gains for UKIP which win them the fourth seat – an impressive result.
“Good Call by Dewi some time ago”…Pete – changed my mind a dozen times since then mind….
Close between the top three parties – but astonishing victories by tories…Wrexham, Alyn and Deeside. Strangely enough I hear Plaid won Conwy..
Plaid have won it before in ’99. It’s Conwy though and not the new Aberconwy so isn’t a great indication I suppose.
yes Plaid won Conwy and great result in Clwyd West.
This is the highspot for the Tories so we are looking good for a general election.
I for one am glad Lisa Stevens did not get in as an MEP, she stood as a Cardiff County Counciller candidate which would of clashed should she have become an MEP, I can see Mr. Vaughan working with the others, but Miss Stevens is very left – wing.
Congrats to the Conservative Party, I am a tad disappointed for the Lib’s but always next time
This result points to my prediction that the Conservatives will return to their 1979 share of the vote in Wales.
I have posted for several Westminster constituencies today -Cardiff South, Cardiff West, Alyn and Deeside, Wrexham, suggesting that they Conservative lead in Wales is not just due to disilusionment with a tired Government or the intense disgust with MPs’ expenses. It is due to fundamental demographic and economic changes.
Wales has undergone an economic transformation from an industrial economy to a service based one. Cardiff and Swansea have regenerated into a centre for serivce industry, whilst good motorway connections enable people from North Wales to commute to Manchester and Liverpool. New Labour, with its excess of people lacking experience outside the Westminster village, has failed to protect the interests of those left behind in this transformation and, perhaps more importantly from a psephological point of view, have not identified and developed policies for those living in new ways.
A basic problem is that Labour have not understood that you cannot provide Education and Health facilities without a strong underlying industrial and economic development policy (ironically, Rhodi Morgan probably does understand this more than anybody, but doesn’t have sufficient power). I don’t think the Tories realise this either, but they won’t be found out until after they have been in power long enough to be unable to blame Labour.
This is not an issue that can be addressed in a year, and for Labour it may well be terminal. The Greens in particular, with their emphasis on environmental sustainability, have ideas which look a better policy platform from which to build an electoral base long-term, when the Tories have failed in their turn.
Frederick – I couldn’t agree more. Wales is an area, which has been transormed radically over the last 20 years. Similar to Ireland, it is a country which has gained confidence and is no longer riddled with the coal mining/steel manufacturing yoke
Labour’s best performance in Wales was 5,419 votes in Neath. No wonder they lost Wales for the first time since 1918.
Plaid only won Conwy by 8 votes over the Tories. At a general election, when most UKIP voters return to the Conservatives, we will be quite some distance ahead.
http://www.golwg360.com/UI/News/ViewNewsDetails.aspx?ID=2989
There’s all the Welsh results. In one of the most bizarre decisions I can remember these have been declared by…..not county….but…wait for it the “old” Westminster constituencies which were abolished before the last Assembly elections….so daft.
(Site is in Welsh but seems easy enough to translate – any problems just ask….)
It is bizarre to have declared by constituencies that effectively no longer exist I agree, but except for Gwyneth the boundaries of the new constituencies are almost identical in most cases so we can get a pretty good idea. Suspect the Tories may have been ahead in the new Aberconwy division anyway ebcause of their relative weakness in Bangor.
They do still exist because they’re the seats which Welsh MPs currently sit for.
Neil
I am not convinced that UKip voters will return to the Tories as many of them were previously Labour supporters. In this election UKip have polled better in the former labour fiefdoms.
The turnout will of course be much higher at westminster and I expect the result to be very close again.
The point remains that on a day the Tories “won” Wales they could not beat Plaid in Conwy. For those voters whose priority is to stop the Tories, and there are still plenty of those, in Conwy they know which way to vote.
Interestingly, Tory victories in Montgomeryshire and Brecon & Radnorshire, and an impressive PC win in Ceredigion ! This must be very worrying for the libdems! Cardiff Central could well be their only seat in Wales after the next GE !
This must be very worrying for the libdems!
I really don’t agree.
It might sound slightly illogical, but I tend to see a good Lib Dem performance in the euros as a good sign for the party but a poor performance as not necessarily a bad one. Largely, because the Lib Dems usually lose a chunk of their vote in european elections, but this largely comes back at a general election. So getting a good result in the euros is actually quite an impressive achievement for them.
Pete- I’m almost certain the Tories won the new Aberconwy last Thursday.
Plaid won the ‘old’ Conwy seat, and the new Aberconwy seat should be more favourable to them in the future.
Considerring that this seat held by Plaid in the Assembly, it does look like a seat to watch in Westminster.
Aberconwy is more favourable to Plaid than Conwy, but it is also more favourable to the Tories. If Plaid were 8 votes ahead in the old Conwy seat I expect they were ahead by more than that int he Arfon section where the Tories are pretty weak. Were they able to match that lead in the conwy valley area which is replacing Bangor etc? doubtful IMO but I dont know. I would tend to accept Matt’s version of events though because he has shown a very detailed knowledge about the voting patterns in that part of the country.
Jury Team not very popular a Cymru…..
Cheers Pete. I posted this on the Aberconwy thread just a bit ago.
The Conwy Valley has only 6000 odd electors, only 2-3000 of whom probably voted last Thursday. Of those, even if Plaid had won 50% of votes, (not likely), that would only have been 1000-1,500.
The Bangor area has far more voters, around 18,000 and so if even a lower percentage of people voted Plaid in that area the actual number would have been higher. Couple this with the Tory voters from MNC (probably around a third to a half of those cast for them) and then I think (evidently very unscientifically) that the Tories would have won.
I think much of the ‘natural’ Plaid vote traditionally backed Labour and the Lib Dems but now that Plaid have shown they can win Conwy they have begun to vote more for them and this is a large part of Plaid’s advance in Conwy.
Many of Matt’s 18,000 voters are in fact students who rarely vote.
In the run up to the assembly elections the Tories claimed the Conwy valley was good for them etc yet Plaid pulled well over 50% of the vote in that area on a turnout of approx 55%…
Still the result in Conwy removes any doubt that the new Aberconwy will be a Plaid/Tory battle….
Matt – a little controversial I know but I reckon the tory candidates in Aberconwy might be a bit too Welsh for your voters? Discuss !!
Cymrumark, many of them are not students. As you say few vote and a great deal don’t put themselves on the register at uni. The population of Bangor (excluding students) is around 14,000 and including outlying areas this brings it to around 18,000.
I don’t think a candidate being ‘too Welsh’ would be a bar to people voting for them. I’m sure the average voter couldn’t give a toss if honest. Sir Wyn was very Welsh and was always voted in round Conwy for 27 years and I doubt it was Bangor that elected him.
There used to be a strong Conservative vote in Bangor although I doubt they won the town over all. The Aberconwy area is if anything less Conservative than it used to be. The number of committed vote conservative at every election is less than it was. Anyway Aberconwy looks set to be a much closer seat than many would have predicted.
I really doubt the Conservatives ever came even remotely close to winning Bangor and there has never been anything even approaching a ‘strong’ Conservative vote there.
Have you ever been to Bangor? Going back in time before the right-to-buy scheme Bangor was heavily dominated by council housing. To this extent, even today across the town nearly 40% of all properties are rented from public authories.
Going back to when you said there may have been a strong Tory vote here the town would doubtless have had upwards of 60% of all properties being council-owned. Combine this with a similarly large Welsh-speaking population and (although I admit it’s a generalisation). I think we can safely say any Tory voting was fairly low and probably never went beyond the mid to high 20s at any point and would have been usually far less.
Matt I know Bangor quite well as I used to work there.. Somebody who worked on the Roger Robertscampaigns in the 80′s told me the Tories would poll 25-30% in Bangor.
In those days there was still something of a Tory vote amongst older, wealthier Welsh speakers and a thiving samm business community. Sir Wyn pullled a personal vote as well there being a habit in this part of Wales to support “the member”.
The decline of the Tory vote generally in Conwy can partly be explained by it vanishing in Bangor. There is still a rump Torty vote.
In the end both here and on the Aberconwy site I am able to quote actually election results, the assembly, the local electiopns and now European election all of which show Plaid doing well and the Tories underperforming. The Tories are reduced to excuses and bizarre claims as to why
none of the other elections matter.
Certainly, Matt, going back even earlier to the late 60s when I was a student in Bangor, there was absolutely a strong Tory vote – this was in the days before the Plaid vote really took off in Welsh speaking parts of North Wales. Certainly your Council housing feature you mention was very much so then. There was also – in pre – Roger Roberts days – a core North Walian Liberal vote, as I found when canvassing! I have a feeling that the Plaid, when it took off, actually took quite a lot of the old Tory vote as well as what we might think of as “left of centre” votes from Libs and Labour. But as a student I most certainly didn’t regard Bangor as “Labour” through and through as you seem to be describing!
The Bangor Menai Ward (covers many of the student votlyers) still elects two Lib Dem county councillors. At the strongest Lib Dem campaigns there is little doubt that the voters polling in Cae Top School were overwhelming anti-Tory andf pro Lib/Lab. The Plaid students were strong in the ward where the Welsh speaking Hall of residence was located.
Tim, In my post I did not mention Labour at all if you look. All I said was that Bangor was very definitely anti-Conservative in its voting whether that would have been Liberal, Labour or Plaid Cymru.
I also said that the Tories would never have won beyond the high 20s and usually won less and if a member of the Tory campaign said that they had c. 25% then this fits too.
i was really shocked to see plaid win conwy. in the 2005 election, plaid got 4th. i know it’s different to the euro, but still a massive increse.