2004 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom

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All 78 of the United Kingdom's seats in theEuropean Parliament
Turnout	38.5%[1]14.5%
First party Second party Third party   Leader Jonathan Evans Gary Titley Roger Knapman Party Conservative Labour UKIP Alliance EPP PES IND/DEM Leader since 14 December 2001 2002 5 October 2002 Leader's seat Wales North East England South West England Last election 36 seats, 33.5% 29 seats, 26.3% 3 seats, 6.5% Seats before 35[a] 25[a] 2[a] Seats won 27 19 12 Seat change 8* 6* 10* Popular vote 4,397,087 3,718,683 2,650,768 Percentage 25.9% 21.9% 15.6% Swing 7.6% 4.4% 9.1%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Graham Watson Caroline Lucas[b] Ian Hudghton[c] Party Liberal Democrats Green SNP Alliance ALDE Green EFA Leader since January 2002 30 November 2003 June 1999 Leader's seat South West England South East England Scotland Last election 10 seats, 11.9% 2 seats, 5.3% 2 seats, 2.6% Seats before 10[a] 2[a] 2[a] Seats won 12 2 2 Seat change 2* Popular vote 2,452,327 948,588 231,505 Percentage 14.4% 5.6% 1.4% Swing 2.6% 0.3% 1.2%
Colours denote the winning party, as shown in theresults tables*Seat change has been adjusted to allow for direct comparison with the results from the 1999 election.[2]

The2004 European Parliament election was theUnited Kingdom's part of the wider2004 European Parliament election which was held between 10 and 13 June 2004 in the 25 member states of theEuropean Union. The United Kingdom's part of this election was held on Thursday 10 June 2004. The election also coincided with the2004 local elections and theLondon Assembly andmayoral elections. In total, 78Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom usingproportional representation.

TheConservative Party and theLabour Party both polled poorly. The Conservatives experienced their second-lowest ever recorded vote share in a national election (even less than their 1832 nadir, although the party would do worse still in the2014 and2019 elections), and Labour their lowest since 1918. TheUK Independence Party (UKIP) saw a large increase in support, increasing its number ofMEPs from 3 to 12 and on popular vote pushed theLiberal Democrats, who themselves had increased their representation from 10 to 12 seats into fourth place. InNorthern Ireland,Sinn Féin beat theSDLP in the polls and took its first Northern Ireland seat.

The United Kingdom elected 78Members of the European Parliament usingproportional representation. The United Kingdom was divided into twelve multi-member constituencies. The eleven of these regions which formGreat Britain used a closed-listparty list system method of proportional representation, calculated using theD'Hondt method.Northern Ireland used theSingle Transferable Vote (STV). As a consequence of the2004 enlargement of the European Union, the number ofseats allocated to the United Kingdom was fewer than in 1999.

It was the first European election to be held in the United Kingdom using postal-only voting in four areas: the North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, and East Midlandsregions.^[3]

A combination of the effects of theTreaty of Nice and the2004 enlargement of the European Union meant that the number ofseats allocated to the United Kingdom for the 2004 election was reduced from the 87 MEPs allocated for the1999 election to 78 MEPs.^[4][5]

As a result of the successful challenge ofMatthews v United Kingdom before theEuropean Court of Human Rights in 1999^[6] residents ofGibraltar, voted in the European Parliament election for the first time, as part of theSouth West England region.^[7]

Changes in regional seat allocations^[8]

Constituency	Representation in 1999	Representation in 2004	Net Gain/Loss
East Midlands	6	6
East of England	8	7	1
London	10	9	1
North East England	4	3	1
North West England	10	9	1
Northern Ireland	3	3
Scotland	8	7	1
South East England	11	10	1
South West England1	7	7
Wales	5	4	1
West Midlands	8	7	1
Yorkshire and the Humber	7	6	1
Overall	87	78	9

¹IncludesGibraltar, the onlyBritish overseas territory which was part of the EU.

Turnout for all the regions was 38.2% on an electorate of 44,157,267^[9] (43,084,598 in Great Britain and 1,072,669 in Northern Ireland).^[10] TheConservatives andLabour both polled poorly. The Conservatives, although getting a vote share 4.1% greater than Labour, experienced their lowest vote share in a national election since 1832. Labour's vote share was its lowest since 1918. Labour's decline in votes was regarded as being largely due to widespread public dissatisfaction about theIraq War and (as with the Conservatives) the increased popularity ofUK Independence Party (UKIP). UKIP saw a large increase in support, increasing its number ofMEPs from 3 to 12, drawing level with theLiberal Democrats, who themselves had increased their representation from 10 to 12 seats. UKIP polled higher than the Liberal Democrats to push the latter into fourth place.

Turnout was lowest in Scotland, which did not hold local elections on the same day. In Scotland, Labour topped the poll, followed by theScottish National Party (SNP). The Conservatives' share of the vote declined by 2 per cent, making it the region with the smallest swing against them.^[8]

Wales was the only region were Labour increased its share of the vote compared to 1999. The Conservatives managed to make gains pushing Plaid Cymru into third and whose share of the vote fell by 12 percentage points relative to 1999. Similarly UKIP narrowly beat the Liberal Democrats into fourth place. Wales was the region where the Green Party polled their lowest share of the vote.^[8]

All parties listed.

†Loss/gain figures for seats are losses/gains versus the 1999 notional result, as the number of MEPs overall fell.

Summary of the election results for Great Britain^[2]

All parties listed.

†Loss/gain figures for seats are losses/gains versus the 1999 notional result, as the number of MEPs overall fell.

Gibraltar participated in the United Kingdom's election for the first time in 2004 as part of theSouth West England constituency. Gibraltar is aBritish overseas territory (BOT) and therefore is under thejurisdiction andsovereignty of theUnited Kingdom but does not form part of it.^[11] Gibraltar was however part of the EU, the only BOT to be so included. Following however, the result of the successful challenge ofMatthews v United Kingdom before theEuropean Court of Human Rights in 1999^[6] residents ofGibraltar were given the right to vote in the European Parliament elections. The British government decided not to give Gibraltar its own seat due to its small electorate of just over 20,000 which would have meant with just one seat Gibraltar would have been over-represented by about 30 times the average.^[7]

None of the mainGibraltar political parties contested the election, so voters chose from United Kingdom party lists. However, Lyana Armstrong-Emery of Gibraltar'sReform Party had a place on a joint list with theGreen Party. In addition both the leader of the Conservative Party,Michael Howard, and his deputy,Michael Ancram, campaigned in Gibraltar.^[12]

Turnout in Gibraltar was 57.5%, higher than the 37.6% for the South West England electoral region as a whole.^[13] TheConservative Party polled over two-thirds of the Gibraltar vote, with no other party exceeding 10% support.

Turnout in Northern Ireland was 51.2%.^[14]Sinn Féin beat theSDLP in the polls and took its first Northern Ireland seat. Sinn Féin also won a seat in thecorresponding elections in theRepublic of Ireland.^[15] Sinn Féin and the DUP increased their shares of the vote relative to the 1999 European Parliament elections, while the shares for both the SDLP and the UUP fell.^[8] This was also the final election in which a Unionist candidate topped the poll in Northern Ireland.^[16] Jim Allister of the DUP and Bairbre de Brún of Sinn Féin were elected in the first round while Jim Nicholson of the UUP was elected in the third stage, after the votes of the other candidates were reallocated.^[8]

Summary of the election results for Northern Ireland^[17]

Party		Candidate(s)	Seats	Loss/Gain	First Preference Votes
					Number	% of vote
	DUP	Jim Allister	1		175,761	31.9
	Sinn Féin	Bairbre de Brún	1	1	144,541	26.3
	UUP	Jim Nicholson	1		91,164	16.6
	SDLP	Martin Morgan	0	1	87,559	15.9
	Independent	John Gilliland	0		36,270	6.6
	Socialist Environmental	Eamonn McCann	0		9,172	1.6
	Green (NI)	Lindsay Whitcroft	0		4,810	0.9
Total					549,277
Turnout						51.2%[14]

Labour

• David Bowe (Yorkshire and the Humber)
• Bill Miller (Scotland)
• Brian Simpson (North West England) - returned to the European Parliament in September 2006 and defended his seat in 2009.^[18]
• Mo O'Toole (North East England)
• Mark F. Watts (South East England)

Conservative

• Jacqueline Foster (North West England) - was reelected in the 2009 election.^[19]
• Alexander Macmillan (South West England)
• Roy Perry (South East England)
• Ian Twinn (London) - only took seat on 21 October 2003 after the ill-health resignation ofLord Bethell.^[20]

Plaid Cymru

• Eurig Wyn (Wales)

BothTony Blair andMichael Howard faced criticism for their results with thenSecretary of State for HealthJohn Reid calling the results "disappointing" for Labour and "disastrous" for the Conservatives.^[21]

Shortly after the election UKIP'sRobert Kilroy-Silk, who was credited with raising the profile of the party during the election, was interviewed byChannel 4 television about leadership ambitions, Kilroy-Silk did not deny having ambitions to lead the party, but stressed thatRoger Knapman would lead it into the next general election.^{[citation needed]} However, the next day, onBreakfast with Frost, he criticised Knapman's leadership.^[22] After further disagreement with the leadership, Kilroy-Silk resigned the UKIP whip in the European Parliament on 27 October 2004.^[23] Initially, he remained a member, while seeking a bid for the party leadership.^[24] However, this was not successful and he resigned completely from UKIP on 20 January 2005, calling it a "joke".^[25] Two weeks later, he founded his own party,Veritas, taking a number of UKIP members, including both of the London Assembly members, with him.^[26]

UKIP formed a newEuropean Parliament Group,Independence/Democracy which was co-chaired byNigel Farage andHanne Dahl.

• 2005 United Kingdom general election
• List of political parties in the United Kingdom

• European Election News by European Election Law Association (Eurela)
• Guide and results at the UK Office of the European Parliament
• Guide and links Richard Kimber's at Political Science Resources

• Guardian (newspaper): incomplete collection of manifestos
• Conservative manifesto
• European Greens manifesto;Successes of the Greens in the European Parliament;A Green Contract for Europe;European Election Manifesto: Green Party of England and WalesManifesto: Northern Ireland
• Labour document
• Liberal Democrat manifesto
• Democratic Unionist Party manifesto
• Social Democratic and Labour Party manifesto
• Socialist Environmental Alliance manifesto
• Ulster Unionist Party manifestoEuropean manifesto (ED)
• Scottish National Party manifesto
• Plaid Cymru / The Party of Wales Manifesto

• 2004 elections in the United Kingdom
• 2004 European Parliament election
• June 2004 in the United Kingdom
• European Parliament elections in the United Kingdom

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