Your guide to the European Parliamentary elections

Wednesday 15th May 2019 14:15 EDT
 

The British nightmare of the UK leaving the EU on 29th March has now been converted to a Halloween dream. This means that the UK has to participate in the European Parliamentary elections which are due to take place between 23-26 May 2019. All EU citizens living in the UK will have the opportunity to vote in an MEP to represent their region for the first time since 2014.

While there are 7 main parties in the upcoming EU Elections with 5 seats in the East Midlands up for grabs, political parties are scrambling to launch last-minute EU election campaigns and pulling together a list of candidates. Newly approved party Change UK– formerly The Independent Group – has announced a list including Asian candidates Narinder Sharma and Pankajhumar Gulab in the East Midlands who are contested by Anil Bhatti from the UKIP.

Out of the eight seats in London, the Asian candidates contesting for the election are Ranjan Joshi (Animal Welfare Party), Syed Kamall and Attic Rahman (Conservatives), Gulnar Hasnain and Shahrar Ali (Green), Taranjit Chana (Labour), Dinesh Dhamija, Hussain Khan, Rabina Khan (Liberal Democrats).

After being wiped out at the local elections, with both Labour and Conservatives losing their foothold in crucial constituencies, the best case scenario according to local polls for Theresa May's party remains that they remain “forgotten” or “invisible” in these elections while at the worst the party is likely to be squeezed to a single-figure vote share wherein mass panic and open civil war is likely. Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn would be on the moon if Labour would come close second to the Brexit party and emerge with their uneasy internal alliance on Brexit more or less intact. However, Nigel Farrage appears to be leading a crushing victory in the Euro polls and could trigger a general election and ultimately lead to his entry into the Parliament.


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