Election Turnout

'I have no desire to formulate a Tory policy on defence, foreign affairs, immigration and social affairs or the rest of it.' A Declaration of Dependence by Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie MSP, 8 th June 2001.

Turnout

The European parliamentary elections have always been plagued by extremely low urnouts with voters having difficulty in seeing the relevance of the activities of the parliament. The sole exception in the UK is Northern Ireland where turnouts have been considerably higher than the rest of the United Kingdom. The NI turnouts have varied between 48.4 % (in 1989) and 63.5 % (in 1984). While the turnout crashed in the rest of the UK in 1999, in Northern Ireland it rose by 9 % to 58 %. In 2004, in contrast to the rest of the UK, the turnout fell, but at 52 % was still 10 % higher than in Wales, and 4 and 3 % higher than in 1989 and 1994.

Turnout in England closes matches that of the UK as a whole, with England having by far the largest population of the four countries. After rising to 36 % in 1989, the turnout plummeted to 23 % in 1999, and then rocketed to an all time high of 38 % in 2004, no doubt helped by publicity given to the anti-EU UK Independence Party fact that local elections were being held on the same day.

After Northern Ireland, Wales were the most enthusiastic in turning at each Euro election except 1994. In Wales the turnout rose from 34 % in 1979 to 41 % in 1989 before crashing to 28 % in 1999 and then rocketing to an all time high of 42 % in 2004.

In Scotland, the turnout dropped slightly to 33 % in 1984, but increased to almost 45 % 1994, the highest turnout in any election for Scotland, England and Wales. However, in 1999, Scotland followed the UK trend and the turnout collapsed by 8 % to less than 25 %. In 2004, there were fears that the turnout would drop to under 20 %, however in Scotland it rose to 31 %. While it is heartening that the reversal in the recent trend of voter apathy has been reversed, the turnout in Scotland in 2004, unlike England & Wales, was still below that of the elections of 1979 and 1984.