MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Gibraltar votes Tory for European Parliament.
Last week as 350 million Europeans participated in elections for the European parliament, for the first time a British overseas territory has voted as part of a UK area.
Gibraltar jointed the EU, or the EEC as it was then known, in 1973 under the British Treaty of Accession. It was denied the right to vote until Gibraltarian Denise Matthews took her case to the European Court of Human Rights which ruled it must participate.
The British Government decided to include Gibraltar into one of its regions and after an inquiry by the Electoral commission The South West was chosen. This area elects seven MEP's.
Geographically it stretches 260 miles from Lands End to the tiny village of Mickelton in North Gloucestershire. The Isles of Scilly are also included in this constituency, as now is Gibraltar.
The turnout was 37.6% from an electorate of 3,845,253 compared to 57.54% from 20,740 in Gibraltar.
Conservative 3 MEP's elected UK Independence Party 2 Liberal Democrat 1 Labour 1
Locally the Conservatives achieved 69.52% of the vote as compared to 31.6% in the region as a whole.
The only Labour MEP elected was Mr Glynn Ford, who commented on GBC television, via a live satellite feed from the South West count, that the rejection he received in Gibraltar was a direct result of current Labour Party policy on joint sovereignty.
This unacceptable policy was something he would have to discuss with his party leadership.
Locally, some traditional Labour supporters said they had voted Conservative for the first time in their lives. Others remained at home, feeling that they could not give any comfort to the party despite the enthusiasm and work of Mr Ford personally.
During the day supporters of the Conservatives were outside most polling stations handing out leaflets, whilst smaller numbers of supporters of the Green party, toured the polling stations. The Greens were close behind Labour in third place.
The 'fringe' parties the BNP, Countryside Party and Respect obtained a negligible share of the vote comparable to those who returned blank votes, who did not to support any party but made the effort to vote.
Meanwhile, The Government of Spain who objected to Gibraltar participating on the grounds that it enfranchised Commonwealth Citizens although in practice there are only 95 of these registered locally with many more in the UK who have always had the right to vote there, and have done so in previous elections.
Speaking on TVE Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said "Spain is against Gibraltarians voting as Gibraltarians, we would like them to vote as Spaniards, when we recover Gibraltar, obviously,"
In contrast, speaking at the count in Gibraltar, the Conservative election agent pledged that the party would not now forget its supporters and the party would fully support the rights of the Gibraltarians.
Jim Watt, Gibraltar.
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