Euro poll turn-out is record lowest

THE GOVERNMENT is braced for an embarassing defeat by the Tories in the European elections after it was confirmed that voters had stayed at home in record numbers. The Home Office has revealed that just 23 per cent of the electorate in England and Wales voted, with Labour heartlands worst hit by the apathy. The turn-out fell far short of the previous low of 36 per cent in the 1994 European elections, which were the lowest in the European Union.

The Liberal Democrats might see their seats rise from two to more than 10, while the Conservatives could go from 18 to more than 35. Labour strategists said they expect to lose half of their 59 MEPs and that they were worried the Conservatives could gain the most seats. The apathy could also benefit the smaller parties: the Greens, UK Independence Party and Pro-Euro Conservatives were all hoping to win seats thanks to their more committed supporters.

A Labour spokesman said. "The poor turn-out is a serious issue for all political parties and we have been worst hit. But we do not believe for one minute that the British public support the nationalism and xenophobia of the Tories."

The Conservatives were more cautious over the outcome, but claimed that the election had proved that the public was in tune with William Hague's opposition to joining the European single currency. "We have won the campaign and we have won the arguments. Labour's surrender is premature. We will only accept it after the votes are counted," a spokesman said.

The two other European countries that voted on Thursday, Denmark and the Netherlands, also showed poor responses from the public. Just under 50 per cent of Danes and 30 per cent of the Dutch voted.

The Home Office confirmed that across the UK, Wales had the keenest electors, with a turn-out of 28 per cent, while the North West region had the least interested, with 19 per cent turning up to the polls. The regional figures hid even wider variations at a local level: just 10.2 per cent of voters in the Liverpool Riverside district cast their ballot, the deepest level of apathy in the country.

The 23 per cent turn-out in England and Wales is even lower than the 29 per cent seen at the local elections last month. Margaret Beckett, Labour's campaigns chief and the leader of the Commons, said she was concerned by the figures. "Everybody must be worried by the turn-out. It is what we feared and what we tried to urge against from the beginning." she told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.

"But what I do notice was that the last time we had Euro elections, the turn-out was lower than the turn-out for the local elections which preceded them, and we have seen the same phenomenon this time," Mrs Beckett added. It was hard to judge what had gone wrong, but she partly blamed big stories, such as Kosovo, dominating the news. She added that Labour voters were "just not frightened of the Tory Party at the moment".

A Home Office working party is looking into ways of making voting easier, while the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions hopes to introduce Sunday voting, ballot boxes in supermarkets and electronic voting.