Date: 2nd June 2004
Released by: ANDREW TURNER

European election literature put out by the Liberal Democrats has been slammed as ‘dishonest and misleading’ because of its portrayal of Labour’s chances of electing a Euro-MP.

Leaflets quote the 2001 General Election result, in which Lib-Dems lost the Island seat at Westminster. But Island MP Andrew Turner says the figures are irrelevant in a proportional representation election.

Mr Turner said:
“It does nothing for trust in politicians if the people who write their literature attempt to mislead voters. And this literature was written by Lib-Dem spin-doctors on the mainland who clearly underestimate the sophistication of the Island’s electorate.

“In the last European election on the Island, Labour beat the Lib-Dems into third place. In the South East region Labour and the Lib-Dems had the same number of MEPs elected. It is simply dishonest to compare a result using Britain’s traditional voting system to one under proportional representation – the system used in European elections.

The Lib-Dems support proportional representation, because it allows minor parties more representation, but now they’re ignoring it because it doesn’t enable them to say ‘Labour can’t win here’. So they’ve said it anyway, despite the evidence to the contrary.

“Regrettably this is only too typical of the Lib-Dems. They portray themselves as wanting European reform and a referendum on the European constitution, but in fact they are the most extreme party of all when it comes to Europe, with Charles Kennedy saying that the European constitution doesn’t hand enough power over to Europe!”

Notes to Editors:

In the 1999 Euro elections, the result on the Island was:

Conservative: 12,045
Labour: 5,078
Lib-Dem 4,816
UKIP: 3,336

(Electorate: 103,728)