POLLING cards have started dropping onto the doormats of households across Cornwall in preparation for the European Parliament elections.
Other parts of the UK will be voting in local council elections this week but there will be none in Cornwall with the next major election set to be those for the European Parliament.
While the UK had been set to leave the European Union on March 29 the extension to Brexit means that it is extremely likely that we will be voting in European elections on May 23.
For European elections the whole of the EU is broken up into regions which then elect Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to represent them in Brussels and Strasbourg.
Cornwall is part of the South West England European Parliament constituency which also includes Gibraltar.
The region has six MEPs – currently we have two UKIP, two Conservative, one Labour and one Green.
Three of our current MEPs – Molly Scott Cato (Green), Ashley Fox (Conservative) and Clare Moody (Labour) – are also standing in this year’s election.
But the region will also have some of the most high profile candidates in this year’s election.
Change UK – the new party formed by MPs who left their parties to form a new independent group – has two familiar faces in their south west list.
Rachel Johnson is sister of Boris Johnson and is the lead candidate for Change UK in the south west. She is joined by Crispin Hunt, former frontman of indie band Longpigs. He is sixth on the Change UK south west list.
At the other end of the scale Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party leads their south west list with former Tory minister Anne Widdecombe.
And UKIP have Carl Benjamin, also known as Sargon of Akkad, a YouTuber and political commentator. He is second on their list.
Labour have Lord Andrew Adonis second on the south west list – the former minister who was accused of a U-turn after being announced as a candidate having previously advised people not to vote for Labour in the European elections.
There are also two current Cornwall councillors standing for election with Mevagissey councillor James Mustoe second on the Conservative list and Falmouth councillor Jayne Kirkham third on the Labour list.
This is the full list of current candidates in the South West England region for the European Parliament elections on May 23:
Change UK – Rachel Johnson, Jim Godfrey, Oliver Middleton, Matthew Hooberman, Elizabeth-Ann Sewell, Crispin Hunt.
Conservative – Ashley Fox, James Mustoe, Faye Purbrick, Claire Hiscott, James Taghdissian, Emmeline Owens
English Democrat – Jenny Knight, Michael Blundell
Green – Molly Scott Cato, Cleo Lake, Carla Denyer, Tom Scott, Martin Dimery, Karen La Borde
Labour – Clare Moody, Andrew Adonis, Jayne Kirkham, Neil Guild, Yvonne Atkinson, Sadik Al-Hassan
Liberal Democrat – Caroline Voaden, Martin Horwood, Stephen Williams, Eleanor Rylance, David Chalmers, Luke Stagnetto
Brexit Party – Ann Widdecombe, James Glancy, Christina Jordan, Ann Tarr, Roger Lane-Nott, Nicola Darke
UKIP – Lawrence Webb, Carl Benjamin, Anthony McIntyre, Lester Taylor, Stephen Lee, Alison Sheridan
Independent – Larch Maxey
Independent – Mothiur Rahman
Independent – Neville Seed
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