A (very) brief guide to the European Elections

On Thursday 4 June the UK goes to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, in what I'm sure will be the can't miss event of the year.

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) hold the European Commission to account. They are elected in proportion to each member country's size, so the UK has one of the largest delegations of any country - second only to Germany, in fact.

MEPs are elected by a proportional representation system. The whole of Greater London is one constituency which elects 8 MEPs as a bloc. At the last elections in 2004, Labour and the Tories won three MEPs each, the Lib Dems, Greens and UK Independence Party one apiece (there were nine seats last time - all the existing member states have lost seats because of the enlargement of the EU since the last elections).

Labour's MEP candidates, in the photo at the top of this post are (from left to right): Anne Fairweather, Abdul Assad, Mary Honeyball MEP, Kevin McGrath, Claude Moraes MEP, Raj Jethwa, Emma Jones and Nilgun Canver.

The Labour team has been out and about across Putney, Roehampton and Southfields since just after the Easter holidays, and we'll continue right through until polling day.

You can find out what our policies for the next five years in Europe are by clicking here.