New Labour Party selection procedures, and the replacement of first-past-the-post with Proportional Representation in next year's Euro election, mean Bradford will lose its Euro MP.

The Yorkshire West constituency, which Dr Barry Seal has represented since the first Euro election in 1979, is being abolished along with all other regional constituencies.

The whole of Yorkshire will instead be represented by seven Euro MPs whom voters will no longer directly elect.

Under PR, voters will back the political party of their choice. At the end of the ballot, votes will be counted up and the seven Euro seats shared out according to the proportion of votes gained by each party.

In the past, Labour Party members have chosen prospective Euro candidates to fight the election. The national party has added another procedure to that: examination and selection by Labour's National Executive Committee.

Barry Seal, Bradford councillor Andy Mudd and Calderdale councillor Ann Martin - the three candidates chosen by Yorkshire West members - will be cross-examined by the NEC later this month, along with the 17 Labour candidates nominated by other Yorkshire constituencies.

The NEC will choose seven prospective candidates, and grade them from one to seven. Although they will be listed on the ballot paper after the name of the party, voters will be unable to vote for particular Labour candidates.

Dr Seal said: "If Labour gets 50 per cent of the votes, for example, it will get a proportional number of seats, say three or four. Only those candidates at the top of the NEC's regional list will become MEPs.

"If I am lucky enough to be one of them, no longer will I be able to think of myself as MEP for Bradford, Calderdale and Kirklees. No longer will I have an office in Bradford's City Hall. The party is thinking of putting all Yorkshire's Labour MEPs in one central office in Wakefield.

"Prospective candidates are not selected by people locally now but by the party centrally, so it's the end of an era for Bradford's MEP. Whatever happens, my close association with Bradford will be diluted," he said.

The implications for Bradford are profound. Since 1979 many millions of pounds have flowed into the district from the European Social and Regional funds, partly as a result of lobbying by Dr Seal. In the past 20 years he has occupied important posts within the European Socialist Group in Brussels.

In future, however, Yorkshire's major towns and cities will compete for the attention of the region's Euro MPs. While this may give Yorkshire great regional strength in the European Parliament, particular areas with special needs - of which Bradford is one - may suffer.

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