Euro MP Barry Seal is right when he points out elsewhere in today's T&A that changes to the selection procedures for the Euro elections could affect the district's ability to fight its corner - or, at least, to have its corner fought for it.

Bradford has benefited quite a lot over the years from EU funds for a wide range of projects. The new Proportional Representation system could weaken that relationship as in the future there will not be a direct representative of the district seeking cash for it as a specific area.

Under PR, voters will vote for the political party of their choice and seven seats in Yorkshire will be allocated to the different parties according to how many votes each of them gains. The Labour Euro-MPs-in-waiting will be chosen not by the electorate but by the party's NEC.

The problem is that the constituents could end up knowing very little about the group of people who the NEC will choose to represent the interests of the county in the European Parliament. That group might end up not including Dr Seal, or indeed anyone who has a particular commitment to this area. Any hope of making Bradford a special case in those circumstances would disappear.

Because the list of available candidates would be selected by the NEC, everything would depend - as far as the seats allocated to Labour are concerned - on the political agenda of the NEC rather than the electorate. It would effectively take away from local people a large degree of democratic control of our representation in Europe.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.