Portishead pool campaigner selected for Euro election battle

PORTISHEAD pool campaigner Roger Whitfield has been selected to stand for election to the European Parliament.

The Mercury revealed earlier this month he wanted to be selected as a candidate for The Jury Team, a new organisation in British politics.

It was selecting candidates by public text vote for each region in the country on a platform of ending the dominance of traditional political parties.

And after the votes were totted up following the end of the text poll Mr Whitfield's name will be on the ballot sheet on June 4.

He said: "I'm delighted to have been selected as one of the Jury Team's independent candidates.

"We're not career politicians we're fairly normal people and want to campaign against the European gravy train."

He said more than 10,000 text votes had been cast to select the candidates.

Due to the proportional representation system used for European Parliament elections in Britain it would take an extraordinary upsetting of the established political order for Mr Whitfield to be elected.

Since 1999 European elections in Britain have been organised on a regional party list system, with voters choosing which party to vote for rather than an individual candidate.

The seats are then awarded to the parties depending on their share of the vote.

As Mr Whitfield is the sixth candidate on the Jury Team's south west list, it would have to poll an overwhelming share of the vote for him to be elected as one of the south west's seven MEPs.