How does the voting system work in the elections for the European Parliament

It's official - on Thursday 23 May we go to the polls to elect our members of the European Parliament. However unlike elections to the Westminster Parliament these are run on a Proportional Representation (PR) system, which gives a chance for smaller parties to get candidates elected. 

The 'first past the post' system used at Westminster is very easy to understand, but means that nearly all the successful candidates come from one of the two main parties. One of the drawbacks of the PR system is that it can be very difficult to understand. You can find an explanation of it here. It's by Richard Corbett MEP, who is the Labour Leader in the European Parliament.

For the London Region the Labour Party candidates are:

Claude Moraes

Seb Dance

Katy Clark

Laura Parker

Murad Qureshi

Taranjit Chana

James Beckles

Sanchia Alasia

The list order has been decided by the NEC and is in order of priority to be elected. If for example enough votes were cast in London for the Labour Party to qualify for 3 MEPs, then they would be: Claude Moraes, Seb Dance, and Katy Clark.