Britain Votes: Election turnout is lowest on record

WIDESPREAD VOTER apathy in yesterday's European elections has resulted in the lowest ever turnout in any national poll in British history.

Early returns from the parties indicated that on average less than 25 per cent of the electorate had bothered to cast their ballot, with the figure as low as 12 per cent in some areas.

Labour Party sources revealed that in Altrincham and Sale, in Cheshire, the turnout was 23 per cent, in Eastwood, in Nottinghamshire, it was 21 per cent, in Tynbridge, in the North-East, it was 14.5 per cent

Both rural and urban areas shared the lack of interest. The lowest figure was in Bootle, on Merseyside, where a turnout of 12.6 per cent was reported.

Although the final official figures for the European elections will not be known until Sunday when the results are declared across the continent, the indications are that voter apathy may be lower even than in the local elections.

Similar disinterest was shown graphically in the by-election in Leeds Central, where Labour easily regained the seat but on the lowest ever turnout for a Parliamentary election. Just 19.6 per cent of those eligible to vote did so.

The record low figures will be exploited by Labour opponents of proportional representation when they relaunch their campaign today against PR for House of Commons elections.

Opponents of electoral reform also believe the heavy Labour losses predicted in the European elections will boost their efforts to persuade the party to reject PR for Westminster.

Yesterday's poll was the first time PR had been used in a nationwide election in Britain and the results will be counted on Sunday, after most other EU countries vote at the weekend.

Officials in all main parties reported a low turnout. They believe it will be lower than the 36 per cent in the 1994 Euro poll, and warned that only 20 per cent of people were bothering to vote in some areas.

Supporters of PR have always argued that voting reform would increase the turnout by persuading people their votes would not be wasted if they lived in a safe seat. There has already been a backlash against PR inside the Labour Party since it failed to win an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections last month, which were also conducted on a PR system.

Supporters of the existing first-past-the-post system will today relaunch their campaign to persuade Tony Blair to drop plans for a referendum on whether to change the voting system for the Commons. They believe Labour will lose up to 20 of the 62 seats it won at the last Euro elections as a result of using PR.

The Make Votes Count campaign, which supports reform, said PR was not to blame for the low turnout. A survey of 200 voters outside polling stations found that 93 per cent of them thought the system "easy to use", despite warnings that it would be too complicated.

t Labour won an injunction yesterday against the British National Party to ban a racist leaflet used in the election campaign. The injunction was served on party leader, John Tyndall, who denied that the leaflet, delivered in Hull, was the responsibility of his national party.