ALTHOUGH we are rivals in the elections to the European Parliament on June 10, we have united to correct an injustice and clear up great confusion.

The dummy ballot paper in the Government leaflet sent to every household explaining the new proportional representation voting system which will apply for this election, shows only the three main parliamentary and several fictitious parties.

It makes no reference to the other genuine parties contesting the election in this region. There is strong evidence that this is causing much confusion.

Voters are interpreting this official document as being a definitive list of parties standing and are under the impression that, if a party's name does not appear on the Government leaflet, it is not contesting the election. The danger of this happening was pointed out some weeks ago, but the authorities, in their wisdom, chose to ignore this warning. We are not seeking to make political capital out of this issue. However, we do believe that it is essential that this mistake be rectified in the interests of democracy. As the Government is unwilling to do so, we rely on the Press to inform readers of the true facts.

The full list of parties and independents for whom your readers can vote on June 10 in the North West Region is:

British National Party; Conservative Party; Green Party; Labour Party; Liberal Democrat Party; Liberal Party; Natural Law Party; Pro Euro Conservative Party, Socialist Labour Party; UK Independence Party; Weekly Worker; Independent - Anti-Corruption Pro-Family Christian Alliance; Independent - English Independent Humanist Party.

DR JOHN WHITTAKER, UK Independence Party; PROFESSOR J WHITELEGG, Green Party and COUNCILLOR STEVE RADFORD, Liberal Party.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.