Hugh Kerr

Hugh Kerr (born 9 July 1944) is a Scottish politician and a former lecturer in social policy at the University of East London. He was elected a Labour Party Member of the European Parliament (MEP) in June 1994 to represent the euro-constituency of Essex West & Hertfordshire East until 1999.

At the 1994 European Parliament election Kerr defeated the Conservative incumbent, Patricia Rawlings, and was elected as the MEP for Essex West & Hertfordshire East (then comprising the Westminster constituencies of Brentwood and Ongar, Broxbourne, Epping Forest, Harlow, Hertford and Stortford, North East Hertfordshire and Stevenage). In his speech on election night in June 1994, he chided Rawlings (now Baroness Rawlings of Burnham Westgate) for not attending any of the series of pre-election hustings throughout the euro-constituency where local issues had been debated by the other candidates in her absence.

Upon his election in 1994, Kerr based his euro-constituency office in the marginal constituency of Harlow providing support for the local Labour party and its nominee Bill Rammell. Kerr fell out with the New Labour government not long after the 1 May 1997 General Election – when Rammell was elected as Harlow's MP – accusing the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, of "stalinist tendencies" for planning to abolish all current euro-constituencies and for introducing a party list regional system for future European elections, and to stifle any criticism by Labour MEPs.

...
Wikipedia