UKIP has taken three out of the six European Parliament places in the Yorkshire region.

The party stunned many by claiming such a huge share of the vote in the region, which includes Kirklees and Calderdale.

In fact, in Calderdale they scooped the largest number of votes.

Two other seats were won by Labour while the Conservatives took the final place.

The seats were allocated across the entire region, but they were counted council-by-council and UKIP came top of the poll in some surprising places including York, Doncaster and Rotherham - in the past, all Labour’s heartland.

The Liberal Democrat vote collapsed, pushing the party well down into fifth place behind the Greens, though neither party had enough votes to win a seat.

In Kirklees where the turnout was 110,743, Labour had the best showing.

They polled 37,113 votes while Ukip stormed into second place with 29,576. The Tories accumulated 21,097 while the Greens had fourth place with 9,301.

There was a poor performance from the Lib Dems, who mustered only 5,849 votes.

Newly-elected Yorkshire and Humber UKIP MEP Jane Collins said the size of the party’s vote revealed a “deep distrust” of the EU and the European Parliament.

“It just tells you the opinion in the nation at this moment in time,” she said.

“People want some eyes and ears over there - some common sense and some straight-talking people.”

Amjad Bashir and Mike Hookem also won seats for UKIP.

UKIP topped the poll in the Yorkshire and Humber region with more than 400,000 votes, including 29,576 in Kirklees.

The turnout in Kirklees was 35.82% and the full Euro results were:

Labour Party - 37,113

UKIP - 29,576

Conservative Party - 21,097

Green Party - 9,301

Liberal Democrats - 5,849

An Independence from Europe - 2,144

British National Party - 1,903

Yorkshire First - 1,707

English Democrats - 977

NO2EU - 274

Calderdale results were:

Ukip - 14,960

Labour - 14,319

Conservatives - 11,894

Green Party - 4,335

Lib Dems - 3,292

An Independence from Europe 1,380

British National Party - 895

Yorkshire First - 893

English Democrats - 602

NO2EU - 134.

Kirklees green councillor Andrew Cooper had been chosen as the party’s lead candidate in the regional elections.

He tweeted: “Thanks for the supportive messages. I’m proud of the campaign we ran and of the great team and candidates we fielded. Onwards, it’s a sunny day!”

Mr Bashir, a Leeds businessman, said his election disproved the portrayal of his party as a racist organisation.

“Here I am, of Asian birth, of Asian parentage, Muslim, and I have been selected by this so-called racist party. It disproves that completely.”

Richard Corbett and Linda McAvan were elected as Labour MEPs for the Yorkshire and Humber region

Linda McAvan, re-elected for Labour, admitted there was “some disappointment” hers was no longer the largest UK party in the European Parliament.

“If you look at the overall result, though, we’ve had a much better performance than we have in many European elections since 1999 when the proportional representation system first came in.We’ve doubled our representation so it’s a satisfactory result.”

Meanwhile, following his re-election, Conservative MEP Timothy Kirkhope tweeted: “Conservatives must press on with policies for reform, re-negotiation and referendum”.

Yorkshire First - the party for Yorkshire - was set up by Holmfirth businessman Richard Carter. The party got 19,017 votes or 1.5% of the total in the region.

Mr Carter said: “We have undoubtedly touched a raw nerve in the very short time we have been set up and we feel we have the support to carry on beyond these elections. We have come a long way in the few weeks the party has been set up and we expect to see even greater progress in the coming weeks and months”.

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