Ten parties are fielding candidates in the European elections.

And the field of candidates comes from far and wide - former Holmfirth businessman Richard Carter is a founder of the new Yorkshire First party, and he now lives in Norway and works in Germany.

Clr Andrew Cooper, who is a Newsome Green Party councillor, is the only candidate still living in Kirklees and is the Green Party’s lead candidate.

Clr Cooper said, if elected, he will have a constituency office in Huddersfield and remain a Kirklees councillor until 2015 to save the £20,000 cost of a by-election, donate his councillor’s allowance of £12,566 to the Newsome Ward Forum and remain an active councillor until he stepped down.

He said: “The Green Party was just 1% short last time of getting and MEP place so we hope this is our time.

“The key thing I’ll be working for is to draw money down to help jobs, help young people and protect and encourage the growing green economy.

“When the government abolished the Regional Development Agency we lost out an awful lot of European money.

“The job of an MEP is to draw down the resources and money is there and we can do better at getting it.”

Richard Carter’s Yorkshire First’s colleague Stewart Arnold is their lead candidate.

Mr Carter said the party was about giving Yorkshire a voice.

He said: “When you move away you look back with a different sort of thinking and see what potential there is - there are 5.3m in Norway and it’s the same size as Yorkshire.

“Yorkshire has a population the same as Scotland and an economy twice the size of Wales but the powers of neither. Something has to change.

“It’s easy to get angry and annoyed at what we’re missing out on, or you can try to do something about it as I am.

“Yorkshire First is about devolution and starting a conversation, it’s an unsexy subject but bringing powers to the region is important.

“My heart is still there and people abroad often become more English or more Yorkshire.”

The 10 parties are fighting for six regional seats in European Parliament, with the vote on Thursday, May 22.

The list of candidates for the Yorkshire and Humber Region is:

An Independence from Europe:

Christopher Jonathan Booth

Kerrie Oxenham

Malcolm John Snelling

John Buchanan Martin

Paul Balderson Sootheran

Howard Roy Blake

British National Party:

Marlene Guest

Adam Walker

Daniel Paul Cooke

Joanne Brown

Steven Richard Harrison

Stuart Henshaw

Conservative Party:

Timothy John Robert Kirkhope

Alex Story

John Michael Procter

Carolyn Abbott

Michael James Naughton

Ryan Stephenson

English Democrats:

Chris Beverley

David Wildgoose

Ian Sutton

Colin Porter

Tom Redmond

David Allen

Green Party:

Andrew Cooper

Shan Oakes

Victoria Anne Dunn

Denise Craghill

Martin Francis Hemingway

Kevin Robert Warnes

Labour Party

Linda McAvan

Richard Corbett

Eleanor Tunnicliffe

Asghar Khan

Helen Mirfin-Boukouris

Darren Hughes

Liberal Democrats:

Edward Hugh McMillan-Scott

James Monaghan

Joseph Otten

Chris Foote-Wood

Jacqueline Dianne Bell

Aquila Choudhry

NO2EU:

Trevor Howard

Mary Jackson

Carrie Hedderwick

Adrian O’Malley

Steven John Andrew

Iain Alaistair Dalton

UKIP:

Jane Maria Collins

Amjad Mahmood Bashir

Mike Hookem

Gary Colin Shores

Jason Paul Smith

Anne Murgatroyd

Yorkshire First:

Stewart David Arnold

Richard Carter

Richard John Honnoraty