MEPs who signed a newspaper advertisement opposing the scrapping of Clause IV of Labour's constitution are disproportionately represented among candidates assigned to "unwinnable" positions by the party's ruling National Executive Committee the week before Labour's annual conference.

The next European Parliament elections are in June 1999

Of the 49 sitting Labour Euro-MPs standing for re-election, Labour's NEC has ranked 12 to positions deemed unwinnable by internal party projections based on its performance at last year's general election.

Ten of the 12 signed an advertisement backing Clause IV that was printed in The Guardian and Tribune newspapers in November 1994.

One Labour Euro-MP who has been given a winnable position on their party's lists told BBC News Online: "The NEC's ranking of candidates on the lists takes away what remaining independence Labour MEPs have.

"We will owe our positions as MEPs to the Labour Party leadership, rather than to the people that elect us."

Of the 28 candidates currently sitting as MEPs who did not sign the advert just two have been given unwinnable positions, while 26 have positions winnable, according to the projections.

Row over advert

Of the 11 signatories of the advert who have been given positions Labour calculates as winnable, five would only just scrape in.

Blair: Accused MEPs of "infantile incompetence"

A total 21 of the 49 Euro-MPs seeking re-election signed the advert.

The advert opposing Mr Blair's plan to scrap Clause IV - published on the eve of his first visit to Brussels as party leader - sparked a major row between the Labour leadership and its Euro-MPs.

Mr Blair accused the MEPs who signed the advert of "infantile incompetence", and senior party officials described the European Parliamentary Labour Party as "non-entities".

Regional list system

Under the regional list proportional system to be used for the Euro-elections next June, parties must draw up a list of candidates for regions across the UK and rank them in order of priority.

Votes cast for the party are distributed across the lists. Those candidates at the top of a list have most chance of winning, those at the bottom least.

Labour's internal projections based on the 1997 general election forecast the party to win 43 of the total 84 Euro-seats.

But Labour officials say privately the projections are optimistic and they expect the total number of seats won next year to be in the low to mid 30s.

Because the last Euro-elections were held under first-past-the-post, the party currently has 62 seats - won on a low turn-out of just 36% of the electorate.

Selection controversy

The Euro-candidates lists will be voted on for final approval by this year's Labour's conference

Labour's candidate selection process caused controversy within the party because although one-member-one-vote was used to choose the pool from which its Euro-candidates have come, the final choice and the all-important order in which they appear on the regional lists was decided by NEC-dominated panels.

Critics say this has allowed the leadership to decide who will be elected next year, rather than party members.

The three main political parties have different methods for choosing their candidates.

A Conservative committee drew up shortlists of candidates for each region and then allowed party members to make the final choice and rank the lists.

In the Liberal Democrats, party members also chose candidates and their position on the lists from shortlists drawn up by a regional committees. But some candidates with fewer votes from party members than others could be ranked higher on the lists in order to ensure an equal number of male and female candidates listed alternatively, for gender balance among those elected.

Last week, a vote of delegates to the Scottish National Party's annual conference decided the party's Eurocandidates.

When Labour's Euro-candidate lists were finalised left-wing members of the NEC protested, saying sitting Euro-MPs had lost out and the new selection process gave party headquarters too much control.

The list will be voted on for final approval by the party conference.

'Contract' complaints

Another aspect of the selection process that has attracted criticism is an individual "contract" between MEPs and the Labour Party that all candidates were asked to sign.

MEPs say funds meant to help them represent voters could end up in Labour coffers

The contract, seen by BBC News Online, commits each Euro-MP "to pool an agreed proportion of my office costs and staffing allowances" with others in the same region. A "foundation, trust or company" will be then set up by the party to administer the money and decide the exact amount Euro-MPs should contribute to it "in accordance with the guidance issued by the EPLP and the Labour Party".

MEPs will be members of each regional company, but others - including party officials - will also be appointed. Some MEPs have said the contract could lead to public funds intended to help them carry out their work as members of the European Parliament going instead to the Labour Party.

"We could end up subsidising party political work with European Parliament money intended to allow us to represent our constituents," one Euro-MP told BBC News Online.

Similar complaints were made by Labour MPs after the general election when party officials wrote to them asking them to sign over a percentage of their office costs and allowances to Labour coffers.