The Christian Party and Christian Peoples Alliance say they have made progress at the grassroots with their results for the European Parliamentary election.

Their participation in last week's election marked the first time that the electorate have been offered a Christian choice on the ballot paper across the country.

The alliance of parties fielded joint candidate lists in England, but with the Christian Party of Wales running its own list.

The results marked a rise from 2004's European Parliament election, with a total of 232,755 votes, or 1.7 per cent of the votes cast in England and Wales. With Scotland still to be declared, the alliance came eighth overall.

CPA Federal Executive member, Dr Tom Rogers stood in East Midlands. He said:
"We are grateful to the near quarter of a million people who cast their vote for our alliance and for the progress we have made in just getting on to the ballot paper.

"We do not despise the day of small beginnings and look to our friends across Europe, who better established, have succeeding in returning Christian MEPs to the Parliament.

"The challenge is now to build on our result at grassroots level and begin to make ourselves known."

Dr Rogers said it was remarkable that the alliance performed as well as it did in the election given that campaigning took place in most places only weeks before polling day and the alliance had next to no media coverage.

"Other small groups like Libertas, No2EU, The Jury Team and Socialist Labour had leaders with national profiles in politics and we outpolled them all," he said.

The National Results for England and Wales:

North East 7,263 1.20%
North West 25,999 1.60%
Eastern 24,646 1.54%
East Mid 17,907 1.50%
West Mid 18,784 1.30%
London 51,336 2.90%
South West 21,329 1.40%
South East 35,712 1.50%
Yorkshire 16,742 1.40%
Wales 13,039 1.90%