[1] 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.
[2] 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).
[citation needed] 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.
[5][6] Kerr resigned from the SNP in 2016, in protest against party leader Nicola Sturgeon holding a copy of the Scottish Sun newspaper.
[7] On 11 December 2019, one day before the UK general election, Kerr pleaded to the Scottish people to vote tactically for the SNP to “keep the Tories out of power”.