Prior to its uniform adoption of proportional representation in 1999, the United Kingdom used first-past-the-post for the European elections in England, Scotland and Wales.

Ken Stewart, a left-wing and anti-Europe Labour councillor, won the seat for Labour in 1984 from the Liverpool constituency's incumbent Gloria Hooper, later Baroness Hooper.

His death in 1996 triggered a by-election, one of a number of crucial by-elections resulting in comfortable Labour victories in the closing months of John Major's Conservative government.

Labour's candidate was Richard Corbett, pro-Europe (and later the Leader of the Labour MEPs, the EPLP), who held the seat until it was abolished with the introduction of the regional constituency proportional representation system in 1999.

Corbett won the selection to be the Labour candidate in a ballot of all party members in the constituency, winning out against David Watts, later MP for St Helens, Margaret Wall (later Baroness Wall of New Barnet), David Martin, leader of Sefton Council and a number of other local councillors from Liverpool and Bootle.