European Parliament
She was chosen by her colleagues as Chairwoman of the European Parliamentary Labour Party. In January 1995, she abstained from signing a declaration against a change in Clause IV of the Labour Party constitution, despite 36 Labour MEPs doing so. With an agricultural constituency she took up farming issues, calling for a new approach to food quality after the BSE scandal including stricter regulation of intensive farming. When Lincolnshire was described as a prosperous area, she wrote to object based on the low wages paid to some farmworkers. She was also Vice-Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee between the European Parliament and Poland from 1995.
For the 1999 European Parliament election, the electoral system was changed to list-based proportional representation. Hardstaff was placed at sixth out of seven on the regional list for Yorkshire and the Humber, a place which made it practically impossible for her to be re-elected; this low placing was attributed to her alliance with the left. In the election, Labour won only three seats in the region.
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