UKIP's European allies are under the spotlight following Nikki Sinclaire's resignation from the EFD group in protest at their "variety of extremist views".
UKIP’s European allies are under the spotlight following West Midlands MEP Nikki Sinclaire’s resignation from the European Freedom and Democracy Group (EFD) in protest at the “variety of extremist views” in the EFD and reports this afternoon that a Danish MEP has been questioned by police over “serious racial offences”.
Ms Sinclaire cited “anti-Semitism, violence and the espousal of a single European policy on immigration” amongst UKIP’s EFD partners as reasons for her resignation, adding that former UKIP leader Nigel Farage told her he wished UKIP “had only 12 not 13 MEPs”.
The UKIP-watch “Junius” blog backs up Ms Sinclaire’s allegations of extremism. It says:
“A Danish member of the EFD, UKIP’s group in the European parliament, has previously received a prison sentence for ‘racial offences’. He was later forced to resign his job after being caught ‘Heiling Hitler’ in a Copenhagen bar.”
Mr Farage, however, hit back at her claims on today’s Daily Politics. He said:
On Ms Sinclaire and UKIP’s problems with certain MEPs in general, he added:
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“She stood for us as a candidate without declaring the fact that she’d been declared bankrupt in 2005 and the NEC of the party take a pretty dim view about that.
“We’ve tried to do what we can, we do full criminal record checks on people, we’re doing what we can to get good people.”
In November, Left Foot Forward reported the conviction of former UKIP MEP Tom Wise for fraud, and reported the European Anti-Fraud office’s past investigations into UKIP and the current probe into Ms Sinclaire’s fellow West Midlands MEP Mike Nattrass.
26 Responses to “UKIP crisis over “extremist views” of Euro allies”
Nicholas Darlington
UKIP crisis over “extremist views” of Euro allies: http://is.gd/6c43n /via @leftfootfwd good, a UKIP crisis is always music to my ears 🙂
Paul Slatter
RT @leftfootfwd UKIP crisis over “extremist views” of Euro allies: http://is.gd/6c43n <- not only issue behind resignation of West Mids MEP?
J Clive Matthews
Ha ha ha! UKIP's latest implosion is kicking off: RT @leftfootfwd: UKIP crisis over “extremist views” of Euro allies: http://is.gd/6c43n
Jae Kay
RT @leftfootfwd: UKIP crisis over “extremist views” of Euro allies: http://is.gd/6c43n
CTerry
I am a Social Research Masters student specialising in the field of comparative politics. In particular my specialist area is political parties in Europe, so I know a fair bit about UKIP’s allies.
The Danish People’s Party is self-admittedly anti-muslim. Their leader sued a Communist opponent for libel after being described as ‘racist’. The supreme court of Denmark found that she was indeed a racist. One of their MPs has compared Islam to fascism and the Qu’ran to Mein Kampf.
The Politically Reformed Group is a Dutch political party of a radical Christian Orthodox bent. It is so socially conservative that it does not accept the right of women to vote and only allows women within its party structure because the Dutch courts found that it had to.
The Slovak National Party is clearly racist, holding discriminatory views about Roma, Hungarians and Jews most clearly.
The Northern League in Italy is infamously xenophobic. A Northern League run city council in Italy recently banned kebab shops in the town centre, seemingly purely off a hatred of Turks.
I don’t know too much about the Lithuanian Order and Justice, but what I do know is not positive. It is worth noting that the Baltic states are not exactly what you’d call welcoming towards foreigners and ethnic minorities even in their mainstream politics, so if Order and Justice is considered outside the mainstream in Lithuania…
Movement for France is broadly comparable to UKIP itself. It is not the National Front but it is not exactly mainstream either.
And lastly there is True Finns, which I am also not too knowledgeable about (in this case, primarily because information is difficult to come by).