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.
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26 Responses to “UKIP crisis over “extremist views” of Euro allies”
Jed Keenan
Writing that the media’s disinterest in the European Parliament is a good cause of the level of support for the UKIP. The BBC has permanent fibreoptic cables from Washington DC and New York so costing nothing to supply the ongoing US news narrative while Brussels and Strasbourg are just additional burdens to production budgets. It is both cheaper and what the viewers are used too and therefore prefer despite the almost zero effect on the UK of US politics and the extraordinary consequences of the business of the EU for us all. On this issue, and pretty much on this issue alone, the UKIP have a very strong position and we are ‘sleepwalking’ but then again, on this point even my MEP Claude Moraes would agree.
Alun
@Liz
“What Britain does need to do is work harder at relaying the positive messages and benefits that we have got from being members”
It might help if this so called “Labour” government hadn’t been so spineless in the face of the far-right UK press that is controlled by super rich capitalists who generally live abroad for tax purposes. We need proper competition in our media, that can’t happen when someone like Murdoch is allowed to own so many newspapers and television channels. They could have introduced proper media ownership laws when they came to power in 1997, but as usual they bottled it.
Liz McShane
Alun – I couldn’t agree with you more re The Murdoch press and his wider media empire and our deference towards him.
John Booth
Alun & Liz – I also agree. But how do we defeat the biased media empire of guys like Murdoch? Labour had 13 years to do it, so clearly we can’t wait for them to sort it out.
Liz McShane
I think the growing fragmentation of media and changing ‘consumption’ of media might help to make some small & subtle changes. The growing number of blogs, citizen journalists and social media make for more interesting & empowering times. It’s a long road to furrow I know. Also the change in advertising strategy might also help dent the power of Murdoch etc.