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”
Joe
Alun:
I’ve heard that most people do want to leave the EU, admittedly it’s only just over half, but it’s still a majority.
Liz:
I would agree with you that to stay in you need to show the benefits of the EU to the British people, but as far as I’ve looked into it, the ‘benefits’ are far outweighed by the negatives. Whether you like it or not, the only place the EU is going is a federal europe, and only a tiny percentage of the British public would be in favour of this.
And you all talk about biased media. We’re replying to a board called Left Foot Forward. Just sayin’… 😛
Liz McShane
Joe – YeI don’t think Britain has ever really had a proper & open discussion about the benefits of EU membership.. too timid to challenge the Murdoch press who have their own reasons for being anti-EU. If we did (and hopefully we will) then the British public might view things differently.
Federal Europe – not too sure about that – that is what a large part of the media would like us to believe. When people start talking about sovereignty via a vis Britain they seem to forget that countries such as France & Germany are also keen to protect their sovereignty – it’s not just a quaint old British thing.
Re LFF – at least it’s clear where it stands and what policies it supports.
Joe
Liz- I think that if there was an open discussion about EU membership there would be an even larger proportion of the public being Anti-EU, their reasons changing. I went to Strasbourg as open minded as possible, and came back wanting us to leave, and have a swiss-type relationship with the EU.
Also, Britain should have an open discussion on ‘EU membership’, not the ‘benefits of the EU’. It’s like me saying we should have a discussion on ‘The downsides to EU membership’.
There are a lot of Euro-myths out there, which are often used by the more ill-informed Eurosceptics, which leads you to believe all of us don’t know what we’re talking about, which is not the case, at all.
On the whole, British people are more protective of their country than the French, I think. In London you see very few EU flags whereas in Paris they’re almost always flown alongside the tri-colour. France does much better than we do out of the EU anyway, so it’s an unfair comparison.
LFF- Murdoch has clear ideologies, just like this site. UKIP is a right wing party, this is a Left wing site, so it’s going to be on the attack. Would you trust a review of the Lib Dems written by Daniel Hannan or a review of Labour policies written by the Torys?
Liz McShane
Any attempt at a debate on the EU has been framed and tempered by the relentless, populist anti-Europe stories and eye catching headlines by the usual media suspects. So it has never been a level playing field to start with.
Re LFF etc – at least you know what are you getting, whereas lots of people who buy the Sun?/Mail/Express etc don’t realise the hidden (personal) agendas directing their news coverage. Anyway this is going off on a tangent.
Tim Worstall
I’ll admit to a certain bias here of course (for I’m a UKIP member and used to work for the party) but:
“Whatever anyone thinks, the vast majority of people don’t actually want to leave the EU do they?”
Well, we certainly think so. Which is why our major demand is that we ought to go and have a vote on it. A simple referendum. “Should the UK be in the EU or not?” would just about cover it.
You know, this democracy thing?