UKIP's attendance record in the European Parliament is worse than that of their counterparts from the three major parties.
UKIP’s attendance record in the European Parliament is worse than that of their counterparts from the three major parties, according to data compiled by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
Happy to sign-in and collect their allowances, UKIP’s nine MEPs have missed around a third of the votes in the European Parliament between 2009 and October 2013. They have also missed almost all of the ‘reports amended’ sessions in which MEPs lay down amendments to legislation.
This was once again demonstrated on Wednesday, when Europe voted on whether its Parliament should continue meeting in both Brussels and Strasbourg, after a long campaign highlighting the fact that it costs European taxpayers €180m to meet in two locations rather than one.
Despite UKIP claiming to be standing up for Britain against European bureaucracy, however, only four UKIP MEPs out of nine bothered to turn up to vote on the measure at all. And those that did turn up abstained – on a measure that would have trimmed spending and cut waste!
And yet despite only four UKIP MEPs turning up to vote on the ‘second seat’ rule on Wednesday, six UKIP MEPs signed in to claim their daily spending allowance.
In other words, some UKIP MEPs signed in and couldn’t even be bothered to abstain!
66 Responses to “UKIP MEPs laziest in Europe”
Rallan
Why do they “need to”? They are doing what they were elected to do. The people who elected them knew they were Euro Skeptic and are not complaining about their work.
What you mean is, UKIP MEPs are not doing the job that you think they should do, so they should therefore not get paid because you don’t like it. That’s your problem.The electorate disagree. At the 2014.EU parliamentary election even more UKIP MEPs will be democratically selected.
Ian Young
The Tories of course have EU-sceptic elements but they turn up like professional adults to represent their constituents and involve themselves in passing legislation they think will benefit them. UKIP’s childish imbecilic public school rugby club antics in the EP are an embarrassment to their country.
Thomas Evans
This is possibly the most poorly written article i have ever seen.
hanshall
Vote UKRAP keep Mrs Farage and the mistress in tax payer funded jobs
Ewan Valentine
Why would they show up and sit around voting in favour of countless, meaningless directives? They are *the only* voice of the majority who want out! Compared with the other three who collect eye watering sums from the EU coughers for turning up and working against British self-ownership and against our say on the matter, I.e a referendum. UKIP use a great deal of their EU money for their out campaign, which again, compare that to the public expenditure on the in campaign… It’s a drop in the ocean.
I think the true scandal in all of this, is those of you who sit idly by, bad mouthing UKIP on highly petty crimes, whilst they remain the only group to balance the debate and fight for the millions of people who want out. Not just in the UK, UKIP have also given talks and q&a’s all over Europe.