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
I take your point, but polls are adjusted and it’s pretty clear they don’t know how to calculate UKIP support. Polls vary between 10 and 18 percent, and at most elections in the last 18 months UKIP have got over 20% of the actual vote. And of course, the bookies now all have UKIP as favorite to top the EU 2014 election. So yes, it’s fair to say that UKIP is reasonably popular.
treborc
Yes they did and I was one, but 115,000 not bad and I will be signing that one.
Arden Forester
Nigel Farage was in hospital when that vote on Strasbourg took place. All a bit of nonsense from a computer key journalist.
Jimmy
Which is what? To collect taxpayers’ money and not do very much?
Jimmy
UK Polling Report – who are pretty objective – have Ukip averaging 10%. Doesn’t suggest a great surge of enthusiasm for Mr Farage.