***ALLIANCE BETWEEN UKIP AND EXTREMIST POLISH KNP*** Under European Parliament rules, if 25 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from at least seven countries group together, they get access to EU funding and resources, as well as additional speaking rights in debates. By being part of one of these groups, called EFDD, Britain’s UKIP gains around £1m per year in funding. It had previously survived perfectly well without this money, and come to prominence in the UK without extra speaking rights in the European Parliament. UKIP is by far the largest party within EFDD. On October 16th, an MEP from Latvia left EFDD, meaning that it no longer had MEPs from seven EU countries, resulting in the collapse of the group. Rather than lose the funding, UKIP welcomed another MEP into the group, Robert Iwaszkievicz, a politician from the extremist Polish KNP party. The KNP is an abhorrent far-right extremist party. The KNP’s leader recently claimed that Adolf Hitler was “probably not aware that Jews were being exterminated”. In response to criticism, UKIP’s new ally, Iwaszkievicz, defended his party leader, saying that he “did not say whether Hitler knew or did not know, only that there is no evidence for this.” Iwaszkievicz stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his party leader, a Holocaust-denying, homophobic misogynist. UKIP claims to abhor the far right, but so extreme is the KNP that even the French National Front has refused to enter into any EU grouping with them. UKIP has told us that the EU rules forced them to welcome the KNP into the EFDD, and that all British parties have “strange bedfellows” in the European Parliament. They also tell us that Iwaszkievicz has joined “in a personal capacity” but he was not elected “in a personal capacity” and at the European Parliament he certainly represents the KNP. What UKIP is really saying is that in return for money it will ally with the extreme right. UKIP is a populist, nationalist party which has attracted votes with its policies on the EU and immigration. Those are perfectly legitimate policies, but by campaigning on issues traditionally associated with the right, UKIP should make a special effort to show that it stands separate from the far right. Instead of taking a principled stand at the cost of its new-found EU funding (on which it has never previously been dependent), it has jumped into an alliance with the KNP. We have tried to engage with contacts at UKIP but found unwillingness to deal with this issue head-on. Please consider the following actions: 1. Write to local and national papers. These letters are a way to prominently shame UKIP into responding. 2. Retweet our Tweet here: https://twitter/CAAntisemitism/status/527406152884051968 3. Write to UKIP MEPs (find yours here: ukip.org/people_meps). You may wish to post your letters to the press and UKIP in the comments below to inspire others. Points you may want to raise in your letters: • You understand that the European Parliament rules do create groupings with “strange bedfellows” and other parties have fallen victim to this as well. • There is a huge difference between strange bedfellows and an alliance with what is arguably one of the most antisemitic parties in the EU. • It is not good enough for UKIP to brush this off with feeble excuses that the EU forced UKIP to do this, or that Iwaszkievicz joined in a personal capacity and “has done nothing wrong personally” - he’s an elected representative of the KNP. • If UKIP wants to convince the electorate that it is one of the first populist, nationalist parties that is not antisemitic, then it must take a principled stand and replace its KNP partner with an MEP from a party which doesn’t engage in Holocaust denial.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 10:38:16 +0000
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