MEP from party led by racist could save Farage’s EFDD

UKIP leader Nigel Farage’s Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group in the European Parliament is expected to reform after a Polish MEP from a party led by a racist joined the Eurosceptic faction.

Robert Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz is a member of the Polish Congress of the New Right, which is led by Janusz Korwin-Mikke. Korwin-Mikke was fined €3,040 in September for making racist remarks in the European Parliament.

He has also said women should not be allowed to vote and that the difference between rape and consensual sex was “very subtle”. Korwin-Mikke is also on record as having said that Adolf Hitler “probably… was not aware that Jews were being exterminated.”

Marine Le Pen ruled out forming an alliance with the Congress of the New Right after the European elections. “His [Korwin-Mikke’s] remarks, his political views ran contrary to our values,” she said at the time. UKIP had previously ruled out any alliance with Le Pen’s party, the French National Front.

EurActiv understands that Iwaszkiewicz is joining the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD) group as an individual. Korwin-Mikke and the other two MEPs in his party are not becoming members.

It is yet to be seen if the Parliament’s administration service accepts Iwaszkiewicz’s application to join, which was handed in at 3pm today. A formal announcement of the EFDD’s collapse was due to be made at the European Parliament in Strasbourg today (20 October).

“To paraphrase Mark Twain ‘rumours of our death have been greatly exaggerated’,” Farage said in a statement.

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