Today, it was announced that Robert Iwaszkiewicz, an MEP with Janusz Korwin-Mikke's KNP (pictured) has joined the group. Korwin-Mikke himself was deemed too toxic to join the UKIP group after the European elections given his controversial views on rape (women always "pretend to resist") and the Holocaust (no evidence Hitler knew about it), and that was before he provoked a full-blown race row. Iwaszkiewicz himself is hardly baggage free; during an interview about with Gazeta Wrocławska a couple of months ago, when asked about domestic violence, he said that:
"I'm convinced that many a wife would benefit from such a response in order to re-connect with reality."When asked about his Korwin-Mikke's views as described above, he said that "these are taken out of context... when considered broadly, they make sense". In any event, this does not appear to be a principled defection - but rather a classic Brussels-style dirty deal. Polish daily Rzeczpospolita reports that Korwin-Mikke and Farage struck an agreement which would see Iwaszkiewicz's transfer mirrored by an MEP from the EFDD move to the 'far-right' bloc led by France's Marine Le Pen, which also includes Geert Wilders's PVV, the Austrian Freedom Party and Lega Nord, and fell one nationality short of forming an official group during the summer. The paper describes this a "binding transaction" and quotes Iwaszkiewicz as saying that:
"Negotiations are on-going. It was necessary to save them and I had to join urgently".It remains unclear therefore whether an MEP from the EFDD will definitely join the Le Pen group - but that seems to be the implication. Because of the way the nationalities are represented over the two groups, it would either have to be one of UKIP's 24 MEPs or one of the two Sweden Democrats.
If the former, UKIP and Nigel Farage will face some uncomfortable questions given the extent to which they have tried to distance themselves from the Front National. Regardless, this incident just underscores the absurdity of these taxpayer subsides for European Parliament groups.
Speaking time, commission appointments one can agree with. Seems simply logical.
ReplyDeleteHowever funding looks completely idiotic. And so does the number of country requirement.
Well done and thank you, Mr Iwaszkiewicz.
ReplyDeleteIndeed O.E. - one more absurdity to be added to a very long EUSSR list.
ReplyDeleteRik, the requirement on the number of countries is far from "idiotic", it was a deliberate ploy by the evil genius Richard Corbett:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Corbett
and it was specifically designed to make it much more difficult for opponents of the eurofederalist consensus in the EU Parliament to form officially recognised groups.
It is a matter of deep shame for my country that it has produced this traitor, who always claims to support democracy while working tirelessly to destroy national democracy, and who is now back again as an MEP after his spell of being employed as a special advisor to Van Rumpoy following his failure to get re-elected in 2009.
It's like flushing the toilet and finding that a turd simply won't disappear down the soil pipe into the sewer where it belongs.
Not in fact "a decent, thoughtful politician", as the BBC would have it; "thoughtful", yes, just as other traitors like Kim Philby were certainly "thoughtful", but not "decent", any more than Kim Philby was "decent".
I am sure it was not a mistake nor an oversight which leads OE to omit the important and anti-Democratic behaviour of the President - one Martin Schultz.
ReplyDeleteNo - one evil deed does not deserve another one - agreed.
UKIP and the EFFD has too much very important work to do in bringing down the EU's criminal organisation.
@Denis
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link.
Seems like a guy which will give Ukip an excellent PR opportunity if they point Labour voters to him.
Simply ticks nearly all the boxes of Labour leaders that have little or nothing in common with the half of the Labour voters that are culturally conservative (and are an ideal target for a new party). Just look at Germany now and Holland before.
Add the fact that Labour is anyway moving all over the place on the EU and already has fallen in the how to profile yourself as anti-democratic trap, looks like an opportunity not to be missed.
Thank you Denis for pointing me to Corbett's background. He seems to have the right sort of job now inside all those jobless people who make up the Socialist elite of Europe. Whilst I would be glad to see the back of EU, I am left wondering what we would do with people like Corbett who would inevitably come back to our shores when the ship sinks.
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