Last week, UKIP’s grouping in the European Parliament was forced to dissolve after an MEP from Latvia decided to leave, meaning they no longer had members from enough countries to continue. This would have cost UKIP around £1 million a year in public funding.
Fortunately, a Polish MEP has agreed to join Farage’s Europe for Free and Direct Democracy group (EFDD), and restore UKIP’s lucrative funding. Unfortunately, it appears he is absolutely awful.
New EFDD recruit Robert Iwaszkiewicz has praised wife-beating, as it would “help bring many wives back down to earth”, and praised Hitler because “taxes were lower in Hitler’s time”.
According to The Guardian, Iwaszkiewicz’s party leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke (who gave his blessing for Iwaszkiewicz to work with UKIP) used his position to launch n-word laden tirades in the European Parliament (contains strong language):
Not that this just any racist rant – this is an argument against the minimum wage.
“We must destroy the minimum wage and we must destroy the power of trade unions.”
The party that Iwaszkiewicz and Korwin-Mikke are members of is so extreme that they question whether Hitler knew about the Holocaust and French fascist Marine Le Pen has ruled out an alliance with them because their “political views ran contrary to our values”.
Is there anyone UKIP wouldn’t ally themselves with for money?
UPDATE: An earlier version of his article suggested that the man in the video was Robert Iwaszkiewicz rather than his party leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke.
More from LabourList
What are Labour MPs reading, watching and listening to this Christmas?
‘Musk’s possible Reform donation shows we urgently need…reform of donations’
Full list of new Labour peers set to join House of Lords