Nigel Farage has suffered another hammer blow after Mike Nattrass decided to leave the EFD Group.
The negotiations have been long and we were asked to remain silent about this for obvious reasons. Farage needed to kept in the dark for as long as possible.
We are extremely pleased that he has the courage to defy Farage and put his principles before any loyalty to UKIP's corrupt ex-leader.
Mike has now joined Nikki Sinclaire as a non-attached member in the European Parliament. See: LINK
Mike's name has now been removed from UKIP's website. See: LINK
More news soon. And apologies for this late post. It has been a very busy day!
And this is from New Europe:
The plenary session on 23 June of the European Parliament had a dramatic start, when Mike Natrass MEP, from the UK Independence Party decided to leave the EFD Group, claiming it didn't represent his views. It became known that Natrass had left when his profile on the Europarl website listed him as Non-Attached.
The party was not informed of the move, and was intended to hear of the decision when European Parliament President, Jerzy Buzek announced it to the deputies at the opening of the session. It is believed that Buzek was informed of the decision on 22 June.
In the British election no candidates were elected and those running managed to collect not more than 1,000 votes. Many in the party are believed to be angry with Lord Malcolm Pearson, the party leader, who replaced Nigel Farage MEP, when Farage relinquished the post in order to contest a seat in the UK election. Farage finished third, behind a pro-Europe candidate. Pearson had a dismal campaign, according to observers, including being ridiculed by reporters on British television when the Peer revealed that he has "only skimmed through" the party's manifesto and hadn't read it.
The manifesto is just 16 pages long. Pearson also said that they wouldn't put candidates against certain MP's who were judged to be eurosceptics, even though they often had candidates in place, and the Peer was seen campaigning with some Conservative MP's.
Nattrass is the second MEP to resign from the group. In January this year, Nikki Sinclaire MEP left the EFD Group and was subsequently expelled from UKIP. She cited extremism, anti-semitism and homophobia as her main reasons for leaving. It is expected that Nattrass will remain as non-attached and be ejected from the party.
Nattrass told New Europe that he left "because I don't share the same principles of some of the Group, on balance, the majority of the Group want to stay in the EU and I've always believed that we should leave." He said he had decided to leave now, after the general election, when it would cause less disruption. He says that he intends to form a Non-Attached UKIP Group with Nikki Sinclaire, but said that he was loyal to UKIP, but others may join him in the Non-Attached UKIP group.
"I am the true face of UKIP," he said, explaining that he was determined to push for Britain's withdrawal from the EU. He said he hoped to remain with UKIP, adding that, "I am a former Chairman and former Deputy Leader and I've been fighting for UKIP for 15 years and I don't expect to be expelled from the party."
A senior source from UKIP agreed that it was "inconceivable" that he would be expelled from the party, pointing out that the circumstances of Nattrass and Sinclaire's departures were very different. The source added that, "We're sad to see him leave the group but we're happy that he's still in UKIP. We wish him all the best, there's no animosity, but I don't see what advantage there is in being non-Attached." Should Nattrass regret his decision, the UKIP source said, "We'll keep the door open for him, should he decide to return, which I would like to see."
To see the original: LINK
And this is from EU Reporter:
All is not well among the European Parliament´s F Bloc as the so-called fringe groups are becoming known.
David Cameron last week held what amounts to a clandestine meeting with Michel Kaminski, the much lampooned hate figure of the British media association with whom has rebounded badly on the Conservatives.
Amid rumours that the Conservatives are about to abandon their European Conservative and Reformist Group (ECR) the leader of the UK Conservative delegation was seen during the June Strasbourg week tapping his feet at a coffee table outside a Place Luxembourg restaurant in Brussels after finding out second hand what his leader was up to.
It appears that no one in the ECR group has yet managed to determine what the content of David Cameron´s conversation with Kaminski was. It does not appear to bode well for Daniel Hannan the near UKIP Conservative MEP whose newspaper The Daily Telegraph has been waging war on the UK coaition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
Even worse has overtaken UKIP. Today Mike Nattrass a former deputy leader of UKIP was due to announce his resignation from the European Freedom and Democracy Group -where UKIP sits with the notoriously right wing Italian Lega Nord, amid concerns about "lack of financial transparency".
He will sit as a non-attached MEP alongside Nikki Sinclaire who has already resigned from the group over concerns about right wing extremism.
Nigel Farage the UKIP leader was back today after a period recovering from his election campaign air crash. Still in some pain he threw his hands up and without mentioning any of the above said: "The experience has changed my outlook. Problems in the European Parliament I don´t worry about any more"
Perhaps that is a good thing because we hear increasing rumours that all is not well in the party back home. Senior UKIP figures are to meet in Somerset next Monday where they intend on proposing a motion of no-confidence in the party leader Lord Pearson.
To see the original: LINK
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