Nigel Farage: UKIP's Mr Spiv

The perfect definition of a spiv - 'a person without employment who makes money by various dubious schemes; goes about smartly dressed and having a good time', or to put it another way – a dodgy dealer.

A few questions to ask Nigel Farage at the next hustings:

What happened to the £211,000 that vanished from UKIP's South East accounts?

Why did you promise not to employ your wife when first elected as an MEP? You later did!

What does she do to earn £30,000 per annum?

Why have your always refused to provide a full audit of your MEP accounts?

What happened to the £2 million in expenses you claimed as an MEP?

What happened to 85% of all the money raised by Ashford?

Why didn't you conduct a UK based campaign against the Lisbon Treaty?

Why did you lie about kicking Tom Wise out of UKIP? He left of his accord when his membership ran out!

Why did you back Pearson's decision to campaign for Tory candidates in the last General Election?

Why did you ignore Piers Merchant's report on UKIP's corrupt MEP selection process?

Why did you secretly claim a second EU pension?

Why are you prepared to sit with fascists in the EFD?

Like these........

Mario Borghezio & Lega Nord.

Mario Borghezio (b. Dec 3 1947, Turin, Italy) is a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing the North West of Italy. He is a member of the Lega Nord, a secessionist party that advocates independence for the northern region of Italy that it calls Padania. In actual fact, the party's ideology is somewhat confused, as it seems to embrace both secessionism, and federalism.

In the European Parliament, Lega Nord MEPs sit in the Europe of Freedom & Democracy (EFD) group.

Borghezio has brought a new dimension to the debate in Brussels and Strasbourg. He recently hosted a press conference for the conspiracy theorist Daniel Estulin, on the subject of the Bilderberg Group. He has also tabled a written declaration calling for nations to declare their contacts with extra-terrestrial life forms.

Before examining Borghezio's links with far-right groups, including one with strong wartime Nazi connections, it is worth briefly discussing Lega Nord, and the nature of some of its senior figures.

A number of the Lega's prominent elected members have been involved in controversy. Party leader Umberto Bossi suggested during an interview in 2003, that the Italian Navy should open fire on boats containing immigrants, who he described as "bingo-bongos".

In the same year, Giancarlo Gentilini, Lega Nord Mayor of Treviso, said of immigrants, that "we should dress them up like hares and bang bang bang". Umberto Bossi Gentilini also declared, at a rally in Padania in 2008, that "We must cleanse our streets of the black-skinned, the yellow-skinned, the Roma … I would have all the immigrants put on file, one by one. Unfortunately, this is not allowed by the law. They are the carriers of all sorts of diseases, tuberculosis, Aids, scabies, hepatitis. As a result he was convicted of "inciting racial hatred". (1)

In 2002 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) first denounced the party: "leaders of the Northern League have made a particularly intense racist and xenophobic propaganda, although it should be noted that even members of other parties have used a political language xenophobic or otherwise intolerant..."

In 2006 the ECRI further noticed "with regret that, since then, some members of the Northern League has stepped up the use of racist and xenophobic discourse in politics. While noting that you are in this respect especially the local elected representatives of this party, including some important political leaders at national level have issued statements racist and xenophobic. These talks have continued to target mainly the immigrants, but also other members of minority groups such as Gipsy or Southern Italians".

In August 2010 a report published by the Council of Europe criticised Italian politicians for "promoting a xenophobic environment that has spawned an alarming series of violent anti-immigrant attacks." Borghezio responded to the criticism by stating that "Once again the European bureaucrats judge from their comfortable armchairs in northern Europe the emergency measures that our country has had the courage to put into effect."

In May 2009, Matteo Salvini, formerly an MEP and at that time Lega Nord secretary in Milan, called for racial segregation on Milanese public transport (2) He subsequently returned to the European parliament, where he now sits as an MEP in the EFD group alongside Borghezio.

Salvini was one of a number of MEPs who, in the previous (2004-2009) parliament had been expelled from their political group for racist actions. The group in question was the Independence & Democracy Group (Ind Dem), which was effectively the forerunner of the EFD. Two British MEPs, Nikki Sinclaire and Michael Nattrass, have subsequently resigned from the EFD group in protest at the presence of extremist elements. (3 & 4)

Lega Nord's website openly carries the slogan "No votes for immigrants". (5)

The Lega website also carries an article advising women to carry pepper gas sprays to protect themselves from Romanian and other foreign rapists, which has led to accusations of incitement to commit violence. (6)

1.http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/07/italy-right-winggianfranco-fini

2.(Guardian, May 8, 2009).

3.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7049098.ece

4. http://www.neurope.eu/articles/UKIP-MEP-leaves-eurofriendly-EFDGroup/101621.php

5. http://www.leganord.org/

6. http://www.leganord.org/dblog/articolo.asp?articolo=996