Nigel Farage's Ukip faced fury today after forming a pact with a Polish MEP whose party leader has been accused of making racist remarks and denying the Holocaust
Robert Iwaszkiewicz, a member of Poland’s Congress of the New Right, has been allowed to join a grouping in the European Parliament set up by Ukip.
His party’s leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke has repeatedly used racist language and has said Hitler was “probably not aware” of the Holocaust.
Labour MP Michael Dugher said the pact would offend Britons in the run-up to Remembrance Day next month.
“Here are Ukip forming an alliance with a far-Right party in Europe that denies the fact that millions were murdered in the Holocaust, in order to keep receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds from the European Parliament,” the shadow cabinet office minister said. “This shows once again that Ukip do not share the values of decent working people in Britain.”
The row broke as former Radio 1 DJ Mike Read denied a Ukip song he sings in a mock Jamaican accent was racist.
“It’s a satire and a bit of fun,” he said. “It’s not terribly serious. It wouldn’t have sounded very good sung in a Surrey accent.”
Today David Cameron’s attempts to placate Eurosceptics over immigration ran into criticism from former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke. He warned the Prime Minister against “competing with ignorance and bigotry” in his efforts to outdo Ukip and spoke of “a wave of almost hysteria”.
Downing Street has confirmed Mr Cameron intends to go ahead with a keynote speech setting out proposals to curb immigration to Britain from other EU member states.
