Jewish fury after Ukip's Nigel Farage forms a pact with Holocaust deniers to secure funding from the EU Robert Iwaszkiewicz's has joined Eurosceptic EFDD group led by Farage
Move means it has enough members to increase funding and standing
Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was ‘gravely concerned’ by deal
NIgel Farage forced to insist he has never met or spoken to Iwaszkiewicz
By John Stevens for the Daily Mail
Published: 17:56, 21 October 2014 | Updated: 17:56, 21 October 2014
Nigel Farage faced fury from Jewish community leaders today after he formed a pact with a Polish MEP whose party leader has been accused of denying the Holocaust to get EU funding.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was ‘gravely concerned’ by Ukip’s deal to accept a member of the Polish Congress of the new Right (KNP) into its grouping in the European Parliament.
Robert Iwaszkiewicz's decision to join the Eurosceptic EFDD (Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy) group headed by Mr Farage means it has enough members to increase its funding and standing in the parliament.
But Mr Iwaszkiewicz has been criticised for joking about hitting women and his party’s leader has questioned whether Hitler knew about the Holocaust and suggested women are less intelligent and should not vote.
Today Board of Deputies vice president Jonathan Arkush said the KNP should be ‘roundly rejected’ and described Mr Farage’s welcoming of Mr Iwaszkiewicz in order to get money as ‘beyond belief’.
He said: ‘Robert Iwaszkiewicz belongs to an extremist party whose leader has a history of Holocaust denial, racist remarks and misogynistic comments.
‘Extremists and racists should be roundly rejected, not embraced. Even France's far right Front National rejected the (KNP) as being too extreme.
‘For Ukip to choose such a figure as Robert Iwaszkiewicz as a bedfellow, apparently for money, is beyond belief.
‘Nigel Farage now has some very serious questions to answer. He has placed in issue the credibility of Ukip.’
But Mr Farage said his party needed to do deals to make sure its voice was heard and insisted he would not work with extremists.
‘I have found nothing in this guy's background to suggest he is a political extremist at all. He has joined our group to save us,’ he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.
‘All of us in the European Parliament have to make compromises to make sure that our voice is heard. I want us to have our voice, I want us to have a group, but I will not do it at any price.
‘If it came to a decision that do we cast Ukip into the outer darkness of a non-attached group here or do a deal with a known prominent extremist in Europe, I would not do that deal.’
Asked about the MEP's reported comment that there were ‘quite a few wives around who'd be brought back down to earth’ if their husbands hit them, Mr Farage, said: ‘I think that comment was a joke’.
But he added: ‘I’ve never met him, I’ve never spoken to him.’
KNP leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke has been described as one of the most controversial figures in Polish politics, but Ukip emphasised that Mr Iwaszkiewicz was joining the group in a personal capacity.
The EFDD was thrown into disarray last week when one its members, a Latvian MEP, quit. Groupings need to have at least 25 MEPs from seven different countries.
If the group had disbanded it would have meant a loss to Ukip of about 2million euros a year in funding for its MEPs and Mr Farage would have got less speaking time in the parliament.
Michael Dugher MP, Labour’s shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, said: ‘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.
‘This shows once again that UKIP do not share the values of decent working people in Britain.’
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