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UKIP grouping 'disgraceful' says Wolverhampton MP

Labour's former shadow Europe minister has criticised UKIP leader Nigel Farage for linking up with a member of a controversial right-wing Polish party in order to save his grouping in the European Parliament.

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Emma Reynolds, Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East and now shadow housing minister, said the move was 'disgraceful'.

UKIP's Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group will sit with Robert Iwaszkiewicz of the Polish Congress of the New Right (KNP), to maintain around £1 million a year of funding.

But the KNP's leader Janusz Korwin-Mikke has been described as one of the most controversial figures in Polish politics, questioning whether Hitler knew about the Holocaust and suggesting women are less intelligent than men and should not be entitled to vote.

Wolverhampton North East MP Emma Reynolds

Miss Reynolds said: "People in Wolverhampton who are tempted to vote UKIP should know about the disgraceful political deals they are doing in Brussels with a Holocaust-denying party. What's even more shocking is that the reason they are forming this alliance is to get their hands on taxpayer's money.

"It beggars belief and is disgraceful that UKIP is doing a grubby deal with extremists in order to get more money.

"Nigel Farage and all his UKIP MEPs should be ashamed of themselves. People deserve to know what the party is willing to do to get more funding."

Mr Farage has insisted that he had found nothing in Mr Iwaszkiewicz's background to suggest that he was an extremist.

"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 said.

"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".

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