eurealist.co.uk

There is this story in the Guardian also this from Euobserver

Socialist leader Martin Schultz is set to urge other political groups in the European Parliament to join forces and sideline the new far-right faction once it is formally confirmed next week, while calling for higher thresholds for deputies to form a new group.

The socialists have come out with an initiative to formally call their political counterparts to "keep them (the far-right group) out of decision-making" by ensuring their candidates do not get elected, the group’s spokesman told journalists on Friday (12 January).

I think socialists should accept the fact that these people have been elected, their politics might be at odds with those of the socialists, but that is what politics is supposed to be about. The conflict of ideas is the very meat of political discourse. What they seem to be suggesting is that they should be allowed to change the rules they have set up for the operation of the EU Parliament, for the benefit of their particular sect. Whether we agree with the Right Wing groups politics is not the point, many voters do, otherwise they would not have been elected in the first place. It is called democracy, and this instance characterizes one of my basic objections to European Project it is simply not democratic.

 
One could well argue that the right wing group is far more democratic than the socialists, their   priority, will be to fight any German-led attempts to revive Europe’s comatose constitution. Which has been democratically rejected by the French and the Dutch people, (the rules make it clear that all states must agree to treaty change). But the socialist led EU Parliament has decided to ignore the French and Dutch voters and is working to keep the Constitution moving forwards.

So the leader of the group is awaiting a court verdict for questioning the Holocaust, there is the argument that people should be allowed to debate anything openly and that is the basic condition for  democracy to exist, if you once start to define what can and what cannot be debated, you are defining democracy by a particular standpoint. If the situation were reversed and a law was introduced that anyone suggesting the holocaust happened should be punished, it imidiatly becomes clear that such a law is anti- free speech and anti-democratic. The truth of the holocaust does not affect the basic argument.    

 
I also do not see that the group leader awaiting a court verdict has any mileage in the state of affairs of the EU. Our own Commissioner has been dismised twice for misconduct, two or perhaps even three EU commissioners have been found guilty of misconduct,   Jacques Barrot, the EU transport commissioner has been convicted of fraud in a party funding scandal. The new leader of the EPP, the EU parliament’s biggest political group Frenchman Joseph Daul is under investigation for misuse of public funds in France. The EU President José Manuel Barroso  has some serious questions to address over his relationship with a Greek shipping tycoon whos company in receipt of large amounts of EU funding. It was only a few years ago that the whole commision resigned because of funding scandals the one person who was proved to have been misusing our taxes was eventually dismised but  still retain full pension rights, on the other hand those EU employees who point out these failures are vilified, sidelined, demoted or dismissed.