There are many reasons why UKIP MEPs have such low attendance ratings for votes. While the europhile Tories, Labour and Lib Dems all go to Brussels or Strasbourg to vote to give more power to the EU, UKIP MEPs only vote to take it away. Most votes only offer alternative ways of grabbing power, not an option of taking it back or even standing still. What is the point of going to Brussels or Strasbourg, claiming travel and attendance allowances, not to vote when they could be doing something constructive at home?
Which leads nicely onto what our MEPs have been doing while the LibLabCon contingent were on the continent voting away our sovereignty and pursuing their dream of a federal Europe. A month ago UKIP caused the biggest upset to English politics in living memory taking hundreds of seats off the old parties in the English local elections. During the election campaign our MEPs - and Nigel Farage especially - were travelling around the country meeting the public and drumming up support for the election campaign. Farage managed nearly 40 public meetings in 10 days during April and more since. This is what MEPs should be doing - getting out and meeting the public, not sat in the EU Parliament hundreds of miles away betraying their country.
No other party leader or group of MEPs has put themselves in midst of the electorate like Nigel Farage and the other UKIP MEPs. Most people don't even know who their MEPs are, let alone what they look like and certainly wouldn't expect to meet them in public. Any MEP attending much more than a third of the votes in the EU Parliament isn't getting themselves higher up the hard working MEP list, they're just rising to the top of the treason charge sheet. Come the revolution, those MEPs with 99% voting records will be the first against the proverbial wall!
wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
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