The EFD group will comprise UKIP's 24 MEPs, Five Star's 14 Italian MEPs, 2 MEPs from the Sweden Democrats, an MEP from the Czech Free Citizen's Party, one from the Latvian Farmers' Union and one French MEP who was elected on a Front National ticket but resigned from the party two days after the election to sit as an independent.
It was looking increasingly unlikely that UKIP would manage to form a group after the pro-EU Tories pillaged UKIP's previous allies for its own group, selfishly risking handing the French National Front and its extremist allies the chance to become the official voice of euroscepticism in the EU Parliament just so Cameron could deprive UKIP of the opportunity to re-form its moderate eurosceptic EFD group. Luckily Farage and Helmer managed to pull it out of the bag but it was very nearly a case of vote Tory, get National Front.
Farage says that he is hopeful that more MEPs will join the EFD group now that its future is secure.
wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
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