The EU Parliament is
trying to stop funding for the Alliance of European National Movements group because they don't like their politics.
The group contains the BNP, French National Front and Hungarian Jobbik Party amongst others. They are due to share €300k of funding in a couple of weeks but some MEPs are trying to stop that funding by rushing through a change to the rules that says only groups that respect EU values can get EU money.
The proposed rule change defines EU values as "respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities". The people of Greece, Ireland and Italy might have something to say about the EU's respect for dignity, freedom and democracy seeing as how they've had austerity, billions of pounds of debt and in the case of Greece and Italy, an EU-sponsored coup d'état followed by the imposition of unelected leaders forced on them by the EU.
But irrespective of what europhile traitor MEPs like to think the values of the EU are, this proposed rule change would set a very dangerous precedent. As odious as the BNP and their ilk are, they are democratically elected representatives and to refuse to give them funding they are entitled to because their politics are offensive to most MEPs (if that transpires to be the case) is undemocratic. And once they've banned the nationalists from getting EU funding, how long until they turn to the eurosceptics that don't promote the EU value missing from the above list of destruction of the nation state? And then the conservatives who, in theory, should oppose the isolationism and protectionism of the EU?
Unsurprisingly this attempt to ride roughshod over democracy has been supported by all of Labour's 13 MEPs but it still needs a further 70 MEPs to support it before the rule change can be made. Let's hope that this dangerous, undemocratic rule change doesn't get forced through.
First they came for the BNP and I did not speak out because I was not BNP. Then they came for the eurosceptics and I did not speak out because I was not a eurosceptic. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
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