The European Parliament has a strange system of political groups in place of political parties.

The EPP is probably the best known of these groups in England, being the eurofederalist right wing group that David Cameron pledged to withdraw from when he became leader of the Conservatives but didn’t much to the annoyance of the majority eurosceptic party membership.

The European Parliament rules on creating new groups are that there must be a minimum 19 MEP’s from 5 different countries to form the group.  Under these rules, a new far-right group has been created including the French National Front, Austrian Freedom Party, Vlaams Belang, Greater Romania Party, National Union Attack (Bulgarian), Alternativa Sociale (Italian), Fiamma Tricolore (Italy) and Ashley Mote MEP.

The French National Front needs no explanation, nor should National Union Attack.  Vlaams Belang are Flemish nationalists – the Belgian equivalent of Plaid Cymru.  Alternativa Sociale and Fiamma Tricolore are Italian Facists.  The Austrian Freedom Party are neo-Nazi’s and the Greater Romania Party are a xenophobic, homophobic, anti-semetic party.

Ashley Mote is a former UKIP MEP who was booted out after being charged with housing benefit fraud.