This morning I wrote to Nigel Farage to express my concern about the United Kingdom Independence party’s recent alliance with the Polish far-right KNP, following the joining of Robert Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz to his Europe of Freedom of Direct Democracy group in the European parliament. Ukip and Farage have formed a new grouping in the European parliament in order to meet the criteria for speaking rights and staffing privileges, which require a minimum of 25 MEPs from at least seven states. This group sits to the right of Angela Merkel’s European People’s party and the Tories’ European Conservatives and Reformists.
Alongside the well-reported and abhorrent views Iwaszkiewicz and his party hold on the Holocaust and other issues, I am extremely concerned about his casual, deplorable attitude towards violence against women and girls.
In May, Iwaszkiewicz was asked by Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wroclawska whether it is acceptable for men to hit their wives. He reportedly replied: ‘I’m sure there’s quite a few wives around who would be brought back down to earth by such a reaction.’ He later claimed this was a joke.
Such a statement is, frankly, shameful.
It is estimated that one in three women across the European Union have experienced physical or sexual abuse since the age of 15, and in our own country, two women each week are still killed by their current or former partner. In such a context, it is extremely concerning that any UK politician is prepared to stand alongside those who express such sentiment.
The Independent report that in April Korwin-Mikke, leader of the KNP, stated, ‘I haven’t changed my beliefs. Women still should not have the right to vote. Just choose any political meeting at random and see how many women are present.’ Korwin-Mikke was fined and forced to apologise for using racist language during a European parliament debate in July. Korwin-Mikke had previously said: ‘Show me even one sentence of Hitler that will attest to the fact that he knew about the extermination of the Jews. You will not find [it].’
Iwaszkievicz defended Korwin-Mikke, saying his party leader ‘did not say whether Hitler knew or did not know, only that there is no evidence for this’.
According to The Guardian, even Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National in France, would not form a group with the KNP, saying after the European elections, ‘ [Korvin-Mikke’s] political views ran contrary to our values’.
Time and time again, Ukip’s attitude towards women and women’s equality has been called into question. It is worryingthat rather than taking serious steps to address such concerns, Nigel Farage is instead intent on forming an alliance with an individual who condones domestic abuse and the erosion of women’s civil rights. Farage has serious questions to answer and I look forward to his response. I also urge him to condemn the views of Iwaszkiewicz in the strongest possible terms and rethink his alignment with the KNP in the European parliament.
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Seema Malhotra MP is shadow minister for preventing violence against women and girls
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