Reply #14: The impact in terms of their voting in parliament is small, but they get funding

[muriel_volestrangler]

Salaries for them, allowances to employ supporters in their offices ... the BNP's finances had been said to be pretty precarious. Now they know they can keep turning out their racist and crypto-racist stuff for another 5 years.

We have to hope the various far right parties from different countries hate each other too much to work together:

Mr Griffin achieved his long-term ambition of being elected to Brussels after scraping through to take the last of eight seats for the North East. Both men will be entitled to about £310,000 in annual funding, including an £80,443 salary, a staff budget of up to £182,000 and £40,000 for office expenses. But the British National Party (BNP) could also unlock a share of the £22.8m allowance that is given to parliamentary groups if it can find at least 25 fellow MEPs from seven member states willing to form a bloc within the European Parliament.

Being part of a group is crucial in terms of power as it entitles members to EU funding, a party office, administrative staff and, crucially, the right to vote in committees which are the nerve centre of the Parliament.

A parliamentary group is also entitled to up to £5m of extra funding over the next five-year term.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/griffin-tries-to-build-extremist-bloc-in-europe-1700174.html