Dear Nigel,

RECONSTITUTION OF THE EFDD GROUP

Having heard in the Hemicycle earlier today (21 October) that the EFDD Group is to be reconstituted, I am now writing to you in my capacity as Labour Spokesperson on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in the European Parliament.

I have heard and read about the misogynist attitude towards women of your new recruit Robert Iwaszkiewicz, his Party, the Polish Congress of the New Right, and its leader, Janusz Korwin-Mikke.

Korwin-Mikke has, in fact, called for the vote to be taken away from women and has also claimed that the difference between rape and consensual sex is very subtle.

Today’s edition of the BBC Daily Politics reported that Iwaszkiewicz has said many wives would be brought down to earth by being hit. During an interview conducted by the presenter Jo Coburn, your deputy Paul Nuttall equivocated quite shamefully, claiming that Iwaszkiewicz’s remarks were a “joke” or that he had been misunderstood.

While it would be too much to expect that UKIP, an anti-EU Party who nevertheless takes European Parliament money while campaigning to leave the EU, would sign up to the EU’s commitment to gender equality, I would at least expect you to take the view that violence against women is wrong and should be stamped out.

However, it would seem that by accepting Robert Iwaszkiewicz from the Polish Congress of the New Right, you do not even agree that women should have the basic human right of freedom from violent harm.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Honeyball MEP