ITS all over

I was cheered by the news that the European Parliament's smallest but most poisonous and extremist political groups looks set to fold. The Greater Romania party has announced that it will leave the Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty (ITS) group after one of its members Italian MEP Alessandra Mussolini (the granddaughter of the Italian dictator) told a Romanian newspaper that - "breaking the law became a way of life for Romanians".

Under the Parliamentary rulebook, the minimum number of MEPs required to form a political group is 20 and they must include representatives from at least one fifth of the Member States. Political groups receive research budgets and administrative support and are better able to secure influential positions on parliamentary committees and the bureau of the Parliament than non-attached MEPs. If the five MEPs for the Greater Romania Party leave the ITS, the group will be reduced to 18 members and will cease to exist.

The demise of the ITS group is no loss to the Parliament. On the contrary, the ITS group is a rag-bag of assorted xenophobes, holocaust deniers and fascists, with its luminaries including Jean Marie Le Pen, Jörg Haider's Austrian Free Democrats and Ms Mussolini.

As a side-note, the ITS group includes former UKIP MEP Ashley Mote who is currently serving a nine month prison sentence for multiple benefit fraud offences. I wonder whether UKIP will welcome him back!