In Shocking Move, Beppe Grillo Calls For UKIP Split, Urges Hook Up With European Federalist Liberals

In a stunning post on his blog published on Sunday, the founder of Italy’s Five-Star Movement (M5S), Beppe Grillo, said his political movement should cut ties with Nigel Farage’s anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the European Parliament, and seek a hook up with the European liberals led by European Federalist Guy Verhofstadt.
Should this unexpected switch go ahead, it could, according to Reuters, see 5-Star “enter mainstream European politics and move away from the anti-system fringes“, a shift that might reassure other EU capitals that have grown uneasy about its rising popularity.
In his blog post, Grillo said in a post on his blog that since Farage had led Ukip to Britain voting to leave the EU, the two parties no longer shared common goals and he recommended leaving the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD). ‘Recent events in Europe, such as Brexit, have led us to reconsider the nature of the EFDD group,’ Grillo wrote. ‘With the extraordinary success of the leave campaign, Ukip achieved its political objective: to leave the European Union.
In some ways the recommendation is forward-looking, and anticipates the departure of UK MEPs from the next legislature. As Grillo said ‘let’s discuss the concrete facts: Farage has already abandoned the leadership of his party and British MEPs will leave the European parliament in the next legislature. Until then, our British colleagues will be focused on developing the choices that will determine the UK’s political future.’

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jan 8, 2017.