Kilroy: I'll wreck EU

Robert Kilroy-Silk pledged today that he would try to "wreck" the European Parliament as other newly elected UKIP MEPs said they would "obstruct and delay" new European laws which would otherwise impose burdens on British people.

And they said they would use the extra funding they will receive from the European Union in allowances and expenses to help build the UKIP into "a genuine mass movement" over the coming year.

Asked what he hoped to achieve in the European Parliament, the party's new MEP for the East Midlands, Robert Kilroy-Silk, said: "Wreck it. Expose it for the waste and the corruption and the way it is eroding our independence and our sovereignty.

"Our job is to go there and say 'Look, this is what they do, this is how they waste your money, this is how they spend it, this is how it gets corrupted, this is how they go on the gravy-train and spend their time in restaurants and the rest of it.

"That's what we are there to do - to expose the whole edifice."
UKIP took 17% of the vote in England and Wales in last week's Euro-elections, winning 12 seats and performing particularly strongly in the South West.

Mr Kilroy-Silk said their success sent clear messages to the two major parties.
The implication for Tory leader Michael Howard was that "if he doesn't want his party destroyed, he is going to have to change his policy", he said.

"Tony Blair has had seven years to persuade people about his policy of being at the heart of Europe and he has clearly failed," he said.

"Twenty-six per cent of voters in my constituency have said: 'Fine, Tony, if you want to be at the heart of Europe, you go there, but we ain't going to be there with you."'