THE EURO-ABSENTEES
Data reveals the British MEPs with the best and the worst attendance records
H E was famous for fronting the Brexit campaign - but Nigel Farage also has the worst European Parliament attendance record of any UK MEP.
Mr Farage has turned up for just 63.1 per cent of all plenary meetings during the 2014-2019 session of the European Parliament. It is the lowest of any of our 73 EuroMPs. Plenary sessions are those that the 751 representatives across the 28 member states are expected to attend. They are where debates about decisions are held, and votes taken. Sessions are held every month except for August in Strasbourg ,and additional sessions are held in Brussels throughout the year. The former UKIP leader’s attendance is the eighth worst of all MEPs in the 2014-2019 European Parliament. Labour’s Derek Vaughan, by comparison, has an attendance record of 98.7 per cent - the highest of all UK MEPs.
UKIP’s Paul Nuttall and William Legge have the joint second-worst attendance record of UK MEPs, with each turning up to just 64.4 per cent of plenary meetings.
Mr Farage also has the worst voting attendance of any active MEP, voting on just 38.8 per cent of occasions, according to non-partisan website VoteWatch.
Finland’s Mirja Tellervo Vehkaperä has voted on just two per cent of occasions - though this is because she only took over in late June this year after her predecessor left his seat.
Brian Crowley, an Irish MEP, hasn’t voted in the Parliament since he was re-elected in 2014. According to the Irish Independent, this is due to a prolonged period of ill health.
Mr Farage was first elected as an MEP for South East England in 1999.
He has long been critical of the European Parliament, famously claiming in a plenary sitting in 2016: “I know that virtually none of you have ever done a proper job in your lives, or worked in business, or worked in trade, or indeed ever created a job.”
Of the UK’s MEPs, 20 are from the Labour Party, 20 are from the Conservative Party and 19 are from UKIP. The Green Party and the SNP each have three MEPs, and there are a further three independent MEPs. The Liberal Democrats, Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, the Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party each have one MEP. All will lose their £90,735 a year jobs when the UK leaves the European Union on March 29th next year. UKIP declined to comment.