Italy's anti-establishment leader
Beppe Grillo on Friday defended his possible future ally Nigel
Farage of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from accusations that
he is a racist.
Grillo, a comic who leads the 5-Star Movement, told the
British Daily Telegraph: "Nigel Farage is no racist".
The firebrand leader, who scored a disappointing 21% in the
European elections, said he saw "much common ground" with the
flamboyant Farage, whose party was the first outside Labour and
the Tories to win an election in 100 years.
The flamboyant pair met for lunch in Brussels on Wednesday
to discuss forming a Euroskeptic EP bloc, one that is not allied
with Marine Le Pen's French Front National and other far-right
opponents to European integration.
"If it works, it would be wonderful to see the ranks of
citizens grow on our side," said Farage in a UKIP press release
at the time. "If we can reach an agreement, we could have fun
causing a lot of trouble in Brussels".
Grillo told the Telegraph that no formal agreement has been
reached: "The meeting was just to get to know him".
Some of Grillo's own MPs, who insist they are neither
rightist nor leftist, have taken umbrage with a possible Farage
alliance given his anti-immigrant views.
"He is not the way he is described, just as I am not the
fascist and Nazi the Italian papers describe me as," Grillo told
the Telegraph.
"He wants to control flows of immigration in Europe like
us. It is not true he is a racist," added Grillo, pointing to
Farage's refusal to ally with Italy's anti-immigrant Northern
League, which is trying to form its own European Parliament bloc
with Le Pen.
The comedian said the next step was for the M5S to vote
online, as it often does regarding the direction of the
Internet-based party, regarding whether it had any platforms in
common with Farage.
"We won't change our program, we won't change our ideas,
but if we are talking about concepts like direct democracy then
we have something in common," he told the Telegraph.
Grillo added the movement was looking for partners at the
European Parliament.
"With 17 MEPs, if you form an autonomous group, you are on
the outside," he said.
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