© Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu/Getty ImagesThe European Parliament headquarters in Brussels
The Patriots for Europe will be officially established on Monday, and is expected to confirm that 30 MEPs from the French right-wing party National Rally (RN) will be in the group, the outlet said in the morning, citing insider sources.
In the previous EU legislature, the RN - which was previously led by Marine Le Pen - belonged to the Identity and Democracy (ID) group. A source told Politico that she insisted on postponing the announcement until after the second round of the parliamentary election in France.
The ballot took place on Sunday and ended in disappointment for RN. Centrist and left-wing politicians coordinated to deny the right a majority, pushing it into third place.
The Patriots group was unveiled in late June, with Orban's Fidesz party joining forces with Czech and Austrian nationalists. The voting bloc has continued to attract MEPs since then, and finally met the criteria for formal recognition last Saturday. A group needs at least 23 members from seven different EU states to qualify.
ID had 49 MEPs in the outgoing parliament, which made it the sixth-largest group. The Patriots are projected to have 79 MEPs in total.
According to Politico, participants have differing opinions on whether the Patriots are a rebranding of ID or a new group with similar ideas. It promotes conservative family values, restrictions on immigration, and increased power of national governments of EU members relative to Brussels.
RN President and MEP Jordan Bardella appeared to hint at his party's participation in a speech on Sunday evening. He said:
"At long last, starting tomorrow our MEPs will fully play their role in a large group which will influence the power balance in Europe".
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"Statistically speaking, Labour is surely already the least popular government in British history. Starmer and Company received just 20% of the nation’s votes. That means that 80% of the population did NOT vote for them.
As a result of this absurd election, while the rest of the world lurches to the right, the UK has lurched to the far left and, having had a statist quasi-communist government for much of the last 14 years, we now have a real bright red commie government. The commies aren’t under the bed. They’re now in it.
I suspect that two things are certain.
Labour won’t win the next election.
And within twelve months Labour will be the most unpopular government in history.
But surely, I hear you say, Labour has won a resounding victory.
Oh no they haven’t.
Look at the facts:
There was a 60% voter turnout. One of the lowest turnouts in history.
Labour got 33.7% of the vote.
They won 9,698,409 votes and 412 seats in Parliament.
That means that each seat cost them 23,539 votes.
Conservatives got 23.7% of the votes.
They won 6,824,809 votes and 121 seats.
That means that each seat cost them 56,403 votes.
Reform got 14.3% of the votes.
They won 4,114,287 votes and 5 seats.
That means that each seat cost them 822,857 votes.
Liberal Democrats got 12.2% of the votes. They won 3,501,040 votes and 71 seats.
That means that each seat cost them 49,310 votes.
Greens got 6.8% of the vote.
They won 1,941,227 votes and got 4 seats.
That means that each seat cost them 485,306 votes
SNP got 2.4% of the vote.
They won 708,759 votes and got 9 seats.
That means that each seat cost them 78,751 votes.
Plaid Cyrmu got 0.7 % of the vote.
They won 194,811 votes and got 4 seats.
That means that each seat cost them 48,702 votes.
And that’s what they call democracy.
Starmer received far fewer votes than Corbyn received in 2019 – and Corbyn was considered less than successful..."