The European Union assembly's political establishment is pushing through changes that will silence dissidents by changing the rules allowing Euro-MPs to form political groupings.

Richard Corbett, a British Labour MEP, is leading the charge to cut the number of party political tendencies in the Parliament next year, a move that would dissolve UKIP's pan-European Eurosceptic "Independence and Democracy" grouping.

Under the rule change, the largest and msot pro-EU groups would tighten their grip on the Parliament's political agenda and keep control of lavish funding.

It is true that with the recent increases in the total number of seats in the Parliament it makes sense to do this. What I personally have disagreed with for a long time is the fact that the non-inscrits (those MEPs who are not part of a group) face draconian limitations to their procedural rights (for instance compared with the Spanish parliament). The rules were written on purpose to encourage MEPs from different countries to form political groups.

There are eurosceptic parties already in EP parliamentary groups - for instance the one that includes the Polish Law and Justice  party and the Irish Fianna Fail.

You may remember with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria the xenophobic parties managed to form a group, which later dissolved when the number of countries represented in it dropped below the threshold. The EP plenary had an ovation when this was announced. I don't fault them.

The Torygraph is presenting fascist and xenophobic parties as eurosceptic and making it look like the new rules will be ideological. We have a [Torygraph Alert] for a reason.

When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes