EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - MEPs from the ruling Irish Fianna Fail party are set to join the liberal group in the European Parliament after the upcoming EU elections.

"We will soon advance a proposal to join, for the first time, a pan-European party - the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party [ELDR]," Irish Taoiseach Brian Cowen said at a Fianna Fail congress in Ireland on Friday (28 February).

Brian Cowen - made the announcement on Friday

"Following June's election, should everything progress as expected, we will then consider joining the parliamentary group [ALDE] to which the ELDR is affiliated."

Graham Watson, leader of the liberals in the European Parliament, welcomed the potential new recruits.

"I am certain that any application from Fianna Fail to join the Liberals & Democrats will be well received. Fianna Fail MEPs would have no difficulty integrating into our group after the forthcoming European elections," he said in a statement.

Italian born Anna Maria Corazza Bildt will run for the Swedish conservatives in this summer's European Parliament elections. In 1998 she married Carl Bildt, now foreign minister of Sweden, whom she met in the Balkans, where she worked for the UN during the Yogoslav wars.

The East Midlands, which includes the old coalfield, is one of their main target areas. The senior Labour MEP and veteran anti-fascist campaigner Glyn Ford believes that the BNP could win up to half a dozen Euro seats and that it is possible that only the north-east and south-west of England could be without a BNP MEP after election night. His grim prognosis is echoed by other MPs in the East Midlands, who believe that the collapse in support for the UK Independence Party will see more votes heading towards the hard Right.

Back in the 1990s, and for very different reasons, the Green Party finally broke the mould, winning Euro-seats. And a quarter of a century on it is easy to see how the BNP is honing its appeal to disillusioned Labour voters. The BNP like to present itself as something like the old worker friendly Labour Party, and then it throws in added xenophobia and racism. Their demand for "British jobs for British workers" is designed to appeal to marching unemployed construction workers who can't find work at the new Staythorpe Power station near Newark. It is a potent, if dangerous message, and the Westminster political class suddenly seems at a loss as to know what to do about it.