Interestingly, Nigel Farage has become a hero to young Germans opposed to the EU.

I wish that Kasidiaris was their hero instead, but we’re at least getting somewhere.

BBC:

Euroscepticism is taking hold even in the country at the heart of the European project. And one of the continent’s chief Eurosceptics, British politician Nigel Farage, has become an idol to some young Germans – to the consternation of many others.

For rebels, they appear extremely polite, are impeccably dressed and display a distinct lack of piercings or tattoos.

Germany’s Junge Alternative (JA), or Young Alternative, may be dissidents – a Eurosceptic youth movement determined to overturn Germany’s long-standing pro-European orthodoxy – but they are very conservative ones, advocating a crackdown on immigration and crime.

In fact their stance has earned them a particularly bad rap from the national press. In the short year since the group’s launch last June, the JA have repeatedly been accused of being “too far right”, politically regressive and anti-feminist.

The organisation is linked to the country’s first Eurosceptic party in decades, the Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), or Alternative for Germany, which wants the euro broken up.

But it remains an independent movement and even the groundbreaking AfD regards it as something of an unruly offspring.

“The media sometimes portray the AfD as far-right and, because we are more direct and more right-leaning than the AfD, we’re seen as extreme-right – but that’s not the image I have of us,” says Sven Tritschler, the JA chairman for North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state.

The state’s biggest city, Cologne, was the starting point for the AfD’s European election campaign on 27 April. A fifth of all party members are based in surrounding North Rhine-Westphalia, and the AfD is hoping to further increase its support here.

…

The German Eurosceptics are highly critical of the EU’s bailout policies, demanding the dissolution of the euro, a halt to EU expansion, and national immigration quotas.

But they strongly reject accusations of extremism. The JA’s national leader Philipp Ritz says the JA also has “more liberal” attitudes, like supporting giving asylum seekers the right to work.

“Don’t bother joining if you’re looking for racism or homophobia,” adds Mr Tritschler.

Instead, the JA is looking to British Eurosceptic leader Nigel Farage for inspiration.

His anti-euro United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is also expected to score a good result in the May ballot, potentially beating mainstream parties.

The youth organisation invited Mr Farage to speak at a conference in Cologne in late March.

Mr Farage’s appearance sparked a deluge of negative headlines and soured relations with AfD chief Bern Lucke who called the move a “sign of poor political tact”.

“There are significant differences between the AfD and UKIP,” he said.

Mr Lucke has repeatedly sought to distance himself from right-wing populism ahead of the European elections, where his party is expected to reap around 7% percent of the vote.

If successful, the AfD will need to join a pan-European faction in order to make its voice count.

The official party line is that they will opt for the group of conservative reformists, which includes Britain’s governing Conservative Party.

Pro-EU campaigners are encouraging hundreds of thousands of European migrants in Britain to vote in the country’s European elections, in a bid to defeat Ukip and Eurosceptic candidates.

Up to 450,000 Poles, as well as Britain’s sizeable diasporas of Italian, German, Spanish, Bulgarian and Romanian migrants, are being urged to vote in the May elections after UK Prime Minister David Cameron called for limits to their benefits, according to The Sunday Times.

Migrants are being sent letters stating: “This may be your last chance to vote in Britain” and “Your future and that of your family, community and friends may depend on it.”

The Polish campaign, called “Vote! You are at Home”, is being launched by a coalition of community groups headed by the Federation of Poles in Great Britain.

Campaign coordinator Maciek Bator said letters would be sent to every European parliamentary candidate asking for their views on issues such as cutting migrants’ benefits.

Plans are underway to deliver leaflets detailing candidates’ attitudes towards Europe at polling booths on election day. Target seats are being drawn up in areas with a strong Polish presence, including Ealing in west London, Boston in Lincolnshire, Southampton and Bristol.

Mass campaigns on social networking sites, among student groups and in churches are also planned.

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The UK Independence Party is the nation’s favourite political party, a poll for The Independent on Sunday reveals today.

Voters regard Nigel Farage’s party more favourably than Labour, the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats. The surprising finding will underline concerns inside the mainstream Westminster parties that Ukip is on course to come first in May’s European elections and could deny Labour or the Tories an outright victory in next year’s general election.

What is more, Mr Farage is favoured over Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg as a party leader, beaten only by David Cameron, the ComRes survey reveals. Ukip is the favourite choice of 27 per cent of voters, while Labour is favoured by 26 per cent. The Conservatives are next, on 25 per cent, and the Lib Dems last, on 14 per cent. Although the differences in the first three parties are within the margin of error, the findings will fuel unease inside Downing Street that the Prime Minister has failed to close down the question of Europe and that Ukip’s support remains strong. A YouGov poll last week suggested that Ukip could come second behind Labour in the European elections.

Questioned about the individual party leaders, Mr Cameron wins most support, with 27 per cent; Mr Farage is favourite for 22 per cent;  Mr Miliband is backed by 18 per cent of voters and Mr Clegg 13 per cent. Men are more likely than women to favour Ukip – 31 per cent compared with 23 per cent.

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The European Parliament is to spend almost £2 million on press monitoring and trawling Eurosceptic debates on the internet for “trolls” with whom to debate in the run-up and during euro-elections next year amid fears that hostility to the EU is growing.

The Daily Telegraph has seen confidential spending proposals and internal documents planning an unprecedented propaganda blitz ahead of and during European elections in June 2014.

Key to a new strategy will be “public opinion monitoring tools” to “identify at an early stage whether debates of political nature among followers in social media and blogs have the potential to attract media and citizens’ interest”.

Spending on “qualitative media analysis” is to be increased by £1.7 million and while most of the money is to be found in existing budgets an additional £787,000 will be need to be raised next year despite calls for EU spending to reflect national austerity.

“Particular attention needs to be paid to the countries that have experienced a surge in Euroscepticism,” said a confidential document agreed last year.

“Parliament’s institutional communicators must have the ability to monitor public conversation and sentiment on the ground and in real time, to understand ‘trending topics’ and have the capacity to react quickly, in a targeted and relevant manner, to join in and influence the conversation, for example, by providing facts and figures to deconstructing myths.”

Training for parliament officials begins later this month.

Paul Nuttall, UKIP’s deputy leader, has attacked the proposals, which he said, violate the neutrality of the EU civil service by turning officials into a “troll patrol”, stalking the internet to make unwanted and provocative political contributions in social media debates.

“Spending over a million pounds for EU public servants to become Twitter trolls in office hours is wasteful and truly ridiculous,” he said.

“It strikes me as bizarre that the EU administration is playing such an explicitly political role with a brief to target Eurosceptics – that’s code for parties like Ukip, and this is hardly neutral.”

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The Eurosceptic Dutch politician Geert Wilders and French National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen have launched what they call an “historic” alliance for next year’s European elections.

Mr Wilders said they had agreed on the need to repatriate from Brussels the power to control their countries’ borders and economies.

They held strategy talks in The Hague.

Both leaders say Europe’s political elite has been too tolerant of Islam and both want to curb immigration.

Ms Le Pen, a Euro MP, visited the Dutch parliament with Mr Wilders. His party lost almost half of its seats in the September 2012 Dutch election, but it is doing well now in opinion polls.

Eurosceptics are widely expected to make significant gains in the European elections in May, as debt-laden EU countries struggle to revive their anaemic economies.

“The time of patriotic movements being divided is over,” said Ms Le Pen, calling it “an historic day”.

“Today is the start of the liberation of Europe from the monster of Brussels,” said Mr Wilders, who heads the Freedom Party (PVV).

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