From left to (appropriately) far right: EFDD/UKIP staffer Daniel Paddock, ADDE/IDDE staffer Laura Henderson, EFDD/UKIP staffer David McClure, EFDD/UKIP Acting Chief of Staff Jamie Illingworth, EFDD/UK

It is no longer a secret that in Brussels, away from the watching eye of the British public, UKIP has allied itself with an assortment of far-right parties within their group, Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD), in order to secure lucrative EU group funding.

Nigel Farage has long attempted to shrug off their unsavoury alliances with Holocaust deniers and xenophobes as politics making for “strange bedfellows”.

However, emerging evidence reveals a social as well as political relationship between key UKIP figures and toxic far-right elements within the EFDD.

Pictured above is Carl Joel Ankar, formerly of the extreme-right Sweden Democrats, enjoying a drink with key UKIP organisers Jamie Illingworth and Francesca Howard. The jolly scene was uploaded as EFDD/UKIP staffer David McClure’s Facebook cover photo on 29 May 2016.

The Sweden Democrats is a far-right party that had to ban members from wearing Nazi uniforms to their meetings in 1996.

Ankar has a documented history of virulent racism and has been the subject of two separate official European Parliament (EP) investigations whilst working for the Sweden Democrats within the EFDD.

Ankar was first investigated by European Parliament authorities following comments made on the hate website Flashback in which he called his former teacher “Jewish swine”, expressed support for apartheid and blamed domestic abuse victims for their “inability to absorb verbal criticism”. He has also written online that he trained to be a lawyer in order to better prosecute “leftish muppets and crooked Jews”.

A second investigation was filed in November 2015 after Ankar allegedly labelled UKIP’s ethnic minority policy advisor, Sarinder Joshua Duroch, an “untermensch” – a Nazi epithet for those so “subhuman” that warrant extermination.

Ankar was recently sacked from his position as assistant to EFDD member Kristina Winberg MEP under pressure from the Swedish press after his track record was exposed.

Jamie Illingworth, pictured centre right, is reportedly such a trusted advisor that he works directly out of Farage’s office in Brussels and has access to his EP email account.

Francesca Howard, second right, is understood to work closely with Deputy Secretary-General Aurelie Laloux (described by former UKIP insiders as “the real boss” for UKIP in the EP) and is considered a “key instrument”, responsible for the dissemination of all Parliamentary briefs.

Given their role within UKIP one could question the wisdom of posing for a photo with a man of Ankar’s reputation.

“I knew there were unsavoury characters” said a former UKIP advisor in Brussels, “but it became clear quite quickly that a good proportion of UKIP members were socialising with members of the very hardcore far-right. Ankar was looked up to as a sort of leader by some young UKIP members.”

Indeed, Ankar has also been proudly displayed as the Facebook cover photo of UKIP press officer Alistair Earl Harrison alongside Liam Porter, Chief of Staff to UKIP MEP James Carver.

That even the Sweden Democrats have rejected Ankar whilst UKIP staff continue to openly socialise with him displays a deep lack of judgement and reveals an alarming influence on UKIP in the European Parliament.

Left to right: Alistair Earl Harrison, Liam Porter and Carl Joel Ankar on Harrison’s Facebook page