European elections 2019: UK-EUP party vying for votes by being 'the most Remain'

New political party UK-EUP believes they can scoop up the votes of the country’s three million EU citizens under their banner of being “the most Remain” party.

Founded by lawyer Pierre Kirk, the party is fielding nine candidates across the country and four in London.

He said they are going after EU citizens as they are the “wildcard” voters in Thursday’s European elections.

Mr Kirk told the Standard: “We could see the European voice wasn’t going to be represented unless we stepped up.

“We get amazing support on the streets. A lot of people from the EU community in London are very pleased with what we are doing.

“There are 700,000 Italians in London alone, and our candidate in the North West, Sophie Larroque, is getting a lot of traction in the French media. We are also targeting the Polish, we have had good feedback from the Poles around Ealing, and with the Lithuanians.

“The wildcard vote in this election is that of the EU citizens, and we are quietly confident we will get the votes of this wildcard.”

More than half of their candidates are EU born, including Italian TV presenter Angela Antetomaso who is standing in the London region. She has worked for CNN, Bloomberg and hosts a daily Italian-language politics show on CNBC and regularly reports on Brexit.

The Chelsea resident said she was inspired to stand as a candidate for the party after being racially abused in London, the city she has lived in for the past 18 years.

She said: “An old gentleman asked me where I was from and I said I was from Italy and he just changed. He said “what the f*** are you doing here go back to your own country”.

“That was November 2018. I just thought I really want to do something for this country because I love this country. If I can do something for the EU citizens living in the UK… I think we should be united and together.”

Mr Kirk, who said the party is funded on private donations, said they have been campaigning to revoke Article 50 long before Change UK Party decided they would adopt that policy this week.

He said: “We are the only one that is completely pro-Europe – we are the most remain party. Fifty percent of our candidates are born outside of the UK but they have made their homes in the UK. We are very inclusive.”

They also align themselves with EU federal policies such as an EU defence force should NATO diminish, for binding climate change goals and they are pro membership of the Euro.

He said: “We do tackle some hot potatoes the other parties shy away from.

“We are all just normal citizens just getting together just to try to do something for the country we love.”