For 18 years, I have sat in the European Parliament and looked on in wonderment at Jean-Marie Le Pen’s regular lunchtime table. Politics aside, when it comes to a good lunch with food, wine and company, he is certainly a true Frenchman.

At no point in time did I want Ukip to do a deal with the French National Front (FN). The party’s roots were deep in Vichy and I believed anti-Semitism was embedded in its DNA. All this made it the wrong place for Ukip to be. I’ve always seen Jean-Marie Le Pen as the modern-day Chauvin.

Then, in January 2011, an overwhelming vote of FN members saw Marine Le Pen become leader – beating Holocaust-denying Bruno Gollnisch. From the start, she wanted the FN to be more like Ukip than the BNP. I was told that this would be a nightmare for me.

In response, I said Marine needed to make many fundamental changes if I was ever to work with her. And in the passing years I have watched, met and spoken to her many times. I told her she needed to change completely and rebrand the image of her party. Sure enough, she has made real changes, the biggest of which was to get rid of her own father.