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UKIP has been branded Europe’s laziest party after figures revealed its MEPs top the skivers’ league.

Leader Nigel Farage has the fifth worst attendance record out of all 752 MEPs.

His anti-European Union party sidekicks Godfrey Bloom and deputy leader Paul Nuttall, who each pocket more than £60,000 a year in Brussels salaries, are even lazier.

Mr Bloom is second only to Ireland’s Brian Crowley in missed votes — attending less than a third. Mr Nuttall sits fourth last, voting just 46% of the time. The figures, unearthed by the Mirror, mean UKIP has three of the top five laziest MEPs.

Overall, the anti-EU party’s 11 MEPs miss a third of all votes — double the European average.

The pro-Europe Lib Dems are the hardest-working British party in Brussels — attending 87% of votes.

The Greens come in next on 84.8%, Labour third on 82.7%, and the Tories second from bottom with an 80.4% attendance record.

(Image: Rex)

Labour MP Grahame Morris said: “These figures prove Mr Farage is no Churchill — he’s the leader of Europe’s laziest party.”

Labour MEP leader Glenis Willmott added: “They claim to be protecting British interests, but when decisions are made in committees, UKIP are nowhere to be seen.

"When crucial votes are taken, Nigel Farage leaves the chamber. Where’s the British interest in that?”

Conservative MEP leader Richard Ashworth said: “UKIP bank the salary, pocket the expenses, but don’t turn up to do the work.

"They let their country down. If you’re working for constituents, you’re in doing the hard graft, not lording it around the pub the way these people seem to. They’ve all the yap, none of the action.”

UKIP attendance at European committee meetings is even worse than its MEPs’ voting record — standing at just 30%.

Mr Nuttall has attended just two out of 56 meetings of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee since June 2010.

Colleague Trevor Colman has been at one of 52 gatherings of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee.

Minutes show Mr Farage attended just one of 42 Fisheries Committee meetings between February 2010 and his resignation from all committees in January this year.

UKIP said: “It is laughable to suggest Farage is lazy. His work rate is probably the highest of any MEP — it’s just he’s not doing what they’d like him to do.

“We are not in Brussels to make the EU work. We’re there to do the bidding of those who vote for us, and that is a very different thing.”

A UKIP spokesman added: "'In 2012 Mr Godfrey Bloom MEP suffered from prostate cancer and underwent several months of radio therapy, it would be unfair to criticise Mr Bloom's voting record on this basis."

Friends of Brian Crowley say the Irish MEP too has been seriously ill.