UKIP's Roger Helmer defends 'liberating' EU funds

A UKIP plan to secure £1.5m of EU funds by creating a new pan-European party has been defended by the head of the party's delegation in Europe.

"What we are doing is to try and liberate a bit of that money and bring it back for the purposes that those who elected us would approve of", he told the BBC's Newsnight programme.

But some members believe it is is wrong for an aggressively Eurosceptic party to jump aboard the "EU gravy train" and rejected the idea in an internal referendum on the issue three years ago.