Malta’s far-right made slight gains during the 2019 European Parliament election, garnering just under than 3.5 per cent of the vote, though their progress was less than some had initially feared. 

Norman Lowel Norman Lowell received 8,238 first count votes – around 1,500 more than he had during the previous European Parliament election, in 2014.

That figure is nevertheless practically half the erroneous 15,000 figure cited by other media initially on Sunday evening.

In total, Mr Lowell’s tally represented 3.17 per cent of the overall vote. In 2014, his vote was 2.68 per cent of the total.

Mr Lowell, who describes himself as a “racialist”, has said he is in favour of killing disabled babies after birth and has suggested people with low IQs should be sterilised.

Malta’s other right-wing political representatives, the Moviment Patrijotti Maltin, made far less of a splash. The party’s two two candidates scraped just over 750 first count votes between themselves, representing 0.30 per cent of the vote total.

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