BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament excluded the delegation of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Thursday, less than a month before elections to the assembly.

The decision was made after Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s leading candidate in the election, told an Italian newspaper at the weekend that the Nazis’ Waffen-SS was “not only made up of criminals”.

“The ID Group no longer wishes to be associated with the incidents surrounding Maximilian Krah, the head of the AfD list for the European elections,” the ID Group said in a statement.

It is the latest setback for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in recent chaotic months. Frenchwoman Marine Le Pen left the party earlier this week because she was too damaging a partner.

The far-right parties in the European Assembly are currently divided between the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), whose de facto leader is Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, and the ID group, led by Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN).

Polls suggest that nationalist and eurosceptic parties will receive a record number of votes in the election.

AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla said in a statement that they had taken note of the ID’s decision but were optimistic about the election.

“We are convinced that we will have reliable partners at our side in the new legislative period,” the two said in a statement.

While it still ranks second or third in most national opinion polls, support for the AfD has fallen by around eight percentage points this year, amid negative court rulings, concerns about its links to China and Russia, and revelations that senior party members have taken part in talks about deporting non-ethnic Germans.

Krah, whose adviser is accused of spying for China, had to resign from the AfD executive board and promised not to make any further campaign appearances following his comments on the SS, although he is still running in the European elections.

The SS or “Schutzstaffel” was the Nazi paramilitary force and played a leading role in the Holocaust.

In a highly unusual last attempt to avoid exclusion, the AfD delegation had asked the ID to exclude only Krah, blaming his personality for this, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

“We see this as the last (albeit desperate!) attempt to prevent the exclusion of the entire AfD delegation from the ID parliamentary group,” wrote MEP Christine Anderson in the letter informing the party’s executive board of the matter.

(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop and Benoit Van Overstraeten; additional reporting by Andreas Rinke; writing by Madeline Chambers; editing by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Sharon Singleton)