Clown: Farage dubbed ‘despicable’ over EU ‘mafia’ claim
European Parliament/PA Wire - Credit: PA
UKIP's former leader gets dressing down after 'embarrassing' rant to EU parliament
Nigel Farage has been labelled a 'clown' after accusing the European Parliament of 'behaving like the mafia'.
The former UKIP leader's outburst came during a Strasbourg debate outlining the European Union's Brexit negotiating red lines.
Farage was told to retract his 'unacceptable' remark by the parliament's president, Italian Antonio Tajani, and said that, in respect of his national sensitivities, he would instead brand them 'gangsters'.
But an angry Tajani responded: 'There are no mafia or gangsters here. There are representatives of the people. This is nothing to do with national sensitivities, it is to do with being civil and democratic.'
You may also want to watch:
And in a scathing attack Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs spokesman Tom Brake told The New European: 'Farage is a total embarrassment – today he has acted like a clown and done nothing but more damage to the country he claims to love so much. His behaviour – although I am hardly shocked – is utterly despicable.'
Brake, MP for Carshalton and Wallington, added: 'The real Brexit criminals are those who misled the British people during the referendum.
Most Read
- 1 Government scraps Pick for Britain programme after Brits fill as few as 5% of roles
- 2 Boris Johnson still has questions to answer about Caribbean holiday
- 3 Ex-minister says Boris Johnson's government is a 'cesspit' where 'almost nobody' tells the truth
- 4 Poll: Laurence Fox in joint last place with Count Binface in race for London mayor
- 5 James Dyson moves main address back to the UK
- 6 Russell Kane: Why working class people like Boris Johnson
- 7 Government to dissolve parliament ahead of Queen’s Speech
- 8 Salmon industry insist officials miscalculated post-Brexit export figures
- 9 Brexit regret: Meet the Leave voters who wish they hadn't voted Leave
- 10 Keir Starmer's day will come
'Many of us warned that the negotiations would be extremely tough, with Britain alone seeking a deal from 27 united countries. Yet Farage and his Brexit friends in the Conservative Party promised the British people that it would be a breeze, that we would have a trade deal signed in time for tea.
'We said at the time this was a fantasy, and so it has proved. Even Theresa May now acknowledges that we will not secure a trade deal in two years, and she is now desperately seeking a transitional deal – something she insisted we would never need.
'It is increasingly clear that you can't have a hard Brexit and still get everything out of the deal that the United Kingdom needs.'
During a heated debate Farage told MEPs: 'If you wish to have no deal, if you wish to force us to walk away from the table, it is not us that will be hurt.
'We don't have to buy German motor cars, we don't have to drink French wine, we don't have to eat Belgian chocolate. There are a lot of other people that will give that to us.'
He added that the European Council's proposal to give Spain a veto on future agreements concerning Gibraltar could be a 'deal-breaker'.
'You have shown yourselves by these demands to be vindictive, to be nasty,' he said. 'All I can say is thank goodness we are leaving. You are behaving like the mafia. You think we are a hostage - we are not, we are free to go.'
Become a Supporter
The New European is proud of its journalism and we hope you are proud of it too. We believe our voice is important - both in representing the pro-EU perspective and also to help rebalance the right wing extremes of much of the UK national press. If you value what we are doing, you can help us by making a contribution to the cost of our journalism.
