“This is petty, small-minded little England at its worst."
The European Parliament opened for business on Tuesday following elections and British MEPs have been accused of being “embarrassing” Brits abroad as cross-party protests took place.
29 MEPs from the Brexit party, including Nigel Farage, faced the most backlash as they at first refused to stand for the parliament’s opening ceremony anthem, Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, and then turned their backs to the parliament when they were asked to stand out of respect.
Farage claimed that the move was “cheerfully defiant” and carried out to make their “presence felt”.
However, European parliament president, Antonio Tajani deemed the action disrespectful
“[It] is a question of respect; it doesn’t mean that you necessarily share the views of the European Union. If you listen to the anthem of another country you rise to your feet,” Tajani said.
On Twitter, Labour MP David Lammy said that the MEPs were doing “their best to isolate the UK from the world.
“This is petty, small-minded little England at its worst. These plonkers do a proud and open nation a disservice. Shame on them,” he added.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat MEPs donned sunshine yellow t-shirts with the slogans “stop Brexit” and “b******s to Brexit”.
Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies denied accusations that the slogan was “unparliamentary”.
“It’s amazing how well b******s to Brexit translates into 24 different languages,” he said.
Both stunts were described as “crass” by political commentator Kevin Maguire, who added that the protests painted Britain to look like “a country of rude morons”.
Despite the “embarrassing” protests, many MEPs have been getting to work straight away and are taking to Twitter to shine some light on what MEPs actually do, and what they hope to achieve in the next four months before Brexit potentially happens.
Alexandra Phillips, an MEP for the Green Party said in a video on Twitter that she’s diving headfirst into work.
“I don’t know whether I’m going to be an MEP for four months or for five years,” she said. “So I’m hitting the ground running with a Green New Deal that would create a huge amount of jobs for people in the southeast, it would lower their fuel bills and crucially it would contribute to tackling the climate crisis.”
Labour MEP Julie Ward added that she’s focusing on culture and education, women’s, children, and LGBTQI+ equality and rights.
“Over the next five years, I am here working for you and working towards a fairer more prosperous, equal and safer Europe,” Ward said.
Meka Beresford is a freelance journalist. Follow her on Twitter.
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13 Responses to “First day on the job: MEPs dubbed as ’embarrassing’ Brits abroad”
Chris Kitcher
Sadly these Brexit yobs are demonstrating the lowest common denominator in the UK today. Whatever do other sensible countries think of the UK and who will want to deal with us should we ever, God forbid, leave the EU?
Tom Sacold
Why would any socialist Labour supporter want to stay part of a neo-liberal, market-driven, undemocratic organisation. It was created by the Maastricht and Lisbon Treaties to be driven by multinational corporations in the interests of profit and the bosses – NOT the workers.
Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France have all had workers rights reduced in the last five years as a direct result of EU ‘stabilisation’ policy. Just what the multinational corporations ordered.
Patrick Newman
Tom Sacold – is that really the nom de plume of Mr Farage.
wg
To see the Labour Party lining up alongside corporates, bankers, and international currency speculators is a sad thing – this is not the Labour Party that I grew up with.
The latest shenanigans with the appointments to the top EU jobs should be a wake-up call – but it won’t: the religious EU church zealots of the United States of Europe order have hijacked what was once a party that represented the working UK people.
steve
Julia Gibb: ” this is the people that the left of the Labour Party are aligning with.”
Opposition to the neoliberal EU does not imply support for or alignment with Thatcher-lovers like Farage/Brexit Party/UKIP.
The Brexit-Remain option is presented as the most important choice of the moment. But that option avoids the most urgent choice: pro-neoliberal or anti-neoliberal. Brexiters within the Tory Party and Brexit Party support neoliberalism, as does the EU.
What is needed is a viable alternative to neoliberalism and the climate chaos that accompanies it.