"It’s a disgrace": Anti-fascists target event by Andrew Bridgen platforming Germany's AfD party
Anti-fascist protesters rallied outside an event in Parliament last night as a disgraced ex-Tory MP welcomed a member of the far-right Alternative für Deutschlandof (AfD).
Former Tory MP Andrew Bridgen hosted an evening at Portcullis House that featured MEP Christine Anderson from Germany’s AfD, an extremist party recently facing public condemnation in Germany over neo-Nazi association and policy.
It comes after the weekend saw 200,000 people protest across Germany against the AfD party, which is seen as one of the more extreme of many far-right parties in Europe.
Protests followed revelations that senior figures of the AfD attended a meeting where mass deportations were allegedly discussed with neo-Nazis, looking to remove millions of asylum seekers even if they hold citizenship.
The party denies racism but has already been classified as a right-wing extremist organisation by domestic intelligence.
Anti-racist campaign organisation Hope not Hate wrote to the Speaker of the House of Commons ahead of Bridgen’s event calling for the meeting to be stopped.
The letter expressed concern at allowing an MP to platform a far-right party that has engaged with neo-Nazi rhetoric and policy. Examples referred to in the letter included AfD’s co-chairman saying the Nazi era was “just a speck of bird’s muck in more than 1,000 years of successful German history.”
The letter said: “When the German Government is actively considering banning the AfD for undermining democracy, it is not right for the UK government to be hosting members in our seat of government.”
MEP Christine Anderson of the AfD was billed as a speaker at the Save Our Sovereignty group event, with MPs and anti-fascist campaigners condemning the invitation.
Labour’s Clive Lewis wrote: “We are talking about a party whose members have been actively planning to deport millions of Germans who they deem to be not sufficiently German.
“This is the company Andrew Bridgen is keeping and it is just really grim that they are being taken into parliament.”
During the protest, videos show campaigners confronted Tony Martin, the leader of the fascist political party National Front outside the event. Stand Up To Racism wrote on X it was “no surprise” that the event had attracted his support and that hosting the AfD was “a disgrace”.
There were also concerns that the event was using Parliament as a platform for the dissemination of conspiracy theories including “vaccine harms”, 15-minute cities and towards the World Health Organisation, all of which Bridgen said would be discussed.
The now independent MP for North West Leicestershire was expelled from the Conservative Party after comparing the Covid vaccine use to the Holocaust.
Bridgen wrote on X today that it was a “delight” to host MEP Anderson and discuss: “everything from vaccine harms to the IHR Amendments to the Pandemic Treaty, the unelected WHO’s ever increasing powers and the farmers protests across Europe.”
(Image credit: Stand Up to Racism)
Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward, focusing on trade unions and environmental issues
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