Farage’s motley crew should be utterly ashamed

I might have some tiny modicum of respect for Anne Widdecombe and the rest of Farage’s motley crew had they acted with the same principle towards the European Parliament as Sinn Fein towards Westminster.

They refuse to recognize British rule in Ireland, refuse to take their seats and do not take a salary. What did the Brexit Party do?

They sat down, then, as the Euros rolled in, turned their backs on Beethoven’s magnificent interpretation of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode To Joy, a poem which envisaged a world without war and division, a pre-echo of Lennon’s brilliant Imagine. Could anything better illustrate the Philistinism and Chauvinism into which Britain is descending in these dark times?

Farage and Widdecombe ought to remember that it was Hitler’s SA which invaded the Reichstag in 1933, disrupted proceedings and silenced dissent.

Their behaviour is immature, hypocritical, insensitive to past outrages and shameful to the reputation of our country. What on earth has happened to us, once the Champion of the anti-fascist cause, that we now exemplify the worst excesses of populism?

Why cannot so many - older - people see that the trajectory we are on runs counter to all that liberal Britain stood for, counter to commonsense, counter to progress and counter to the interests of our youngsters who they will not see grow up? What an example of selfishness and shortsightedness they set!

They should be utterly ASHAMED!

John Payne, Hinckley