You’re like the Mafia Farage tells the EU
NIGEL Farage provoked uproar in the European Parliament yesterday by accusing EU bosses of acting “like the Mafia” in seeking to hold Britain to ransom over Brexit.
In a barnstorming speech, Mr Farage condemned the bloc’s leaders as “nasty” and “vindictive” for their string of divorce demands including a £52billion departure bill.
The former Ukip leader also said EU negotiators were trying to sabotage any chance of a trade deal by drawing Gibraltar into Brexit talks.
His broadside, jeered and heckled by anti-Brexit MEPs in the Strasbourg assembly, came ahead of backing for EU Council President Donald Tusk’s negotiating stance.
The top Eurocrat insists “sufficient progress” must be made on the exit payment before trade is discussed.
Mr Farage hit back: “You’ve shown yourself with these demands to be vindictive, to be nasty.
“Thank goodness we are leaving. You are behaving like the Mafia, you think we’re a hostage. We’re not – we’re free to go, we’re free to go.”
Mr Farage’s reference to the organised crime network that originated in Sicily led to a rebuke from the European Parliament’s Italian-born president Antonio Tajani, who said the comparison was “unacceptable”.
Mr Farage retorted: “I do understand national sensitivities – I’ll change it to gangsters, all right?
“We are being given a ransom note but what must be very difficult for all of you to get into your minds is there is a bigger world out there than the European Union.”
Mr Farage said the EU’s reaction to Theresa May triggering Article 50 had been “all too predictable”.
He added that some demands were not just unreasonable but impossible while the figure of £52billion had “clearly been plucked out of the air”.
With Ukip leader Paul Nuttall looking on, Mr Farage pointed out that the British had paid in £200billion and were “actually shareholders in this building”. He said the EU had no right to try to block Britain agreeing trade deals with other countries and made a dig at Mr Tusk for not being present at yesterday’s debate.
He mocked: “I suspect he’s still crying – he looked pretty tearful, didn’t he, after the British ambassador delivered the letter last week.”
Describing the future of Gibraltar as a “deal breaker”, he taunted the Eurocrats: “Eighty-five per cent of the global economy is outside the European Union and if you force us to walk away from the table it is not us that will be hurt. We don’t have to buy German cars, drink French wine or eat Belgian chocolate. There are a lot of other people who will give that to us.”
MEPs heard European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier reassert their rejection of Theresa May’s appeal for divorce and trade talks to be held in parallel.
German MEP Manfred Weber said: “London thinks it will find the perfect deal and take the positive and leave the negative. That will not happen.”
SAY what you want about Nigel Farage at least he never leaves you in any doubt what he thinks. In his latest speech to the European Parliament the former Ukip leader continued his tradition of outraging fellow members. This time he did it by likening EU bosses to “the Mafia”.
So incensed was the president of the European Parliament (himself an Italian) that he rebuked Mr Farage, who chose to replace it with the word “gangsters”. But as ever he has a point.
The thuggish bravado displayed by Eurocrats such as Jean-Claude Juncker, Guy Verhofstadt and Michel Barnier in the build-up to the Brexit negotiations is indeed reminiscent of the bullying behaviour we associate with Mafia movies.
They speak endlessly of forcing us to pay the EU billions and implementing punitive trade measures should we dare to defy them. What else is this other than the diplomatic equivalent of trying to make Theresa May an offer she cannot refuse? Such tactics will not cow the Prime Minister or the British people. We know how to stand up to bullies and we know that all this bluster will come to nothing.
Not least because elected national leaders – those who really speak for the ordinary people of Europe – are already striking a far more conciliatory tone than that adopted by Don Juncker and his henchmen in Brussels.