Widdecombe likens EU to ‘slavery’

ANN Widdecombe used her maiden speech in the European Parliament yesterday to accuse Eurocrats of treating its citizens like ‘slaves’.

The new Brexit Party MEP condemned the way the EU’s top jobs were given out, branding it a ‘betrayal of every country represented’.

Her comments came during a fierce debate in Strasbourg in which EU Council chief Donald Tusk came under fire over the way EU leaders doled out the bloc’s senior positions behind closed doors earlier this week.

Miss Widdecombe said the appointments showed why Britain should leave the EU ‘as soon as possible’.

Stabbing a finger in the air as she spoke, she fumed: ‘If that is this place’s idea of democracy, then that is a serious betrayal of every country represented here, because it is not democratic at all. And that is just one of many reasons why Britain is right to be leaving this place, hopefully on Halloween.’

She went on: ‘There is a pattern consistent throughout history of oppressed people turning on the oppressors, slaves against their owners, the peasantry against the feudal barons...and that is why Britain is leaving.’

Signing off to cheers from her Brexit Party colleagues, the former Tory minister said: ‘That’s why we’re going. Nous allons, wir gehen, we’re off!’

Belgian Liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt hit back: ‘Nigel Farage is facing some stiff competition as chief clown of the Brexit Party in the European Parliament.’