EU boss achieves holy grail – Python humour
European Commission’s vice-president likens British MEP to the Black Knight in 1975 comedy
THE deputy to Jean-claude Juncker at the EU has mocked Britain’s ambitions to forge new global trading relationships by comparing Eurosceptic politicians to a character from Monty Python who never knew when he was beaten.
Frans Timmermans is the powerful first vice-president of the European Commission, which is leading the Brexit negotiations on behalf of the bloc’s 27 remaining member states.
He told the European Parliament in Strasbourg, that Ukip MEP Raymond Finch was like the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
In the 1975 film, King Arthur slices off the limbs of the belligerent Black Knight, who threatens to bleed on his adversary and bite his legs.
Under Theresa May’s Brexit plan, Britain will leave the single market but still have access to it through a freetrade agreement. EU leaders insist that agreement will only be discussed once a deal has been reached on EU citizens’ rights and the Brexit bill. Mr Finch had warned Mr Timmermans that non-eu G20 nations would happily fill the trade gap if the bloc refused to give Britain fair access to the single market. The G20 nations and the EU will meet in Hamburg tomorrow.
“Your huge trade surplus with the UK will crumble and other non-eu G20 nations will be licking their lips at the prospect of trading with and exporting to the UK,” Mr Finch said, to laughs of derision in the chamber.
“The revitalised, liberalised United Kingdom will be seen as a key trading partner by these nations and we will see cars made in Detroit, rather than Stuttgart, on British roads.” However, Mr Timmermans replied: “To say that the whole of European Union is going to suffer terribly in the G20 because of Brexit is a bit rich frankly.
“Mr Finch really reminds me of a character created by John Cleese in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail; the Black Knight, who after being defeated terribly and having all of his limbs cut off, says to his opponent, ‘let’s call it a draw’.”
The former Dutch foreign minister, who earlier boasted that the EU’S economy had “got its mojo back”, hit back even though the MEP for South East England had already left the debate. “Mr Finch operates under the Farage doctrine here in the European Parliament, which is to make outrageous statements and then run away before anyone can react,” the socialist EU boss said.
Mr Timmermans insisted that he was a “great admirer of British culture” and that there were no plans to punish Britain for Brexit.
“I love the UK whether they are in the EU or not,” he said. “I think we are all under an economic, a political and, above all, a moral obligation to do the least harm possible in this Brexit process.”