International

Last week we were once again in Strasbourg. In any event this is hardly a pleasure, involving as it does an enormous waste of time and money, but on this occasion it was an embarrassing business. A MEP from the UK Independence Party (UKIP) found it necessary to launch a barrage of quotations from Hitler at the German leader of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, the European Parliament’s centre-left political group. What was remarkable was that our own far right party, the PVV, through its MEP Barry Madlener, found it necessary to speak out in the UKIP man’s defence.

Etiquette on the EP plenary sessions is rather different from that in the Dutch parliament. Some members enjoy shouting straight through others or noisily demanding the floor. Sometimes it’s like a nursery school, but okay, that’s how things are in some other national parliaments, such as Britain’s House of Commons.

This is a habit which UKIP has brought with it from Britain’s parliament. I had, however, never before experienced literal quotes from Hitler being used. This is more than embarrassing. It’s unnecessarily hurtful and out of all proportion.

Whether it was an intelligent move to throw the man out is another matter. In my view there are other ways of dealing with this sort of thing. The presidium of the EP must decide on disciplinary measures, and these can include suspension, but immediate expulsion from the chamber is not, in my estimation, doing things ‘by the book’. This does not, however, alter the fact that in a moment like that you feel ashamed for UKIP and its performance and for the institution of which you are a member.

I also found the PVV’s contribution to this affair shocking. Right from the beginning of the UKIP man’s intervention, Barry Madlener had stood clapping and shouting that he wanted to take the floor. That was in itself a disgusting display, but then when he speaks out in defence of such a man, you have to ask where the PVV believes the line of respectability is drawn. You should obviously be able to quote Hitler in the EP, but when journalists in the Netherland look into the criminal past of its MPs, Wilders cries blue murder and accuses them of being guilty of a witch-hunt. Freedom of speech is clearly only for the extreme right, while their critics must be silenced. I can’t see that this is all that democratic. I very much hope that in the future in Strasbourg we will be free from performances like those of UKIP and the PVV. I wouldn’t have cooperated with these parties as things stood, but their behaviour has in any event made them more isolated than ever.