EU’s Chief Brexit Negotiator Expresses Fear of Breitbart Europe in EU Parliament

The European Union’s (EU) chief Brexit negotiator has attacked Breitbart for expanding into Europe, after calling Nigel Farage and Donald Trump “clown[s]” who work with a “ring of autocrats” including Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Islamist leader.

“Not only do they like each other, they also have one thing in common,” Guy Verhofstadt said. “Bashing and destroying our way of thinking, our values, our European liberal democracy.”

In a speech to the EU Parliament, the former Belgian Prime Minister went on to attack “Trump’s strategic adviser [Stephen K.] Bannon [who] wants to launch his extreme-right website Breitbart in Paris and Berlin to undermine French and German elections.”

“He has already done this in the U.S.,” he added.

 

He also claimed the Russian president was financing “nationalist, populist and anti-European” movements in the EU. “And let’s face it, Trump is no better than that,” he continued.

“The cronies of Erdogan, Putin and also Trump are undermining Europe from within. Let’s not allow this happen. Let’s fight back,” he added on Twitter.

He also mocked the prospect of Nigel Farage promoting British interesting in the U.S. “I think one clown in Washington is more than enough,” he blasted, repeating the statement on Twitter shortly after.

“Trump wants even to take over the task of her Majesty the Queen by appointing the ambassadors in the future for Britain,” he added. “… It should be interesting that he should tell us that [he is] ‘taking back control’ in Britain.”

One clown in Washington is more than enough #EPlenary https://t.co/uENvslLGGV

— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) November 22, 2016

Mr. Verhofstadt has clashed with Mr. Farage and other Eurosceptics in the past and will work alongside the notoriously anti-British French diplomat Michel Barnier to represent the European Commission in talks with the UK.

Yesterday, Mr. Verhofstadt told a news conference that, “It is impossible to find a solution [to Brexit] that would destroy the so-called four freedoms.”

“These four freedoms are key, they are a basic element of the European Union: the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and of people,” he said. “We will certainly never accept whatever development where these four freedoms are put at risk.”