European Left Plots to Block Trump’s Pro-Brexit EU Ambassador

The European Left’s leading MEPs have written to the President of the European Commission and the President of the European Council, demanding that they block the potential appointment of Professor Ted Malloch as Donald Trump’s ambassador to the European Union (EU).

The leaders of the European People’s Party (EPP), Socialists and Democrats (S&D), and the Alliance of Liberals And Democrats for Europe (ALDE) groupings in the European Parliament railed against Malloch’s “outrageous malevolence regarding the values which define this European Union”, and insisted that he “should not be accredited as an official representative to the EU”.

The open letter has been shared on Twitter by Guy Verhofstadt, described as “high priest” in “the temple of European federalism” and the European Parliament’s chosen representative in the upcoming Brexit negotiations.

Trump's possible EU ambassador nominee wants to disrupt EU. We shldn't accept him.Letter with @ManfredWeber to @eucopresident & @JunckerEU pic.twitter.com/Q3zmYUyfg8

— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) February 2, 2017

S&D leader Gianni Pittella went still further in a separate letter, demanding that Malloch be declared a “persona non grata” and calling for “European unity against #Trump!”

From @PES_PSE leaders meeting in Malta for #EUCO, @giannipittella calls for European unity against #Trump! ⬇️ https://t.co/1CRHB3NmvX

— S&D Group (@TheProgressives) February 3, 2017

Malloch has pulled no punches in his dealings with Brussels, telling BBC interrogator-in-chief Andrew Neil that, like the Soviet Union, the bloc “needs a little taming”, and suggesting that chief bureaucrat Jean-Claude Juncker goes back to being an “adequate mayor” in his native Luxembourg.

Malloch has also declared the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) agreement between the U.S. and the EU a “non-starter” under the new administration and says that it is now the United Kingdom which is at “the front of the queue” for a trade deal.

An internationally regarded figure, Professor Malloch was once described as a “global sherpa” by the late Margaret Thatcher. Malloch is said to be close to Brexit campaign leader Nigel Farage, who has derided the MEPs plotting to block his appointment as “the real nationalists”.

Malloch claims that the new president and the former UKIP chief share much the same view on Brussels: “[Trump] doesn’t like an organisation that is supranational, that is unelected, where the bureaucrats run amok and that is not frankly a proper democracy.”