Britain’s Last Day in Brussels: A Populist Punch-up

Italian Senator Lilian Segre, a Holocaust survivor, addresses the European Parliament

29th January 2020. The last time British MEPs appeared in the European Parliament.

Brussels, the home of surrealism, played host to one of the most peculiar moments in British history and my own personal story. For three hours, I sat in the front row of the public viewing gallery and witnessed MEPs take in a solemn moment of reflection before the outpouring of three and a half years of pent-up angst and bile.

The scheduling of the parliament’s business that afternoon was odd for a start. The afternoon debate began with an address by Italian Senator Liliana Segre, commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

“We were breast-less, we had lost our period, we were not wearing any underwear," Segre, a survivor, moved many MEPs to tears. She recalled how those around her who perished “were merely guilty of being born”.

After decrying the horrendous evils that mankind is capable of, her words ended on a more positive note on the preciousness of life and the miracle of a peaceful Europe. The chamber then sat awkwardly through an opera singer’s rendition of a ‘Kaddish’, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

For such a powerful and harrowing speech from someone who witnessed first-hand the complete breakdown of Europe as well as humanity, it seemed strange, even wrong, for the debate on the Art. 50 Withdrawal Agreement to follow directly afterwards.

“No more financial contributions!” bellowed Farage. “No more European Court of Justice, no more Common Fisheries Policy!” His rousing of patriotic fervour against institutions and agreements that Britain freely entered into seemed totally out of sync with the mood of the chamber.

“No more being talked down to, no more being bullied” he continued, completely oblivious of the speech just made by someone whose mere existence justified their own extermination.

Farage finally reached his crescendo of “No more Guy Verhofstadt!”. Who…? A former Belgian Prime Minister whose crime was a fanatical belief in European integration. It could have been tongue-in-cheek, but how was this the time for humour? In all likelihood, he was picking on a Soros-like bogeyman to blame for all of Britain’s problems.

From hardcore Brexiteers at one end to Remaniacs at the other, the chamber was heaving with British MEPs desperate to have one more moment in the limelight. “I hold in my heart the knowledge that one day I will be back in this chamber, celebrating our return to the heart of Europe” wept Molly Scott-Cato, leader of the Greens, before breaking down in the arms of two MEPs either side of her, also in tears.

Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson, a former IRA member imprisoned for terrorism, followed suit. She prophesied her return as well, but as a representative of a United Ireland.

Labour and Lib Dem MEPs bemoaned the lack of consensus over “what Brexit actually meant” and how 53% of the votes in the December 2019 election were for parties that supported a second referendum. Eurosceptic savant Dan Hannan, appearing in the chamber for the first time in almost a year since he was re-elected against his will, nonchalantly spent the three hours tapping away at his laptop. When called, he stood up to claim that if the Maastricht Treaty hadn’t happened in 1992, Brexit would not have happened two decades later.

Perhaps he was right, but such nuance didn’t matter anymore. Farage and his Brexit loyalists had already stormed out of the chamber in a flurry of jingoistic mini-flag waving after the speaker Mairead McGuinness cut off his mike. To rapturous applause from Remainers, she told him to take his flag and get out.

After letting everyone have their say, McGuiness called the final vote putting an end to almost three years of tortuous wrangling over whether the ‘Deal’ would ever ‘get done’. The result was never in doubt, a resounding 621 out of 751 votes in favour. A huge majority as the alternative would have meant the legal chaos of ‘No Deal’. Voting done, the remaining MEPs then joined hands and burst out a rendition of Auld Lang Syne.

Farage may not have listened to a word of Segre’s moving address, but it’s unlikely he would have changed his rehearsed EU-bashing swansong even if he had. To the last, he was a classless act.

Yet after 20 years, in his final speech in Brussels, he goaded the Parliament that made him with words that have taken me ten months to process. “You may loathe populism” he quipped “but I’ll tell you a funny thing, it’s becoming very popular” followed by rancorous laughter from his Brexiteer groupies.

What did he mean by this? If he meant populism as a set of policies designed to have the most popular support well then it was just as meaningless as May’s tautological “Brexit means Brexit”. Of course populism is popular, it’s in the name.

But if he meant populist rhetoric by condensing the solutions to complex everyday problems into the most simplified actions imaginable, then he was onto something. Leave the EU, Take Back Control, Crush the Saboteurs, Build the Wall, kick immigrants out, stop the ‘enemies of the people’, are all powerful slogans that around half of UK or US voters at one point agreed with.

And that afternoon in Brussels, Remainers fell into the same trap. The plenary chamber resembled a petri dish in a lab study proving that for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction. The constant booing and jeering following every pro or anti-Brexit speech was a snapshot of the depravity in Britain public discourse over the past five years.

Rejoining the EU clearly won’t be the panacea that instantly solves all our problems, and deep down I’m sure those Remainer MEPs knew that. Rampant inequality, dramatically increased by Covid, would have blighted Britain even if we had ‘cancelled Brexit’.

Returning as a fully-fledged EU member today, requires a whole set of political conditions that are not realistic. A pro-EU party prepared to put another country-splitting referendum in their manifesto would be signing their own electoral death warrant. That party would need to miraculously win a majority to govern, even with an electorate that overcame its ‘Brexit fatigue’. It would not only need to win this referendum, but also regain all the international goodwill lost by Brexit, plus relinquish all the previous opt-outs and rebates that made EU membership bearable.

On Brexit Day, 31st January, parliament officials refused to reveal the exact time they would bring down the Union Flag stationed outside. Based on what they saw two days earlier, perhaps they wanted to avoid a punch-up. Nonetheless, they couldn’t stop Remainers holding a vigil in front of the empty flagpole at midnight. But those prayers that Britain would be back in the heart of Europe were hardly pious, they were populist.

This article originally appeared in Byline Times.