One has to admire certain British MEPs for their candor. In this instance, I’m pretty certain Farage missed wildly…
So what was the point of this exercise? Certainly no one would talk to the British Prime Minister or the President of the United States like this… or any other foreign dignitary for that matter. Which of course could very well be the point for Mr. Farage — hold the EU President in the highest degree of contempt in order to emphasize the weakness of the European Union.
Still… what was the point? The UK Guardian offers a tiny bit on insight:
Elected an MEP in 1999, he resigned as party leader (while remaining head of the 13-strong Ukip group in the European parliament) in order to try to unseat John Bercow – the Speaker of the Commons – as MP for Buckingham.
As you must have gathered by now there’s a lot going on here. What Nige would call the “three social democratic parties” in Britain – Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats – don’t contest the Speaker’s seat by tradition, though Bercow shows a little Brown-like insecurity by suggesting there should be a non-seat (Westminster Central?) set aside for Speakers.
But Farage knows that a lot of Tory voters are hacked off with politics in general, the Cameroons in particular and Bercow, his Labour wife, and his promotion quite intensely. He has seen an opportunity to make trouble for the Tories and get himself a Commons seat. Go for it, Nige.
…and there you have it. A little splash of the Tea Party movement on the opposite side of the Atlantic. It’s not quite the dressing down Daniel Hannan gave Gordon Brown last year, as that was a far superior effort, but just to see the consternation even with the Conservative Party in Britain is indicator enough the ideas of the British and Scottish (and dare I say, American?) Enlightenment are still alive and well in this world.