Labour MEP Neena Gill vows to help destroy Brexit Party
A Labour MEP has vowed to help destroy the Brexit Party as she accused Nigel Farage of offering "nothing but hate and blame".
Neena Gill says supporters of Mr Farage's party attempted to drown out her victory speech after she was re-elected to the European Parliament last month, booing and telling her to “f*** off” and “go home”.
The pro-Remain MEP said the incident, at Birmingham's ICC, has strengthened her resolve to "shine a light on the darkness" of the Brexit Party, which she accused of cornering the part of the democratic market inhabited by "racists or fascists".
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She said the rapid rise of the party, which won 29 of the UK's 73 seats, bore "all the hallmarks of far-right movements throughout Europe’s troubled 20th century history", adding that it had given "every crank, has-been and political wannabe" a blank canvas to "project their prejudices on to".
Ms Gill said: "I am not a snowflake, but I am everything that the Nigel Farages of this world despise: an immigration success story, a woman in a position of power and a proud evangelist for what the European Union at its best can achieve."
She said it was "no surprise" that she had suffered abuse, saying her experience highlighted the "anger that Brexit Party supporters show towards anyone who disagrees with their world view".
"Calling the Brexit Party out, for what it really is, does not mean I think that all those who voted for it are racists or fascists," she added. "But there is no question that they have certainly cornered that part of the democratic market.
"The Brextremists, if you will, will never stand up to austerity because it gives them the one thing they crave: grievance.
"At some point there must be a day of reckoning for this most destructive, disruptive force in British politics.
"A point where even Farage and his acolytes are forced to admit they have nothing to offer but hate and blame. A point where they are seen for the opportunists they are. A point where they run out of excuses. But clearly not just yet.
"So for however long I am back in Brussels, I will shine a light on their darkness. These attempts to silence are doomed to failure because every time the far-right has reared its ugly head in Britain, from the Battle of Cable Street in the Thirties to the National Front of the Seventies, it has been defeated by ordinary, decent people.
"Even at the moment of the Brexit Party’s supposed triumph, they were sowing the seeds of their own destruction. It’s now up to us to finish the job."
