We’re finally wrapping up our final days in the EU, with Chris Pincher yesterday enjoying the responsibility of being the last UK Minister to attend an EU Council Meeting. Here’s the poignant moment he left:
Here we go! British Minister @ChrisPincher walks away from their very last #EU Council meeting #GAC #Brexit #UK @EUCouncil #Brussels pic.twitter.com/XlDkG8eAmv
— Marko Ruonala (@MarkoRuo) January 28, 2020
Meanwhile, MEPs have been snapped packing up their offices. Farage set out what he’ll miss about the place in this Mail piece
“I’ll miss some of the fun, some of the theatre. I’ll miss being the pantomime villain, which I’ve been many times. This has been a massive chapter of my life.”
Most importantly, MEPs will formally approve the Withdrawal Agreement this afternoon, marking the final legal hoop needed to jump through to secure Brexit on Friday. Remain MEPs will vote against the deal, failing to understand they’re voting in favour of a no-deal exit…
MEPs’ final day in Brussels will seemingly be occupied by a lot of singing; with a Green Party MEP planning to encourage a rendition of Auld Lang Syne after British MEPs’ final vote, socialist MEPs meeting up for a family picture and a rendition of the EU’s ‘anthem’, and MEP Magid Magid hosting a party in the Place du Luxembourg featuring live music and DJs. No word on whether, given it’s their last day, MEPs will be signing each other’s shirts…
UPDATE: Watch the EU Parliament sing Auld Lang Syne to departing British MEPs
Today in the European Parliament the moderators of the session decided to pick the pettiest of fights with British MEPs. First they took issue with disillusioned Green MEP Magid Magid for wearing a hat, then they had a go at Scottish Brexit Party MEP Louis Stedman-Bryce for using the word “rubbish”. Seriously…
Neither of them were prepared to take it lying down, Magid laid into them and even had the Brexit Party MEPs applauding in support, before Stedman-Bryce pointed out the blatant hypocrisy of proscribing “rubbish” when the Lib Dems swanned around with “bollocks to Brexit” plastered all over themselves. Naturally they just cut his microphone off, EU democracy in action…
They say you should never meet your heroes, new Green Party MEP Magid Magid appears to be having exactly this experience in Brussels after discovering that the EU that he was passionately in favour of just a few weeks ago is actually a bureaucratic hellhole dominated by stale old white men stitching everything up behind closed doors. Brexiteers did try to warn him…
Magid even suffered the indignity of being asked to leave the Strasbourg Parliament by someone who assumed he wasn’t meant to be there because of the colour of his skin – the UK remains the only country to send ethnically diverse MEPs to the European Parliament in any significant numbers. He’s written a refreshingly honest account of what he actually found in Strasbourg and Brussels:
“Next to nobody in Brussels has any clue what the European Union truly stands for — beyond a flag and an anthem — and more crucially, where it is heading. And that includes the EU leaders and senior officials soullessly waddling through the corridors of power. When I arrived in the EU capital, I expected to find it brimming with activity and potential answers to these questions. Instead, I felt duped: Making a tangible impact on constituents’ lives is apparently not what being an MEP is all about.”
“In Brussels in particular, we need more transparency in the way we make decisions. Our institutions are plagued with convoluted customs, hidden handshakes and backdoor bargaining. I’ve seen it first hand already. How can we reject the accusations leveled against the European elite that we are out of touch, when the top dogs in our Parliament and Commission are chosen through obscure quid-pro-quo arrangements agreed over Champagne and truffles in Brussels’ finest hotel lobbies?”
“In Brussels, the go-to answer to a failed system is superficial; try a fresh coat of paint on crumbling walls. We have to be ready to burn down the house if necessary, to rebuild it in such a way that every citizen from Mansfield to Milan truly feels part of and represented by the EU.”
Looks like the Brexit Party could make it up to 30 MEPs before their term in the Parliament is done…
