South East England Tory MEP Daniel Hannan has been expelled from the right-of-centre European Peoples Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament after making a speech in which he compared the Parliament's rules to those of Nazi Germany.
Back in January Hannan made a speech complaining about the rules enforced by Parliament's president Hans-Gert Poettring which prevented a number of right-wing MEPs from continually disrupting business in the chamber. He said that only his respect for the German Poettring prevented him from comparing moves to curb disruption in the chamber with powers seized by Adolf Hitler in 1933.
The spineless UK Tory group in the parliament have failed to withdraw their whip from him to date with mealy mouthed Chief Whip, Den Dover MEP, saying "What he said was nothing to do with Conservative Party policy." That may be true but it is crass cowardice for them to allow this man to remain in the Tory delegation. Perhaps Davie boy Cameron will get rid of this wart - more likely that he'll sit on his hands and hope it all blows over.
Astonishingly Hannan tried to justify his comments by saying that they were a "dignified protest within the rules."
UPDATE: I see from his own Torygraph blog that the expulsion happened last week. my apologies if this is old news but I somehow must have missed it!
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