STRASBOURG — Ode to no joy, more like.
MEPs from the U.K.’s Brexit Party turned their backs during the “Ode to Joy,” the EU anthem, in the European Parliament’s plenary chamber.
Parliament President Antonio Tajani responded to the gesture by saying: “You stand for the anthem of another country.”
Justifying the stunt on the BBC, Brexit Party MEP David Bull denied it was childish and said “I think it was still the right move,” because it is “not a national anthem, it is a federal anthem, and we don’t believe in the federal Euro-state.”
Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage said it was “disrespectful” of Tajani to refer to the EU as a “nation.”
Center-right French MEP Nadine Morano called the gesture “outrageous” and “unacceptable.” She said: “Those are people who will get paid to break Europe,” adding that Farage is “a clown.”
Brexit Party MEPs turn their backs in European Anthem at opening session of European Parliament pic.twitter.com/M1J5rdzb8e
— James Mates (@jamesmatesitv) July 2, 2019
Greens MEP Michèle Rivasi also slammed the Brexit Party protest, saying: “What is Farage doing here? They are against Europe, which they do not represent, they are opportunistic. It’s very lousy. Those are people who are breaking Europe.”
In a press conference, Ska Keller, the co-leader of the Greens group and who is running for the Parliament presidency, had stern words for her fellow MEPs: “They’ve been elected to the EP, and the first thing they do is disrespect the values of the EU. No one forced them to come here, they volunteered. It’s a disgrace.”
The anthem stunt wasn’t the only one from Brexit Party MEPs, with Alexandra Phillips jumping up and waving a Union Flag in the Strasbourg chamber after being randomly selected to serve as a teller to monitor the election of the Parliament president.
Here’s my new view in the plenary of the European Parliament!
#BollockstoBrexit #IamEuropean pic.twitter.com/cZ9brvhIFK
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) July 2, 2019
“Miss, you have been selected to be a teller,” Tajani told Phillips, “you are not a center-forward in a football team.”
Farage’s 29 Brexiteers weren’t the only ones trying to make a statement during the inaugural session of the new Parliament.
Members of the U.K.’s Liberal Democrats sported bright yellow T-shirts emblazoned with “Bollocks to Brexit,” the party’s slogan in the election.
Meanwhile, MEPs from the far-right Identity and Democracy group refused to stand for the “Ode to Joy.”
“We stayed seated [during the anthem] because we consider the European Union is not a state and therefore has no anthem,” French National Rally MEP Nicolas Bay said. The Brexit Party MEPs “want to leave the EU and we don’t, so they expressed it a bit differently.”
Meanwhile, Catalan MEPs displayed pictures of their colleagues who have been barred from the first session in the chamber, while leftist MEPs held up signs calling for better treatment of migrants who come to Europe.
Maïa de La Baume contributed reporting. Zoya Sheftalovich reported from Brussels.