Greedy, sneering and openly anti-British

Daniel Hannan encourages us to meet the typical Euro-federalist: greedy, sneering and openly anti-British:



Please do watch it. Even if it were possible to find the text of his speech on http://www.europarl.europa.eu/, it wouldn't do it justice.

As Hannan says,

Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who now leads the Euro-liberals, is responding to the position of the British Government (and, though he doesn’t mention this, 11 other governments), viz that Brussels should not be whacking up its budget at a time when national administrations are trying to cut theirs.
...
Listen to the sneering way that Verhofstadt keeps repeating the phrase “Her Majesty’s Government”. Listen to the way MEPs snigger and applaud when he says that the very fact that the UK opposes the draft budget is proof of its merit. Listen to the mockery in his voice as he says we should join the euro. (How’s that working out for you by the way, Guy?)

Listen, above all, to the reaction in the chamber when he finishes. Verhofstadt is not one isolated Euro-loon: he is the authentic voice of the European Parliament, which promptly voted by 468 to 134 for a five per cent budget rise.

He concludes:

Does anyone seriously believe that we advance that interest by subordinating ourselves to people who so plainly despise us?

A good question. Hopefully the turnout in 2014 will be higher than 35%.