Nigel Farage, the ex-leader of UKIP and a chief Brexit campaigner, has addressed a rally of Germany's far-right AfD party in Berlin. He received a standing ovation as a model of right-wing political accomplishment.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/K. Nietfeld
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Farage received a standing ovation at the Alternative for Germany (AfD) election rally in Berlin on Friday. He was presented as a model of what a right-wing euroskeptic politician could achieve.
He had been invited by AfD deputy leader and European parliamentarian Beatrix von Storch - the granddaughter of Hitler's finance minister, Lutz von Krosigk, and a member of Farage's group in the European Parliament. "Nigel Farage showed the impossible is possible if you just believe in it and fight this fight - he did that for more than two decades and that makes him a role model for us," von Storch said.
"(I'm trying) to get a proper debate going in the biggest, richest and most important, powerful country in Europe about not just the shape of Brexit but perhaps even the shape of the European project to come," Farage told reporters. He said the German candidates for chancellor had failed to discuss Brexit as it was a "huge embarrassment for the European dream that both of them have had."
Farage said he believed Chancellor Angela Merkel would probably be better for Brexit as she was more likely to agree to a free trade deal between Britain and the EU. Martin Schulz, Farage said, as a previous president of the European Parliament, was a "pro-EU fanatic."
He stepped down as leader of the UK Independence Party after the referendum, but has been linked to a possible return as the party appears to have lost its way in the absence of its guiding force.
DW Conflict Zone interviews Nigel Farage
In an interview with DW Conflict Zone, former UKIP leader and prominent Brexiteer Nigel Farage talked about the future of the EU, political correctness and a UK-US trade deal. Here are his most notable comments.
Image: DW
The future of the EU, according to Nigel Farage
In an interview with DW Conflict Zone, former UKIP leader and prominent Brexiteer Nigel Farage talked about the future of the EU, political correctness and a UK-US trade deal. Here are his most notable comments.
Image: DW
On Brexit and the future of the EU
Farage said the "European project is dying before our eyes. It doesn't work. There's very little residual love for it." "It would be a bad thing for the people of Europe if the political class of Europe willfully go for a bad deal with Britain because they want to punish us." "Euroskepticism is on the march everywhere."
Image: picture alliance/dpa/J. Kalaene
On Merkel's refugee policy
In June 2016, Farage said the possibility of attacks by migrants like the sexual assaults in Cologne would be the nuclear bomb of the Brexit referendum. "I think they were in the end ... If I look back on that referendum, and there were lots of factors that led to a Brexit vote … I do think what Ms. Merkel did make a very big difference in the British referendum, I genuinely mean that."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Kappeler
On Trump and a quick US-UK trade deal
Farge said he thinks there was "genuine shock amongst the American administration that the British government was not in a position to accept their generous offer." "And sadly, I think we should have ignored the EU. I think we should have just gone in straight into a trade negotiation, we didn't do so. I'm sorry about it."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/E. Vucci
On calling Obama a 'loathsome creature'
In November 2016, Farage called former US President Barack Obama a "loathsome creature." "He insulted the whole British people. He insulted the British nation for eight years," Farage told DW Conflict Zone. "He looked down his nose at us and he saw Germany as his primary ally in Europe."
Image: Getty Images/WPA Pool/B. Stanstall
On political correctness
Farage came under fire earlier in April for comparing EU ministers to the mafia. After being told his language was unacceptable, Farage acknowledged the "national sensibilities" involved, offering instead that MEPs were behaving like "gangsters." "The idea that you can't make a comment about someone because they're female or they're Jewish … is nonsense," Farage told DW Conflict Zone.
Image: picture alliance
On his political career with UKIP
"Can you think of a political party in the West in modern times that’s been more successful than UKIP? Because I can’t. We've changed British history." "I didn't come into politics for a career. I came into politics to try and change things and boy we've done that," he said. "We opted for making our own decisions and steering our own ship. And that I believe to be right in all circumstances."
Image: picture-alliance/PA Wire/P. Toscano
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The anti-immigration and anti-Islam AfD founded in 2013 could be the first far-right party in the Bundestag since the end of World War II. It is at around 11 percent and on course to become the third-largest party in German politics in the September 24 elections.
German Social Democrat (SPD) leader Martin Schulz described the event as "a disgrace." Schulz - Chancellor Angela Merkel's main election rival - accused the AfD of right-wing extremism and employing rhetoric from the 1920s and 1930s.
