Brown conquers the sceptics in Strasbourg
A busy Strasbourg session was given further excitement with Gordon Brown's arrival this afternoon. The Prime Minister took part in a debate in the Parliament on the preparation of the crucial G20 summit, before meeting with the Labour MEPs and then the Socialist group, and then travelling on to New York for further preparatory talks.
Gordon's passionate speech, which ranged from the need for regulatory reform and investment to deal with the financial crisis to tackling climate change and maintaining overseas development aid, was from the heart and certainly confounded those who claim that he is a eurosceptic - his final sentence called for a "united Europe founded on shared ideals", while he was at pains to stress that he was "proud to be British and proud to be European". Among Socialist colleagues, the consensus was that it was a great speech and he was given a rousing standing ovation from all national delegations in our group and beyond (even managing to get applause from Danny Cohn-Bendit, the leader of the Greens).
Eurosceptics were represented by some particularly wild contributions (even by their standards) from Nigel Farage and Dan Hannan. Farage argued that parliamentary democracy doesn't work, neither at Westminster nor in the European Parliament. A bizarre rant, which brought a knowing smile from Gordon!
Labels: Gordon Brown, Nigel Farage, Parliament, Strasbourg

