Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2017-03-15-Speech-3-461-000"
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"en.20170315.27.3-461-000"2
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"Madam President, democracy is democracy is democracy. The true test of the strength of your commitment to democracy is what happens when people start expressing views that you do not like. We have heard some pretty awful examples, frankly, of the expression of freedom of speech right here. This House contains everything from communists to fascists – vile views from far-right to far-left. When we hear things like Korwin-Mikke’s views on women and equal rights, I do not want to defeat them through suppression and penalties. I want them to be defeated at the ballot box. When we hear communism or fascism expressed in this Chamber, or frankly anywhere else, I want it defeated in public democratic debate.
And so it is, I think with the European political parties. Weber wants to state-fund them, but only if he likes their views of the European Union. Well, state-funding views that you like and suppressing those that you do not that is not Voltaire. That is Orwell.
I think a lot of people who are pro-EU fear eurosceptic views and fear the popularity of eurosceptic views. But you cannot stop an idea whose time has come, and our time came on 23 June last year. I always try to take a broader perspective, to ask what it would be like if the boot was on the other foot. I just wonder, from the UK, I am a unionist, but could you imagine the uproar if the British government had treated the Scottish nationalists in this way? I do not agree with their secessionist mantra, but is the right of the people of Scotland to decide their own future, as they recently did in a referendum. If we in the UK treated the Scottish nationalists in the way that this place treats eurosceptics, then the people would be up in arms. It is a testament to how ineffective those European political parties are that nobody even notices. I would rather scrap them altogether, stop pouring taxpayers’ money at it. Which is it going to be: Orwellian groupthink or democracy?"@en1
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