Václav Klaus, the Czech statesman who came to prominence during the anti-communist Velvet Revolution in 1989 and who subsequently became both Prime Minister and President of the central European country made a surprise speech the Brexit Party’s Rally for Democracy in London on Tuesday.
Speaking at the event, probably the largest political rally to take place in the United Kingdom during this election cycle before the country votes on Thursday, President Klaus congratulated the British for voting to take back control from the European Union and threw his support behind the Brexit Party movement.
Underlining that Brexit was a rejection of the European Union at Brussels and not of the people of Europe, President Klaus told the central London rally that when Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016, it was celebrated by supporters of democracy across the continent. He said:
Dear Brexit friends, I am extremely honoured and extremely pleased to have been asked to come here this evening… I would like to start by saying something that you should know. You have many friends in the Czech Republic, many friends generally [in Europe].
…I have to tell you in the moment where we first heard the results of the Brexit referendum, many Czechs opened champagne bottles! It was a great event, and not just for you, but for us as well. It is not just your victory, but of all European democrats. It was an important message.
President Klaus also contrasted the failure of the British government to honour the 2016 democratic vote to leave Europe with the peaceful separation of his own country, the Czech Republic, with Slovakia 27 years ago. Lamenting that the British government didn’t ask for his advice, as the Prime Minister who led the Czech Republic out of the former Czechoslovakia, Klaus nonetheless noted that in that case, both sides wanted to find a solution to the split. With Brexit, the European Union not only wanted to frustrate Britain’s departure but also wanted to make an example to other potential leavers, he said.
Slamming the EU’s “post-democracy” system, Klaus also criticised Britain’s mainstream political parties for indecision and a hesitant attitude towards Brexit. The first democratically elected prime minister of the Czech Republic told the crowd:
As I look at it from Prague, the British main political parties totally failed, and betrayed and abandoned the British citizens, their own voters. It had, however, one positive side effect: by behaving in this way, they probably and unwillingly created the Brexit Party.
You didn’t plan to anticipate in these European elections, but I am sorry to say you have to! Without you, without my good friend Nigel Farage, without the Brexit Party, the British indecisiveness would continue. You have to win the elections and create a strong mandate to influence the political stance of your country.
…Dear Brexit friends, you should in the forthcoming elections give the whole rest of Europe a good example. Many Europeans need it, and many are waiting for it. Don’t disappoint them.
Echoing President Klaus’s comments, Brexit leader Nigel Farage told the crowds: “we are attempting a peaceful political revolution in this country. It is needed!”
Mr Farage also took the opportunity of his speech to slam the Electoral Commission, the UK government body charged with defending democracy but which has been characterised as acting in a politically motivated way to discredit the pro-Brexit movement. On the day that saw officers of the Commission launch what Farage described as a “dawn raid” on the Brexit Party’s offices to investigate allegations of financial impropriety, the Brexit leader told the audience Tuesday night that:
….after seven hours the electoral commission has not found a single misdeed by the Brexit Party of any kind at all. So let’s make it clear, shall we, make it clear to the conspiracy theorists. Those who think that somehow the Russians are funding up.
…[we need to] get rid of the Electoral Commission, full of political placemen who are part of the Westminster establishment.
The Brexit Party is approaching Thursday’s vote in a strong position, with pollsters putting them in first place and taking as high as 35 per cent of the public vote. British bookkeeper Betfair have slashed odds on the party, and now have them polling at up to 40 per cent on Thursday at two-to-one.
Breitbart London has reported the remarks of Czech statesman Václav Klaus in the past, when he spoke out against mass migration to Europe, and against what he called “forced multiculturalism“. In 2016 he illustrated the source of Euroscepticism among many central and eastern Europeans when he said the “Orwellian” European Union was growing like the old Communist regime which he and others help overthrow decades before.
Oliver JJ Lane is the editor of Breitbart London — Follow him on Twitter and Facebook
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