Sky News political anchor Adam Boulton has accused the Brexit Party’s ambition to be included in negotiations with the European Union as being “close to authoritarian fascism”.
The remark came during a terse interview between the veteran broadcaster and MEP candidate Alexandra Phillips of the Brexit Party, where Boulton attempted to rubbish calls by Nigel Farage for his party to be invited to help the Brexit negotiations process if they win the European Parliament elections this week.
Boulton interrupted Phillips’s explanation of the rationale for the request, by asking, apparently rhetorically, “You’re not serious”, adding, “So you’re saying, without winning any representation at Westminster, you think the Brexit Party should be involved in the negotiations officially?
“…This is, this is, I mean, this is getting, this is getting close to authoritarian fascism,” he alleged, claiming the EU elections were “not directly relevant” to the Brexit negotiations.
Phillips fought back, calling Boulton’s assertion “absurd” and pointing out, “what we have [on May 23rd] is the first democratic opportunity for the people of the UK to say to the establishment, ‘we’re not happy with what you have done since that referendum’, and use democratic means to express that point of view”.
While it is common for British broadcasters, bound by the country’s impartiality regulations, to play Devil’s Advocate in interviews, Boulton’s interrogation seemed on this occasion to pass beyond that line.
The Sky anchor, who has been embroiled in several controversies recently, including the leak of a foul-mouthed off-air rant against his own colleagues in October, and a tweet which appeared to suggest an incident involving Jewish people being spat on in London could be explained by the fact it took place in “a Middle Eastern quarter” earlier in May, later appeared to confirm he was expressing his own views in the exchange.
“To demand a role in a UK government decision on the basis of a vote in a low turnout election for a parliament you don’t want or plan to serve in is pretty sinister,” he insisted in reply to a clip of the interview posted by the Leave.EU campaign on Twitter.
Boulton received hundreds of overwhelmingly negative replies, with one Brexit supporter firing back: “The only sinister thing going on here @adamboultonSKY is your ongoing activist journalism in support of Remain. We no longer regard you as a journalist and don’t care what you say anymore. Just keep talking to your anti-democratic Remainer cronies in your low-rent echo chamber.”
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