Yahoo Finance UKIP leader claims EU based on Nazi plan for European domination
UKIP leader Gerard Batten has sparked controversy by claiming that the EU is based on a Nazi plan to rule the continent if they had won world war two.
The London MEP said the European economic community, which Britain joined in 1973 and later became the EU, was a “Nazi legacy” that inspired current policies like farming subsidies.
Batten made the comments at the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a debate on the future of Europe with Poland’s prime minister.
He said: “The Germans lost the shooting war but they did not lose their ambitions. Nazi Germany left us a legacy.
“Back in, I think it was 1942, when the Germans thought they were going to win the war, they wrote a plan for how they were going to govern their new empire.
“It was called the European economic community. They were going to have interest rates linked to the Reichsmark, they were going to have a common agricultural policy, a common industrial policy, a common policy for everything.
“That plan resurfaced in 1957 as the European Economic Community.”
Batten was heckled by other MEPs in the chamber as he made the remarks.
Labour’s leader in the European Parliament, Richard Corbett, called Batten’s comments “completely unacceptable.”
He said they were a “mix of paranoia, fantasy and historical revisionism with their trademark topping of xenophobia.”
“Ukip and Gerard Batten are an embarrassment to Britain and a complete waste of time and money,” Corbett concluded.
The plan for the foundation of what has become the EU was created by two French politicians, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet.
During world war two, Schuman served in the French resistance and Monnet worked for the British government before taking a post in the French government in exile.
After the war, they created what became the European steel and coal community in an effort to stop future wars between French and Germany over resources.
At the same time, Winston Churchill was calling for a “United States of Europe.”
Batten returned to world war two later in his speech as he appealed for the Polish prime minister to use his place in the European Council to support Brexit.
“I would ask you, as we came to your assistance in 1939, that you come to our assistance,” he said.
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