Nigel Farage, on behalf of the EFDD Group. – Mr President, I would like to say to Mr Orbán: thank God, there is at least one European leader prepared to stand up for his principles, his nation, his culture and his people. In the face of such extreme bullying, ‘thank God you’re there’ is all I can say.

I am sure that for Hungarians of a certain age today will have brought back many dark memories. You’re here with a show trial where a bunch of political non-entities get up and point the finger and scream, enjoying themselves with their afternoon hate, and the chief prosecutor, the commissar that comes from the unelected government, has the audacity to lecture you on democracy.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. The fact that you’ve got 50% of the vote in your country and that no one has ever voted for Timmermans or can’t remove him seems to have passed him by. He’s also telling you ‘you’re not getting your judicial appointments right, you’ve got to change things’. This is the man who is one of the bosses of the European Commission that appoints Martin Selmayr, driving a coach and horses through all the rules that exist here.

What is really happening here, Mr Orbán, is that they are just updating the Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty. There’s no point pretending in this union that you’re independent, there’s no point pretending you run your own country. And Article 7 is the new method of adopting that. They want to strip you of your voting rights, they want to stop giving you European funding, and all of it because you have the audacity to stand up to George Soros, the man who has poured USD 15 billion all over the world in trying to break down the nation states and to get rid of our traditional forms of democracy. In Hungary he spent money to promote illegal immigration into your country and you, quite rightly, have stood up to him and closed him down. I wish we all did the same.

Mr Orbán, you keep saying you want to stay a member of this European Union, but it is not just your country that has been insulted today. You’ve been insulted today. It is time to be more logical. Come and join the Brexit club. You’ll love it.