BRUSSELS—A British conservative member of the European Parliament has caused an uproar during this week’s plenary session in Strasbourg by urging his colleagues to remember that National Socialism was a ‘’left-wing ideology.’’
“You have to remember that Nazis were National Socialists, a strain of socialism,” Syed Kamall, who heads the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) political group in the parliament , during a parliamentary debate with Social Democrat lawmakers.
The head of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats group (S&D), Udo Bullman, condemned Kamall’s “disgusting comparison” and reminded him that “Social Democrats throughout Europe resisted Hitler’s regime and paid for it with their lives.”
Kamall later apologized for offending his socialist colleagues, but did not apologize for making the comparison. He insisted he is “tired” of people “saying that Nazism is a right-wing ideology.”
Parliament President Antonio Tajani, seeking to calm things down after Kamall’s speech, praised the EU for having helped to overcome both Nazi and Communist totalitarianism.