Outspoken: Emma Thompson, pictured at the Berlin Film Festival last night, suggested Britain should want to ‘take borders down, not put them up’

She has never been afraid of spouting her London metropolitan elite views on matters of political importance.

So it is no surprise that Emma Thompson waded into the referendum debate with a bizarre rant against the UK.

The outspoken darling of the Left sparked outrage yesterday by deriding Britain as a ‘tiny cake-filled misery-laden’ island which must stay in the European Union.

She was accused of ‘doing our country down’ after telling journalists that the UK was nothing more than a ‘little cloud-bolted, rainy corner’ of Europe.

The Oscar-winning actress said she felt ‘European’, even though she lived in the UK and said it would be ‘madness’ for Britain to leave the EU.

She suggested we should want to ‘take borders down, not put them up’.

The 56-year-old was promoting her new film Alone In Berlin in the German capital, when she waded into the issue – just days before David Cameron is due to meet European leaders in Brussels to hammer out the final details of his renegotiation deal.

Asked for her thoughts on the possibility of a Brexit, Miss Thompson held forth for several minutes about how people would be ‘mad’ to vote to leave.

‘I feel European even though I live in Great Britain, and in Scotland as well, you know,’ she said.

Leftie luvvie: Miss Thompson is pictured at a Sense and Sensibility film screening at the Berlin Film Festival last night in tribute to the late Alan Rickman, one day after she told reporters that she felt 'European'

Backlash from Brexit campaigners: Daniel Hannan questioned in what sense Britain was a 'tiny little island'

Tory MP: Stewart Jackson said he 'couldn't give a monkeys' about what Miss Thompson thinks about Brexit

'Silly bottom': Former MEP Godfrey Bloom, who was expelled from Ukip for making inflammatory remarks, today suggested he would 'spank' the award-winning actress

‘So of course I’m going to vote to stay in Europe, are you kidding? Oh my God, of course. It would be madness not to; it’s a crazy idea not to. We should be taking down borders not putting them up.’

Then in answer to a question about the migration crisis, she then went on to apparently disparage the UK, saying: ‘I’m living in Europe, of course, as it were, well a tiny little cloud-bolted, rainy corner of sort-of Europe, I mean really, a cake-filled, misery laden, grey old island.’

SERIAL SPOUTER OF LEFTIE DOGMA Emma Thompson has a reputation for nauseatingly holier-than-thou comments. Here are some of the luvvie’s worst: ‘It’s unfortunate, and I really wish I wouldn’t have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They’re kinder.’

She told students at Exeter University that her adopted African son had been racially abused during his time there and that the Far Right BNP leader Nick Griffin would ‘feel very comfortable’ in the city. This followed her saying: ‘Exeter is very white and middle class and needs to be cracked open a bit.’

‘[The Government] is so corrupted by its nature, it’s corrupt in its own nature, not even in the sense of corruption, how we know that word, it’s the power that is corrupt, for me it is over, leadership is non-existent.’

‘It’s not my fault that there is this gap between rich and poor; it is the fault of governments. I want a different world.’

‘I am encouraged by people like [the comedian] Russell Brand saying “Don’t vote”.’

Opposing Tesco’s plan to open a store two miles from her home: ‘I write to voice my profound objections to (yet another) Tesco Express on Haverstock Hill. The people who live there do not want it. They already have food shops – ones they trust and that retain a local feel to them. Wherever Tesco’s goes, the local feeling is destroyed by staff who neither know or care to know the inhabitants – your staff are always meanly paid and without any stake in either their employers’ interests or the interests of the local people.’

‘London has always been a haven for victims of cruelty, and been improved by them. Yet I can see it changing now. Outsiders are demonised; there are little bits of legislation; people are scared.’

Speaking as an ambassador for the charity ActionAid: ‘Why in this world do we find money for war when we are faced with the Aids virus, the greatest threat to human existence in our history? Why is it possible for our governments to exhibit what I describe as psychotic detachment? It is extraordinary that all this is going on and we have not done anything.’

‘I can’t stand it, I can’t bear the fact that [exploration companies] are going to drill for oil. They’re not drilling for f***ing oil in the Arctic! The Arctic belongs to us, all of us, they can’t be allowed to do that, so whatever it takes … non-violent direct action, civil disobedience, you have to do it!’ Advertisement

In the press conference about the film, a screen adaptation of Hans Fallada’s 1947 novel about a German act of resistance to the Nazis in wartime Berlin, Miss Thompson could only bring herself to refer to England in a disparaging fashion.

She spoke of how ‘England’s fascistic side’ affected the UK’s view of Germany and the Second World War.

She said: ‘If you consider I was born in 1959, it’s only 14 years after the war ended. All the films I saw while growing up about Germans were about the war and us being marvellous and beating the Nazis. I was completely brainwashed, I realise.’

Citing Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler, she added: ‘It wasn’t until I started reading about it, and reading about that many Germans felt they had been invaded by the Nazis as much as anyone else. That was for me was key.’

Miss Thompson, who is said to be worth £30million, is a lifelong Labour supporter who said last year that she believed Jeremy Corbyn was ‘very sound and intelligent’ and could win the next election.

Last night, campaigners for Britain to leave the European Union branded her an ‘overpaid Leftie luvvie’ and said her remarks were ‘incredibly disappointing’ and ‘utterly defeatist and negative’.

Tory MP Stewart Jackson said: ‘I really couldn’t give a monkeys what overpaid Leftie luvvie Emma Thompson thinks about Brexit.’

Fellow Tory MP Steve Baker, chairman of ‘Out’ campaign group Conservatives for Britain, added: ‘It’s always incredibly disappointing to see a star doing our country down. We are much greater than this.’

Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP tweeted: ‘In what sense is Britain a “tiny little island”, Emma Thompson? Geography? Economics? Diplomatic reach? Which are the bigger islands?’

And Ukip leader Nigel Farage told the Huffington Post UK: ‘This is utterly defeatist and negative. We believe in Britain, and that we can thrive as a self-governing, independent nation.’

Meanwhile Tory MP Conor Burns said: ‘If she hates our country so much she is very welcome to leave. It is debatable she would be much missed.

‘Ms Thompson is typical of the worst sort of fat-cat luvvie. Most Britons love Britain and will see the referendum as a celebration of the democracy our ancestors died to defend.

'Sadly, they also died to allow snooty ladies like Ms Thompson to vent their metropolitan elitist snobbery.’

Another Tory MP, Kwasi Kwarteng, added: ‘Emma Thompson does not know what she is talking about. We are about to become the biggest economy in the world.’

Miss Thompson and her husband, fellow actor Greg Wise, are known for being outspoken on social and political issues.

She gave a controversial interview to Newsnight in September saying Britain had failed to take in thousands of refugees from Calais because of ‘racism’.

She told the programme the UK’s response to the refugee crisis in Europe was ‘really shaming’.

Last year she campaigned with Greenpeace against Shell drilling for oil in the Arctic and penned an open letter to Tesco to voice her ‘profound objections’ to one of its stores being built near her £3.5million home in leafy West Hampstead, north London.

Drama queen: The star (pictured on Monday) was promoting her new film Alone In Berlin in the German capital

Mr Wise – who describes himself as a ‘profound f***ing Socialist’ declared last year that he and his wife would refuse to pay tax until those involved in the HSBC tax avoidance scandal went to prison.

Miss Thompson’s remarks on the EU stand in stark contrast to those of fellow movie star Michael Caine, 82, who last month endorsed the campaign to get Britain out of Europe.

We should be taking down borders not putting them up Emma Thompson

He said the country should no longer be ‘dictated to by thousands of faceless civil servants’ in Brussels.

Other stars have weighed in with their views on the EU debate. Sir Michael Gambon made clear he also believed Britain was better off in the EU last month.

He said: ‘I don’t think we should leave the EU, it would be wrong. I don’t think it’s right.’

Miss Thompson and Mr Wise have a 15-year-old daughter Gaia and adopted their son Tindyebwa, a Rwandan refugee in 2003.