Nigel Farage has given another one of those must-watch speeches in the European Parliament today. The topic was the democracy crisis in Portugal, where the government has lost its majority but the anti-EU opposition is being prevented from attempting to form a coalition:

“This is the modern day implementation of the Brezhnev Doctrine. This is exactly what happened to states living inside the USSR . What is being made clear here with Greece and indeed with Portugal is that a country only has democratic rights if it’s in favour of the [European] project. If not, those rights are taken away. And perhaps none of this should surprises us as Mr. Juncker has told us before: there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties. And the German Finance Minister, Mr. Schäuble, has said: elections change nothing – there are rules. I think for anyone that believes in democracy, Portugal should be the final straw. It should be the warning that this project, [in order to] to protect itself and all its failings, will destroy the individual rights of peoples and of nations. My country has always believed in parliamentary democracy so strongly that twice in the last century it risked everything to fight for parliamentary democracy, not just for Britain but for the rest of Europe too. And I actually believe that for all of us that believe in democracy and want to see it reimplemented, the British referendum offers a golden opportunity.”

The opposition in Portugal might be socialists, but the country is effectively suspending democracy to prevent Eurosceptics with a massive electoral mandate from taking power…