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Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party decided to turn their backs on the EU as they were sworn into the Parliament today.

The 29 MEPs stood with their backs turned as the European anthem ‘Ode to Joy’ was played in Strasbourg during the parliament’s opening.

Farage’s Brexit party arrived with its 29 newly elected politicians into the building to get sworn in this morning.

They decided to hold a photoshoot outside the building in Strasbourg as MEPs from across the bloc made their way to their new jobs.


Mr Farage said this morning he has a ‘funny feeling’ they might all still be there come November 1, the day after Britain is scheduled to exit the EU.



‘We’ll see!’ he said.

The 29 MEPs stood with their backs turned as the European anthem ‘Ode to Joy’ was played in Strasbourg (Picture: European Parliament)

Mr Farage led his MEPs in turning their backs (Picture: Reuters)

The Brexit Party chairman Nigel Farage, arrived with his MEPs today to be sworn in (Picture: AP)

Mr Farage said he was ‘not going to sit in there and listen to our country be talked down’ (Picture: EPS)

Elected parliament members attending the new European Parliament first session in Strasbourg today (Picture: AP)

Ann Widdecombe was one of the MEPs who turned her back at the anthem (Picture: Getty Images)

‘We’re not here to cause damage, we’re just here to be cheerfully defiant, to stand up for the people of the UK that clearly want to leave.

‘There’s a lot of evidence that Eurosceptic opinion has hardened over the last couple of months.

‘We’re not going to sit in there and listen to our country be talked down.

Liberal Democrats turned up to the first sitting of the parliament wearing identical yellow ‘B******* to Brexit’ t-shirts (Picture: Twitter)

The Liberal Democrats called the Brexit Party’s decision ‘pathetic’ (Picture: AP)

‘At the first sign of insult, they will know we’re here, don’t worry about that.’

However, the Brexit party were far from the only ones to pull a stunt.

The newly enlarged Liberal Democrat contingent from the UK turned up to the first sitting of the parliament wearing identical yellow ‘B******* to Brexit’ t-shirts.

Richard Corbett, a long-serving Labour MEP, said the Brexiteers ‘think they’re being clever by standing with their backs to the chair at the opening session’, adding that the move ‘looks pathetic and [has] not impressed anyone’.

Nigel Farage attends the first plenary session of the newly elected European Parliament (Picture: Reuters)

Catherine Rowett, a Green Party MEP, tweeted: ‘How silly and irritable can you look, turning your back on the Ode to Joy at the opening of Parliament.

‘Did people really elect them for that? Only Brexit Party have the gall to object to the sentiments of that anthem.’

The European parliament’s president, Antonio Tajani, rebuked those MEPs who did not immediately get to their feet.

‘[It] is a question of respect; it doesn’t mean that you necessarily share the views of the European Union. If you listen to the anthem of another country you rise to your feet.’

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