Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has caused consternation after approvingly quoting the leader of a German far-right party whose senior figures have called for refugees to be shot.
The influential Tory Brexiteer posted a video of Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD, commenting on Brexit to his social media profile.
The AfD, whose candidates have declared that Islam is worse than the plague and that refugee boats should be sunk, marched alongside neo-Nazis last year, leading to some of its members being put under formal state surveillance.
“You can tell a lot about the person by the company they keep”, one social media user commented under Mr Rees-Mogg’s tweet, while another added “Are you quoting the same AfD that had posters urging an ‘Islam-free’ Bavaria at a recent election?”
Labour MP David Lammy said: “Jacob Rees-Mogg promoting Germany’s overtly racist party, AfD. Our country’s proudest moment was defeating the far-right.
“Now we are supposed to sit back while xenophobes, nativists, nationalists and isolationists do their best to tear Europe apart again. We must not let them win.”
The AfD was kicked out of the Conservatives’ own European Parliament group, the ECR, in 2016 after former leader Frauke Petry said German police should shoot refugees.
In the video the AfD leader goes on a rant about Germany’s handling of Brexit stating: “The nonchalance, the indifference displayed by Brussels and Berlin [to Brexit] in the face of such an enormous event verges on a pathological denial of reality.”
In a segment highlighted by the Tory MP, she says: “Is it any wonder the British see bad faith behind every manoeuvre in Brussels?”
The endorsement by the Tory MP comes at a time of increasing scrutiny of Conservative politicians over their links to extremists and tolerance of Islamophobia in the party.
Earlier this year leading Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan endorsed Dutch white nationalist politician Thierry Baudet, an adherent of the “cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory.
Leading Brexiteers were last week reported by the BBC to have taken to calling themselves the “Grand Wizards” – a reference to the leaders of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
During a speech in Westminster last week Tory MP Suella Braverman claimed the UK was under threat from “cultural Marxism”, a far-right conspiracy theory that refers to a supposed plot to undermine western culture.
Meanwhile 15 Tory councillors who were suspended for alleged Islamophobia have been quietly reinstated without further sanction. Examples from that group include one leader of a Tory council who called far-right figure Tommy Robinson a “patriot”, while another said Muslims should be deported.
Last year Tory MEPs were left isolated among western European conservative parties after they voted to protect the Hungarian government of Viktor Orban from sanctions in the European Parliament.
Speaking on LBC radio on Monday morning Mr Rees-Mogg defended his association with the AfD, claiming that he was “not supporting the AfD” and that his tweet was “just pointing out that there is something worth watching”.
“I’m not supporting the AfD but this is a speech made in the Bundestag of real importance because it shows a German view of Brexit and it’s saying to Germans look, you’re paying for this, you’re going to pay more for this, and Angela Merkel has tied herself up in knots with the French to the disadvantage of the Germans and I think this is important that people know that this is a strand of German political thinking,” he said.
“I don’t think retweeting is an endorsement of things that other people stand for, it’s just pointing out that there’s something interesting that is worth watching.”
