UKIP MEP Paul Nuttall sparked fury in the European Parliament when he compared outgoing European Council President Herman Van Rompuy to Saddam Hussein’s information minister “Comical Ali” during his address at the Conference of Presidents.

Specifically, Mr. Nuttall said:

“You’ve come here to talk about the European Council, Ukraine, energy, the economy. It all seems very business as usual to me but I’ve also listened to you for the past five years now and I’d like to give you a critique on what I’ve heard. Much of the time you’ve reminded me of that other great statesmen of our time, Comical Ali. You remember him, Saddam Hussein’s information minister. The man who told the world’s press that there were no Americans in Iraq yet tanks were rolling into Baghdad behind him.”

At that time, European Parliament President Martin Schulz told him that he was being “unacceptable”, and Mr. Nuttall, replacing UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who had welcomed Mr. Van Rompuy to the EP by calling him a “damp rag”, decided to give a UKIP farewell that Mr. Van Rompuy won’t forget.

Mr. Nuttall, continued, by stating:

“So what have you really achieved in your five years as president of this council? You helped destroy democracy in Greece and in Italy by helping to remove two democratically elected Prime Ministers, replacing them with two europhile puppets whose strings were pulled from Brussels.You’ve also achieved a massive growth in youth unemployment which is now averaging 50 percent in Greece, Spain and Italy. This is literally over one million young Europeans who are living their lives in despair, unable to find a job and some who are fleeing the continent altogether. The Spanish are going to Argentina, Portuguese to Brazil and even Angola! And it seems everyone else is coming to Britain.”