Godfrey Bloom does it again

The MEP and Ukip member Godfrey Bloom seems to have done it again.

UPDATE: The video above was released by Oxford Union on Monday.

On Friday, Mr Bloom took part in a debate on immigration at the Oxford Union, supporting the motion that “Post-war Britain has seen too much immigration.”

After Bloom’s speech, the President took speeches from the student members of the Union.

A male student made an impassioned speech against the motion, and delivered a ferocious attack on the MEP, who no longer takes the Ukip whip in the European Parliament, but still shares a flat in Brussels with the party leader Nigel Farage.

Bloom then intervened, and asked the student: “Are you Richard III?”

“It was gruesome,” says the writer Douglas Murray who later spoke on the same side as Bloom.  “The heart sank.  It was the cruellest thing.  That was the low light of the evening,” says Murray.  “He isn’t exactly a helpful person to make a case.”

“It was so nasty,” says another speaker.

Godfrey Bloom has told me, however, that his remark was taken in good spirit by the student, who he says is called Dave.

“We enjoyed a good drink and a laugh until one o’clock in the morning on the strength of it.”

Then, before putting the phone down on me, Bloom concluded: “You phone him and speak to him.”

I certainly will, if I can get hold of Dave’s number.

Bloom is notorious for his Bongbongoland comment, his talk of “sluts”, and his rapping me over the head with a Ukip brochure.

Update

I have now made contact with David Browne, the student who was the victim of Godfrey Bloom’s Richard III attack.  He says the above account in accurate.

“I didn’t think it was a very nice thing to say,” he says.  “I wasn’t happy with the remark.”  But Browne doesn’t seem to have been as outraged by the comment as much as many others who were in the hall.

The undergraduate student, who comes from Belfast and is in his second year reading law at Merton College, says he was determined not to let Bloom’s comment ruin the evening.  So he says he quoted back at the MEP the words of Margaret Thatcher who said that people only resort to personal attacks when they have lost the political argument.

David Browne confirms Godfrey Bloom’s account that the two men spoke to each other at the drinks reception after the debate.  And Browne even posed for a picture with Bloom after the debate (see above).

“It’s fair to say that we did get on well,” he says.  “We didn’t bring it up again.  He’s a very interesting man to talk to.”

No apology was offered, however, and none was sought.

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