Former Conservative minister Michael Portillo has strongly endorsed US Vice President JD Vance's criticism of European leaders, saying he "started cheering" when Vance referred to European Commissioners as "commissars".
Speaking on GB News, Portillo said many Britons would welcome such direct messaging to European leadership.
His comments came after Vance's controversial speech at the Munich Security Conference, where the US vice president launched what observers called a "scalding attack" on European democracies.
Portillo specifically criticised European leaders' handling of migration, stating they "have promised their populations again and again they are going to deal with migration".
Michael Portillo praised JD Vance's speech
POOL / GB NEWS
"They have done the opposite. Migration has gone up in all of these countries," he said on GB News.
He pointed to what he described as "terrorist incidents" occurring daily, which he said were "being interpreted as part of this migration problem".
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
- Vance praises Brexit during speech: 'No voter went to the ballot box to open the floodgates'
- Boris Johnson tells Starmer to make Ukraine ‘totally indigestible’ to Putin with bumper arms package
- Donald Trump 'speaks to Putin' as negotiations to end Ukraine war to 'start immediately'
Portillo suggested that British people were particularly pleased to see diplomatic conventions being challenged at the conference.
"I think a lot of people will have cheered," he said, adding that the public would be "happier" seeing European officials' shocked reactions to what they viewed as diplomatic "rudeness".
Michael Portillo spoke on GB News
GB NEWS
His comments referenced the stunned silence that met Vance's address, where traditional diplomatic protocols were set aside for direct criticism.
At the Munich Security Conference, Vance accused European Union "commissars" of suppressing free speech and retreating from fundamental values.
The US vice president told the conference that Europe's greatest threat was "from within", not from Russia or China.
He criticised European governments, including the UK's, for ignoring voter concerns on migration and free speech.
JD Vance spoke at the Munich Security Conference
REUTERSVance referenced Thursday's incident in Munich, where a migrant drove into a crowd, injuring 15 people.
The speech was met with immediate criticism from European leaders at the conference, with German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius calling it "not acceptable".
The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, characterised Vance as "trying to pick a fight" with Europe.
Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko described the speech as "the total humiliation of all European leaders", saying "people in the room are shocked".
A BBC correspondent later noted the speech "has gone down well...in Moscow", citing Russian media coverage.
