What happened in Brussels today was truly reminiscent of the old Soviet Union, says Nigel Farage

A conference being held by NatCon, National Conservatism, run by the Edmund Burke Society, based in Washington DC, bringing together conservative voices from America, the UK and the whole of Europe.

Attending the conference, members of European royal families, very senior businessmen and business women, elected representatives from national parliaments from the European Parliament, leaders of political parties who will top the polls in at least nine countries in the European Union in the June elections of this year and tomorrow morning, due to speak, the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban.

But of course, the devil of the whole piece is me, because the others are all skeptical about Brussels. I'm the one that led a campaign for us to leave it.

Indeed, I think the rest of Europe should leave it. So I'm used to being treated badly.

But what happened today to me and everybody else that expresses the view that ever closer political union is not a desirable goal is, I think, truly reminiscent in many ways of the old Soviet Union.

If you don't toe the line, you're to be banned. If you don't toe the line, you are mad, bad, probably mentally ill, and really quite dangerous.

So the conference was planned a couple of months ago. 48 hours ago, the venue that was holding this conference were contacted by the Mayor of Brussels, the Mayor of the whole city of Brussels, a man who was very happy to have the Mayor of Tehran here last year as a guest. They were contacted, and it was suggested they shouldn't go ahead with the conference. They cancelled.

We then moved on yesterday morning to a place, a Sofitel in Place Jordan. And last night, at about 7:30, the local mayor of that district of Brussels, a Belgium Liberal, a friend of my friend Guy Verhofstadt, said the conference can't go ahead. At 9:00 last night, the NatCon organisers found a venue in the San Jose district of Brussels run by a Tunisian businessman. It's effectively a nightclub. He said, look, I don't care what your opinions are, provided you stick within the law and don't smash the place up, I'm very happy to have your business.

And yet the local mayor of San Jose, a man who is being kicked out of the Belgian Socialist Party because of his links with extremist Islamist groups in Turkey, applied pressure on a level you can't believe, directly telephoning the owner of the club. The owner's wife being threatened online, suppliers who were due to bring in cutlery, crockery, food, drinks for lunch, being told if you deliver to this venue, to this event, you will go out of business.

And I turned up in the middle of all of this and whilst I was on stage, the Belgium Police came into the venue with an instruction from the local mayor to close down the meeting. Now, there were only three of them. There were many, many high hundreds inside the room. There were also TV cameras there from all over the world, and the police kind of bottled out of doing it.

But they closed the venue, didn't allow anyone else in, including former French presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who was denied entry to the building. Later on, the police were there in riot gear, fearing for public order.

Now there was no danger of public order from within the room, but a counter demonstration was planned, which about five or six saddos turned up to say we shouldn't be there, we're not entitled to our views. It has been truly the most extraordinary day in Brussels.

Now, for me, this is nothing. In my last years here, I was barred from coffee bars, barred from restaurants, even barred from a pub I'd been using for 20 years. But today they brought that cancel culture, they brought that intolerance onto the world stage.

And now, from British TV stations across America and the whole of Europe, everyone can see the true face of this European Union.