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BORIS JOHNSON welcomed his Estonian counterpart to Downing Street today, despite his links to a far-right, anti-migrant and anti-semitic party.
Receiving a foreign leader for the first time since becoming Prime Minister, Mr Johnson shook hands with “centrist” Estonian PM Juri Ratas and led him inside 10 Downing Street to discuss post-Brexit plans.
Mr Ratas went into coalition earlier this year with the far-right Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (Ekre), whose leader Martin Helme once said about migrants in an TV interview: “If they’re black, show them the door. I want Estonia to be a white country.”
One of Ekre’s “10 commandments” compiled in 2017 was to “put an end to ‘homo and multiculturalist propaganda’ in schools and kindergartens.”
Mr Helme has also campaigned to repeal the cohabitation Act that has allowed LGBT couples to enter civil partnerships.
Ekre also reportedly has nazi sympathisers among its membership.
Jewish socialist campaigner David Rosenberg told the Star: “It is no great surprise that Boris Johnson’s first meeting with another EU head of government since he became Prime Minister was with Prime Minister Juri Ratas of Estonia.
“Ekre’s youth wing, Blue Awakening, hold torchlit nationalist marches calling for an ‘eternal Estonian ethno-state.’
“The plan by Ratas to form a pact with Ekre was heavily criticised at the time by leaders of Estonia’s small Jewish community. As Jewish socialists here, we completely share their fears.
“For the last 10 years, Britain’s Conservative Party has been happily allied with Islamophobic, anti-semitic and anti-migrant parties in Europe.
“We don’t expect Johnson to break that pattern, but we should demand that Jewish bodies here end their silence on these repugnant Tory links.”