Complaint filed after Farage trolled by sign in parliament

A British Labour MP may be in a spot of bother after holding up a sign reading 'He's lying to you' behind former UKIP leader Nigel Farage in the European Parliament.

Seb Dance was told off by an usher in parliament for the sign, but managed to hold it up for the majority of Mr Farage's speech, which commended Donald Trump's ban on people from a smattering of Middle Eastern countries with Muslim majorities.

Screenshots of the incident were widely shared on social media, with Mr Dance himself retweeting many of them.

However Mr Dance may find himself in trouble after Mr Farage's UKIP colleague, MP Bill Etheridge, filed an official complaint to the European Parliament's president, Antonio Tajani.

The complaint claims the sign was a slanderous and not dealt with quickly enough.

"During the debate today regarding the USA border controls, a member of the British Labour party sat behind Nigel Farage MEP during his speech with a sign making a defamatory personal remark," Mr Etheridge's complaint reads.

"The officials failed to remove him until the end of the speech and when I raised the matter it was not treated with sufficient seriousness by the acting chair. I would like you to rule on this matter please sir."

Law experts have noted that while the statement may well have been defamatory, statements made during a parliamentary debate are privileged so cannot result in serious punishment.

Mr Dance says the sign was borne out of frustration, and he simply didn't want to "give him the chance to use his speech without challenge" on social media - which wasn't totally successful as Mr Farage cropped him out in a video of his speech posted on Twitter.

"I held the sign up because I am getting frustrated at the lack of challenge to nationalism and populism, and the rules in the European Parliament restrict the ability to challenge it," Mr Dance told The Telegraph.

"We had limited time to debate today, so I protested in the only way I knew how at that point, which was to grab a piece of paper, write a very simple message on it and sit behind Nigel Farage during his usual diatribe."

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