Qatargate has exposed the staggering hypocrisy of the European left

Everyone in Britain has focused on what the Qatargate corruption scandal reveals about the European Union – but not on what it tells us about the European left.

The fact is that all those so far accused of taking bribes from Qatar and its ally Morocco are left-wing MEPs – or former MEPs – and their assistants, or else bosses of left-wing human rights charities or trade union leaders. Most are Italians who are members, or ex-members, of Italy’s post-communist party – the Partito Democratico (PD).

The hypocrisy of these prize exponents of the Euro left – some of whom, according to leaked transcripts of their interrogations, have already in part confessed – is staggering. For these defenders of the rights of the poor and the downtrodden are accused no less of systematically taking bribes from the small gas-rich Islamic state in the Persian Gulf (among other things) to whitewash its dire human rights record.