Police in Brussels have stormed a right-wing conference attended by Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman after orders for the event to be shut down.
Local authorities ordered the controversial National Conservatism (NatCon) Conference to be closed to “guarantee public safety”.
Ms Braverman, the former home secretary, and Mr Farage, the former Ukip leader, were among the political names advertised to speak at the event on Tuesday alongside right-wing Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban.
Officers arrived after the event began at the Claridge venue in central Brussels to tell organisers the event would be shut down. According to a report on social media, police arrived while Mr Farage was addressing the event, giving attendees 15 minutes to leave the venue. However, officers did not appear to force the event to shut down and speeches continued.
Police have now said they will not let anyone else into the venue and people can leave and not re-enter.
The conference has already had to move location twice after mayors within the Brussels region refused the meeting’s chosen venues.
Emir Kir, mayor of the area where the conference was held, said: “I issued an order from the mayor to ban the ‘National Conservatism Conference’ event to guarantee public safety.
“In Etterbeek, Brussels City and Saint-Josse, the far-right is not welcome.”
Conference organisers said they were launching a legal challenge to Mr Kir’s order, adding: “There is no public disturbance and no grounds to shut down a gathering of politicians, intellectuals, journalists, students, civic leaders, and concerned citizens.
“The police entered the venue on our invitation, saw the proceedings and the press corps, and quickly withdrew. Is it possible they witnessed how peaceful the event is?”
Before the event began, Mr Farage criticised the Belgian capital’s leadership for reportedly pressuring venues to cancel the conference.
Mr Farage said Brussels “appears to have got even worse” since Brexit and that cancel culture is “alive and well”.
“On my way back to Brussels, it’s my first public visit there for four years since the day I left on the eve of us leaving the EU,” he said in a video posted on X.
“Would you believe that Brussels appears to have got even worse in the four years since I’ve been there.
“We’ve now had not one but two venues cancel us holding this conference. Apparently the socialist mayor of Brussels doesn’t think this meeting should take place. Antifa and other organisations threatening to protest.
“I mean talk about cancel culture, these are political parties that are going to come top of the poll in at least nine European countries when we get the results through on June 10 of this year. So on my way back to the ghastly Brussels, cancel culture alive and well.”
The conference is hosted by the Edmund Burke Foundation think tank, which declares its aim to be “strengthening the principles of national conservatism in Western countries”.
Ms Braverman and Mr Orban were unveiled as the event’s keynote speakers last month.
Mr Orban is widely seen as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the European Union and has been accused of launching a crackdown on gay rights and press freedom.
The Liberal Democrats criticised Ms Braverman over her plans to “share a platform with a far-right authoritarian”.
Lib Dem foreign affairs spokesman Layla Moran said at the time of the announcement: “No politician should be sharing the stage with an ally of Vladimir Putin as he carries out his barbaric invasion of Ukraine.”
She added that it was “staggering” that a former home secretary “would think that this is the right thing to do”. “From cries of a conspiratorial deep state to sharing a platform with a far-right authoritarian, the Conservative Party has gone completely off the rails,” she added.
Ms Braverman used a speech at the last NatCon conference, in London last May, to set out her hardline vision for British Conservatism and railed against “experts and elites” amid claims of fresh government splits over immigration.
The then home secretary launched into a tirade against multiculturalism, “political correctness”, transgender people and identity politics.
She also said the government “needs to get overall immigration numbers down” and said some immigrants needed to “learn English and understand British social norms”.