Bob Geldof has accused MPs betraying Winston Churchill through their use of language, as he hit out at a lack of political leadership.
Addressing a major youth summit, Geldof claimed the language used in Parliament is “one of demagoguery”.
The Boomtown Rats singer, 68, also labelled US President Donald Trump a “fool” and Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, a “thug” in an emotive speech which drew laughs and large applause.
Introduced as the “Grumpy old uncle" to the audience at Central Hall, Westminster, on Wednesday evening, he said: “The language that they [politicians] speak is one of demagoguery, you can hear it now in this betrayal of Churchill, in that house across the road.
“It’s mob language, language of violence, language of irreconcilability, language of mistrust, language of division, enough, please, we know where it leads.”
Geldof, a pro-EU activist infamously hired a barge on the Thames to disrupt Nigel Farage’s Leave campaign flotilla at the 2016 EU referendum.
He added: “In this world of volatility, confusion and mistrust, we retreat to certainty, our generation retreats to the bromides and fortuities of our past, younger people retreat to the certainties of the strong man, the admiration for thugs like Putin, autocrats like Jiping, fools like Trump.”
The keynote speech occurred during the second day of the One Young World Summit, in London which brings together 2,000 young people from 190 countries to speak about issues affecting the planet.
Geldof has been a Counsellor for the event since the first summit in 2010.
