Magid Magid: Muslim MEP ‘asked to leave European Parliament’ on first day

The 30 year old was elected as a Green MEP for Yorkshire and Humber in May

Green Party MEP candidate and former Sheffield Lord Mayor Magid Magid speaks during the launch of the Green Party's European election campaign in central London on May 8, 2019. / AFP / Tolga Akmen
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A British-Muslim MEP has claimed that he was asked to leave the European Parliament on his first day.

Magid Magid, who was elected after May’s European elections as a Green Party representative for the Yorkshire and Humber region, said he did not know who the person was that asked him to leave.

Mr Magid said he thought the individual was a staff member.

The European Parliament said none of its staff were involved in the incident.

Mr Magid, who was wearing a black T-shirt emblazoned with the message “[expletive]  fascism” at the time, said the person had asked him if he was lost.

“I know I'm visibly different. I don't have the privilege to hide my identity. I'm BLACK & my name is Magid. I don't intend to try fit in. Get used to it!” he wrote on Twitter.

The 30 year old later thanked people for the support he had received. “I obviously didn't leave. But to even be put in this position says a lot about what people think the stereotypical politician is meant to look like,” he said.

A spokesperson for the European Parliament said: "We investigated the matter immediately after our attention was brought to it and can safely say that no member of Parliament staff was involved."

Mr Magid, who came to Britain in 1994 as a child refugee from Somalia, is an anti-Brexit politician who came to prominence after he became the youngest councillor to hold the role of Lord Mayor of Sheffield.