The Divided State of Europe

nivek

nivek

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Germany cannot exclude the AfD and claim to be a democracy​

Germany’s political establishment is having a collective nervous breakdown over the growing popularity of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, and it’s rather fascinating, albeit tragic, to watch. The AfD secured roughly 20 per cent of the national vote in February’s election and it now leads the polls after a disastrous start from the CDU-led new government. Germany elite may find the party distasteful, but it represents the views of millions of their fellow citizens.

The response of mainstream parties to the AfD’s success has been to propose banning it entirely, rather than defeat it politically. Just this week, two Green MPs said this must be done to “protect democracy”.

According to this view, democracy is to be saved by removing choice from those whose views they don’t like. It’s rather like amputating a patient’s leg to cure a limp – technically effective but missing the point entirely. This authoritarian reflex unfortunately extends far beyond party politics. German media outlets and parties in Cologne have reportedly agreed amongst themselves to speak only positively about migration during the upcoming local elections, a move that would’ve made Pravda editors blush. When Elon Musk penned an op-ed supporting the AfD last year, the collective pearl-clutching was audible from Berlin to Bavaria. How dare a foreign billionaire interfere in German democracy, they cried – apparently forgetting that Germany’s entire post-war political culture was designed by foreign powers with rather more invasive intentions.

The irony is that Germany’s democratic institutions were explicitly created to prevent exactly this sort of elite consensus from stifling dissent. The Federal Republic was built on the assumption that competition between ideas, however uncomfortable, produces better outcomes than manufactured unanimity. Yet today’s German establishment seems determined to prove that assumption wrong.

Perhaps most tellingly, it’s the Free Democrats (FDP) – Germany’s equivalent to Britain’s Liberal Democrats – who have emerged as the most vocal advocates for including the AfD in normal political discourse. This isn’t because the FDP shares the AfD’s views (it emphatically doesn’t), but because it understands that democracy requires engaging with uncomfortable opinions rather than simply wishing them away.

The FDP’s position reflects a fundamentally liberal insight. Banning parties doesn’t eliminate the grievances that created them; it merely drives them underground, where they fester and metastasise. Better to have the AfD’s supporters arguing their case in parliaments than plotting in beer halls.

Yet this reasonable position makes the FDP suspect in the eyes of Germany’s political mainstream, which has embraced what it calls the “Brandmauer” (“firewall”) against the AfD. This Brandmauer doesn’t just exclude the AfD from coalitions, it prohibits even engaging with their ideas or acknowledging that their supporters might have legitimate concerns about immigration, EU integration, or cultural change. The result is a democracy that functions more like an oligarchy, where a narrow range of approved opinions circulates amongst a self-selecting elite while millions of voters are effectively disenfranchised. It’s a system that would have made Metternich proud.

This democratic deficit has deep historical roots. Germany’s brief experiment with parliamentary democracy during the Weimar Republic ended catastrophically, simply because the core idea was not protected well enough – creating a national trauma that still shapes political behaviour today. The post-war constitution was designed to prevent another Hitler, but its contemporary interpreters seem to believe this requires preventing any significant political change whatsoever.

What emerges is a kind of militant moderation – a system so determined to avoid extremism that it becomes extreme in its own centrism. Politicians who stray too far from approved positions are ostracised; journalists who ask uncomfortable questions find their access restricted; voters who support the wrong parties are dismissed as dupes or deplorables.

This approach might be sustainable if Germany faced no serious challenges, but it manifestly does. The country grapples with a failed mass immigration experiment, bitter economic stagnation, demographic decline and cultural fragmentation. These are precisely the sorts of issues that require democratic debate rather than elite consensus. By refusing to engage with these challenges honestly, the mainstream parties guarantee that voters will turn to parties that will. The AfD’s rise isn’t a cause of democratic breakdown; it’s a symptom of a system that stopped listening to its own citizens.

The tragedy is that Germany possesses robust democratic institutions and a sophisticated electorate perfectly capable of handling difficult conversations about difficult subjects. Something we completely lost touch with during the Merkel years, where consensus was king. What the Berlin system now lacks is a political class confident enough in democratic processes to allow those conversations to occur.

Instead, German elites seem to believe that democracy works best when enlightened experts carefully circumscribe democratic choices. It’s a profoundly anti-democratic sentiment dressed up in democratic language – the sort of thinking that turned the European Union from a voluntary association into a technocratic empire.

Democracy, it turns out, requires freedom of choice and speech – even when it produces results that make comfortable people uncomfortable. Germans will eventually learn this lesson, though probably the hard way. The only question is how much damage its democracy will sustain in the meantime.

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nivek

nivek

As Above So Below

France is plunged into 'disorder and chaos' with second PM in a year set to be ousted by no-confidence vote while the country's economy collapses and Macron's ratings hit lowest ever​

A heavily divided French parliament is set to oust its second prime minister in a year in a no-confidence vote on Monday, plunging the country into political chaos as the key EU member teeters on the brink of catastrophic economic collapse. The government's almost inevitable breakdown comes as popularity for French President Emmanuel Macron plummets to a record low, with 77 percent of the nation not approving of his work and 64 percent calling for his resignation.

French MPs will debate a vote of no confidence in prime minister Francois Bayrou inside Paris's Assemblée Nationale after just nine months of him in office - a move which will most likely result in the country facing its fifth prime minister in less than two years. Bayrou blindsided even his allies by calling a confidence vote to end a months-long standoff over his austerity budget, which foresees almost 44 billion euros (£38.19 billion) of cost savings to reduce France's debt pile.

He has warned that there was a 'high risk of disorder and chaos' if MPs failed to back his budget, describing the nation's spiralling national debt as 'a terribly dangerous period… a time of hesitation and turmoil'. But Marine Le Pen, the leader of the hard-right National Rally party, said Bayrou was committing 'political suicide'.

Opposition parties across the board have made it clear they will vote against his minority government, making it highly improbable he will get enough backing to survive - he needs a majority of the 577 MPs in the National Assembly. Bayrou will become the second French prime minister in succession to have suffered such a fate after Michel Barnier was ejected in December after only three months in office.

Bayrou, the sixth prime minister under Macron since 2017, has given no indication in days of TV interviews that he expects to survive the vote. Instead, he has asked: 'Has our country understood the seriousness of the situation it finds itself in?' He is expected to address parliament in a final bid for support from 1300 GMT with the vote awaited from 1700 GMT.

After the vote, Macron will face one of the most critical decisions of his presidency: appointing the seventh prime minister of his mandate to thrash out a compromise, or call snap elections in a bid to have a more accommodating parliament.

The president is spearheading European efforts to end Russia's war on Ukraine, boosting his international profile. But polling at home does not make pretty reading, and he is forbidden from standing a third time in 2027. According to a poll by Odoxa-Backbone for Le Figaro newspaper, 64 percent of French want Macron to resign rather than name a new prime minister, a move he has explicitly ruled out. Some 77 percent of people do not approve of his work, Macron's worst ever such rating, according to an Ifop poll for the Ouest-France daily.

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nivek

nivek

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Starmer and Reeves have taken Britain to 'the edge of a crisis', warns former M&S boss Stuart Rose, and 'we should ALL be worried' about the state of the country​

Britain as ‘at the edge of a crisis’ and the Labour government must ‘change tack’ to revive the floundering economy, according to one of Britain’s leading businessmen. Lord Stuart Rose, the former boss of Marks & Spencer and Asda, said ‘we should all be worried about the state of Britain’ and called for ‘radical action’ to kick-start growth and create jobs.

The comments came just a day after the energy empire owned by Manchester United investor Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Ineos, said it has stopped investing in Britain in protest over Labour tax hikes. The criticism from two leading business figures piles pressure on Chancellor Rachel Reeves amid fears of further tax hikes in her autumn Budget in November. Labour has been widely criticised for derailing the economy since coming to power through a string of tax hikes. Ministers have also pledged to overturn amendments to its employment rights bill, despite warnings that the plans will cost jobs and make it harder for firms to grow and hire staff.

In a dramatic intervention on Tuesday morning, Lord Rose told Times Radio: ‘I think we should all be worried about the state of Britain today. 'Now, I am absolutely an optimist in my life. I've been working for over half a century. And today, I sit here and I look at the state of the nation and I say to myself, I believe we're genuinely at the edge of a crisis. ‘If we don't take some radical action and take notice of what's going on, we're going to find ourselves in a very difficult spot.’

Economists have even suggested that the situation is so bleak that the government may be forced to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout – as a previous Labour administration did in 1976.

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nivek

nivek

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Prince Harry is a shameless hypocrite. I know the real reason he visited the Queen's grave – do not be taken in by his act​

What a shameless hypocrite Prince Harry is. Having just arrived in the UK for his ‘pseudo royal’ tour, his first stop after being whisked through customs was to pay private homage to his beloved ‘Granny’ at her grave. Harry was snapped heading for Windsor Castle where, we were told, he laid a wreath and flowers on the late Queen’s grave – in the King George VI Memorial Chapel – and spent 20 minutes there in solitude.

How could he have done so, after all the damage and pain he caused her and the Monarchy in her final years?

Let’s hope he was on his knees begging for forgiveness after the cruel and calculating way he and Meghan traduced the Royal Family for the Sussex’s ill–gotten millions. He and Meghan turned what should have been the happy twilight of the Queen’s reign into one marked by false slurs – including that appalling suggestion of racism – controversy and occasionally unmitigated misery for the monarch.

Not least with their claim that the late Queen had approved them naming their daughter Lilibet – behaviour which, as my colleague, royal biographer Robert Hardman, says in his book on King Charles, infuriated the late Queen.

‘One [member of palace staff] privately recalled that Elizabeth II had been “as angry as I’d ever seen her” in 2021 after the Sussexes announced that she had given them her blessing to call their baby daughter Lilibet, the queen’s childhood nickname,’ he wrote. The Queen is reported to have said sadly that her nickname Lilibet was the only thing she truly owned for herself and she had been denied even that.

Ahead of Harry’s four-day trip it had been briefed, who knows by who, that it was pure coincidence that his arrival aligned with the third anniversary of the Queen’s death. Forgive the cynicism but, given his form, I’d say that’s utter tosh.

Harry and his scheming wife Meghan always have an eye for a headline and must have known of the anniversary as well as the potential publicity garnered by the solitary Prince being in the Chapel. A timely reminder to everyone perhaps that he is fifth in line to the throne, given that his royal status is the Sussexes' only currency for making money.

They probably also had a good inkling that his brother William would also be honouring their grandmother’s death on that day, so there was an opportunity to upstage him. Which Harry did by visiting poorly children, reinforcing the impression that he is the real heir to Diana, the Prince of People’s Hearts. Pass the sickbag.

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nivek

nivek

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Tommy Robinson leads 110,000 in 'biggest-ever' anti-migrant protest in London as scuffles break out with army of police officers and 5,000 counter-demonstrators rally nearby​

Tommy Robinson has led 110,000 thousand anti-migrant protesters through central London today in what is thought to be the largest right-wing demonstration in British history, as scuffles with police begin to break out this afternoon. The 'Unite The Kingdom' march, organised by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim activist Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, met at Stamford Street near London's Waterloo Bridge before making its way to the southern end of Whitehall.

Swathes of demonstrators turned out bedecked in Union Jacks and England flags at the Unite the Kingdom march - with many bearing pictures of Charlie Kirk, the American conservative activist who was shot dead in Utah on Wednesday. Speakers include far-right politicians Eric Zemmour from France and Petr Bystron of Alternative for Germany (AfD), as well as controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Commentator Katie Hopkins and TV personality Ant Middleton are also at the event, as well as former actor Laurence Fox.

While speeches were ongoing, minor scuffles between protesters and police broke out, with activists pushing and shoving, and officers seen drawing batons in response. In a separate incident near Westminster, video footage appeared to show missiles being thrown at officers. A counter-protest organised by group Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) formed at the other end of Whitehall with 5,000 in attendance, according to official Met Police figures.

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nivek

nivek

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This donkey is a complete fool...

I didn't air any dirty laundry in public - my conscience is clear, says Prince Harry during visit to Ukraine: Duke reveals he wants to spend more time in the UK in the next year as 'the focus really has to be on my dad'​

Prince Harry says his tell-all memoir Spare and Netflix series were 'not about revenge'. The Duke of Sussex, who celebrates his 41st birthday tomorrow, also believes he didn't air his 'dirty laundry in public'. And he appeared to make a thinly veiled swipe at his brother Prince William as he said: 'You cannot have reconciliation before you have truth.'

Harry made the comments during a visit to Ukraine, just days after a 54-minute reconciliation meeting with his father King Charles III in a bid to rebuild their relationship. It was the first time the prince had seen his father in 19 months, and although he says the 'focus really has to be on my dad' in the next year, he declared his 'conscience is clear'. During a sit-down interview with The Guardian in Kyiv, he said: 'I know that [speaking out] annoys some people and it goes against the narrative.

'The book? It was a series of corrections to stories already out there. One point of view had been put out and it needed to be corrected.' He added: 'I don't believe that I aired my dirty laundry in public. It was a difficult message, but I did it in the best way possible. My conscience is clear.'

'It is not about revenge, it is about accountability,' he says. Harry also revealed the words of wisdom his wife, Meghan, gave him were to 'just stick to the truth'.

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nivek

nivek

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The economy's moribund. Socialism rules. Police come knocking if you say or think the wrong thing. Now, in an authoritarian new plan that'll make Britain even more like East Germany, citizens will be forced to carry ID cards​

Keir Starmer faced a furious backlash on Thursday over 'dystopian' plans to force millions of adults to sign up for a digital ID card. Government sources said the Prime Minister will use a speech on Friday to claim the controversial plan could help stop the boats after his failed attempt to 'smash the gangs' led to a surge in crossings. Civil liberties groups on Thursday branded the introduction of a 'papers please' society 'un-British' - and warned that older and vulnerable people could be 'locked out' from essential services. And critics warned the proposal, pushed by Tony Blair and Emmanuel Macron, would do nothing to halt the surge in illegal migration.

Experts have warned the scheme will cost billions of pounds to develop - and could leave the personal details of millions of people vulnerable to hackers and state-sponsored cyber attacks. Nigel Farage said the plan would 'make no difference to illegal immigration, but it will be used to control and penalise the rest of us. The state should never have this much power.' Kemi Badenoch branded the idea a 'a desperate gimmick that will do nothing to stop the boats', while Tory justice spokesman Robert Jenrick said Sir Keir would 'try literally anything other than fixing the root of our problems: our broken legal system that stops us deporting illegal migrants.' Whitehall sources said the scheme was likely to apply initially to all working adults, who would have to use the card to prove their identity in order to work in this country. But both critics and opponents expect any scheme to be rapidly extended to cover a range of public services, requiring everyone in the country to eventually sign up for digital ID.

People applying for a new job would have to show the card, likely to be carried on their smartphone, which would then be checked against a central database to confirm their right to work. Sources said it could also be used when people rent or buy a new home and could eventually be rolled out to other services, including benefits and access to the NHS. Ministers are examining similar digital ID systems in other countries, including Estonia where citizens are given a state-issued email address for official communications and required to have a card carrying their picture and national identity number.

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nivek

nivek

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Moment British 'thought police' arrest autistic man in middle of the night for posting 'f*** Hamas, f*** Islam' on social media​

British police officers have been accused of acting like the 'Stasi of East Germany. Pete North was arrested at around 9:30pm at his home in Easingwold for a public order offence after he shared a meme on August 5 on X which read: 'F*** Hamas, F*** Palestine, F*** Islam. Want to protest? F*** off to a Muslim country and protest'. The activist, who also has autism and tourettes, shared the exchange on his social media page where it has quickly gathered more than 800,000 views.

The clip shows two North Yorkshire officers confronting Pete and his wife as a 'hate team' have concluded that 'there are offences there we need to explore,' before going on to say there are concerns he is spreading 'racial hatred'. He is then arrested and taken to Harrogate police station for further questioning, where he remained in an outdoor cell for about four hours before being interviewed. Speaking to the Daily Mail, North said: 'I'm disgusted by the police, because they could have done this in an orderly, civil way, but they chose maximum intrusion, and it was essentially [being treated like] an act of terrorism.

'They were trying to find evidence that I had intended to stir up racial hate with it. Which is unbelievable. It's crass. The meme itself is a controversial sentiment, but controversial is not illegal, and it happens to be my opinion.' North has since been release on unconditional bail until December 21 but said the tweet in question is still 'a sentiment I wholly endorse'. He added: 'I'm quite shaken by the whole thing right now. I've not slept and I'm not likely to. I've always known my tweets were a bit spicy but to be snatched by a goon squad at night for a 'F*** Hamas' meme is just breathtakingly outrageous and absurd. My wife was mortified. She was left alone after I was snatched out of the house and she was in bits, but she is very stoic and she is my rock.'

The clip shows two North Yorkshire officers confronting Pete and his wife as they claim that their 'hate team' have concluded that 'there are offences there we need to explore'. Asked if he regretted posting he said: 'I don't regret at all expressing my solidarity for the principle of free speech. Not at all, because it was an act of solidarity with Tommy Robinson, who had been hauled over the coals for posting that meme.

'The police have got machete gangs on the streets of London, they've got young kids stabbing each other to death, they've got crime soaring in every major town and they've have been telling us consistently that we're under-resourced, we haven't got enough people, but they can spare two plods to come out and snatch me in the middle of the night. I have a right to express my opinion, and I will keep doing so even if the state wants to slam me in solitary confinement.'

Lord Young of Acton, head of the Free Speech Union told the Daily Mail: 'Pete North is a member of the Free Speech Union and we're on the case. The police's behaviour is reminiscent of the Stasi in East Germany. 'I wouldn't be surprised if Pete has a case for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. Last time I checked, criticising a proscribed terrorist organisation and its supporters isn't a criminal offence.' A spokesperson for North Yorkshire Police said: 'Following receipt of a report, a man was arrested yesterday on suspicion of publishing or distributing written material intended to stir up racial hatred. He has been released on bail while enquiries continue.'

It comes as Britain faces fierce criticism over a recent clampdown on free speech, which has seen people being arrested, convicted or jailed over posts made online.

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Dejan Corovic

Dejan Corovic

As above, so bellow
I forgot to say, that app would be on a top of driving licences and passports that all UK citizens already have. So, app is completely unnecessary from practical point, its just a backdoor for monitoring people. If some employer, like on building site, wants to employ illegal immigrant, he's not going to ask him neither for passport nor to show him the government's app.
 
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nivek

nivek

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Starmer says Reform's plan to abolish 'settled status' is 'RACIST'​

Keir Starmer condemned Reform's 'racist' plans for cracking down on immigration today as he squirmed over how his digital ID plan will curb illegal arrivals. Kicking off Labour's conference in Liverpool, the PM risked inflaming public anger by using the term to dismiss the policy of abolishing 'settled status'.

Sir Keir insisted his controversial proposals for compulsory identification would clarify the 'principle that you cannot work in the UK unless you have ID'. But he struggled to explain how the new arrangements can make a major difference, when workers are already obliged to obtain proof people have a right to work here.

The comments came as Sir Keir desperately tries to shore up his teetering leadership, with rivals on manoeuvres and unions demanding a lurch to the Left amid disastrous polls.

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nivek

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Starmer is dangerously inciting the radical Left and is not fit to lead, blasts furious Farage in response to PM's he 'doesn't like Britain' attack​

Keir Starmer drew a furious reaction from Nigel Farage today after accusing him of not 'liking' or 'loving' Britain. Despite an election probably being years away, the panicked PM used his keynote speech at the Labour conference to talk up the threat posed by Reform and carve deep dividing lines. Arguing that the UK 'stands at a fork in the road' and can move towards 'decency or division', he told activists in Liverpool to 'fight' against the 'path of decline'. He tagged Mr Farage an 'enemy of national renewal' and suggested he would say anything for popularity - dismissing the idea that the country is 'broken'. 'When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage say anything positive about Britain? He can't. He doesn't like Britain,' he said.

Sir Keir delivered vicious barbs at 'politicians who lie to this country, unleash chaos and walked away after Brexit'. He questioned whether Mr Farage 'wants the country to fail'. 'Do they love our country? Do they want to serve our country, all of it... ? Or do they want to stir the pot of division?' In an immediate on-camera response from London, Mr Farage said the attack from Sir Keir 'will incite and encourage the radical left'. Highlighting the murder of Charlie Kirk in the US, he said the 'disgraceful' language 'directly threatens the safety' of Reform campaigners. But deputy PM David Lammy quickly ramped up the tensions even further with an extraordinary jibe about Mr Farage 'flirting with the Hitler Youth'.

Asked on the BBC after the speech if Mr Farage was racist, Mr Lammy said he was not going to 'play the man' before adding: 'I will leave it the public to come to their own judgments about someone who once flirted with the Hitler Youth when he was younger.' An incredulous Reform source said they had 'no words' to describe the Cabinet minister's intervention. Alongside his attack on the Reform leader the premier sounded a tough message that left-wingers must accept 'uncomfortable' policies in areas such as immigration to appeal to voters. He nodded to nationalist sentiment by praising flags - wrapping up his address by telling activists awkwardly: 'Fly those flags!' And the Labour leader acknowledged the looming spectre of more agonising tax hikes at the Budget in November, saying the government must not try to 'avoid reality'.

In an apparent hint at a fresh bid to curb welfare spending, Sir Keir said: 'A Labour Party that cannot control spending is a Labour Party that cannot govern in our times.' The 54-minute speech was greeted with an ovation in the hall, suggesting the PM might have bought a bit of breathing space after a devastating month that has seen damaging resignations and dire polls. But his attempts to hammer Mr Farage might yet backfire after Labour figures voiced alarm at his decision to brand Reform's immigration policy 'racist' in an interview on Sunday - a term Sir Keir did not repeat in his speech.

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