As everyone ought to know by now, NatCon Brussels went ahead this week in an unusually raucous fashion. What many of us have grown accustomed to enjoying as a fount of ideas and a source of rejuvenation became a grotesque spectacle of tyranny in action.
The first venue, Concert Noble, cancelled under political pressure, citing security concerns. The second venue, the Sofitel, did likewise within 24 hours of kick-off. But the machinations of the regime reached a whole new level of brazenness when, despite the plucky courage of a Tunisian business owner who offered his club in Saint-Josse as a third venue, the local Turkish mayor ordered his police force to shut it down—all while no less a figure than Nigel Farage was on stage delivering an electric speech.
Seemingly aware of the armed militia, Farage expressed characteristic defiance, even going so far as challenging the police to haul him off stage. In the end, the officers—most of them hardy Belgians who seemed a little embarrassed by their duties to the local sultan—chose to barricade the entrance rather than storm the premises and drag everyone out within shot of the cameras. Still, no one was allowed to leave without being denied the right to return.
This was all good for media impressions, but rather disrupted the first day of the conference itself, given that most of the excitement was being generated away from the stage. Fortunately, the heroic efforts of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) prevented the event from being called off on the second day. Two of their lawyers, Paul Coleman and Jean-Paul van de Walle, successfully challenged the antics of mayor Emir Kir in Belgium’s highest court, saving NatCon from censorship.
Far too much of the focus, however, has been on the delightful Tunisian gentleman who refused to buckle under pressure. I do not question his fortitude. Nor do I wish to take any credit away from his splendid family, many of whom I made a personal point of thanking—along with others—as they worked tirelessly to make the event as smooth as possible.
The problem is that sentimental tributes to ‘model immigrants’ run the risk of encouraging complacency. Even to talk of ‘integration’ presupposes that we are dealing with a question of values and ideas rather than a clash of identities and tribal allegiances. Diversity itself, not just multiculturalism, is the issue. This Tunisian family proved themselves to be an exceptional bunch, putting a universal moral principle—in this case, a commitment to free speech—before any particular ethnocentric interests.
However, the bigger picture might also be worth a look, starting with the Turkish mayor who owes his 11-year-long tenure to the huge number of Turks—along with several other non-Belgian foreigners—who now occupy the district. Distributing free leaflets plastered with bullet points listing what it means to subscribe to Belgian ‘values’ seems unlikely to shift the voting loyalties of Saint-Josse anytime soon. These people invite themselves into our countries and then forbid us to discuss the costs. That should be the headline. The bravery of our Tunisian host should not be belittled, but it belongs in the small print.
Farage was also keen to claim that the whole monstrous affair served to vindicate Britain’s departure from the European Union. “Today has told me,” he said, “and I shall never forget it: we were right to leave.” In case he has not noticed, free speech is faring little better in the birthplace of Milton and John Stuart Mill. In the last few months alone, we have seen the persecution of Sam Melia for circulating anti-immigration stickers—along with some obscene antisemitic slogans, it must be said—and the passage into law of a new hate speech bill in Scotland, designed to clamp down on those of us who dissent from the neo-communist dogmas on race, gender, and sexuality.
Moreover, it is not as though Brexit has been a political deliverance for the United Kingdom, least of all for the people who voted for it. The most fiscally burdensome and culturally incompatible non-EU immigration is now running at close to 1 million a year, compared to 347,000 in 2016. Despite voting to leave myself at the age of 18, I often wonder whether the people who spent decades campaigning for Brexit should have predicted that their cause would be hijacked by globalist drones like Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
It is also a tad rich to derive too much pleasure from attacking Brussels for turning over whole districts to foreign interests when we have surrendered the entire nation of Scotland to Humza Yousaf—a self-described “son of the soil of Pakistan” with a taste for parading his contempt for the native white Scots whose ancestors actually built the country.
The EU is a rotten organism. It should tell us everything we need to know about the oikophobes who run the show in Brussels that Turkish nationalism is more welcome in the capital of Europe, even being handed entire neighbourhoods to colonise and govern, than any European variety. However, the constitutional fix represented by Brexit has if anything delayed Britain’s national renewal. It has done so by lulling complacent Tories into supposing that it was secured by Boris Johnson, that treacherous bumbler, back in 2019. Alas, there is a great deal more to be done—and no amount of Anglo triumphalism about our supposedly splendid isolation from Europe will achieve any of it.
NatCon Brussels: A Warning Against Anglo Triumphalism
Photo Courtesy of the Edmund Burke Foundation
As everyone ought to know by now, NatCon Brussels went ahead this week in an unusually raucous fashion. What many of us have grown accustomed to enjoying as a fount of ideas and a source of rejuvenation became a grotesque spectacle of tyranny in action.
The first venue, Concert Noble, cancelled under political pressure, citing security concerns. The second venue, the Sofitel, did likewise within 24 hours of kick-off. But the machinations of the regime reached a whole new level of brazenness when, despite the plucky courage of a Tunisian business owner who offered his club in Saint-Josse as a third venue, the local Turkish mayor ordered his police force to shut it down—all while no less a figure than Nigel Farage was on stage delivering an electric speech.
Seemingly aware of the armed militia, Farage expressed characteristic defiance, even going so far as challenging the police to haul him off stage. In the end, the officers—most of them hardy Belgians who seemed a little embarrassed by their duties to the local sultan—chose to barricade the entrance rather than storm the premises and drag everyone out within shot of the cameras. Still, no one was allowed to leave without being denied the right to return.
This was all good for media impressions, but rather disrupted the first day of the conference itself, given that most of the excitement was being generated away from the stage. Fortunately, the heroic efforts of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) prevented the event from being called off on the second day. Two of their lawyers, Paul Coleman and Jean-Paul van de Walle, successfully challenged the antics of mayor Emir Kir in Belgium’s highest court, saving NatCon from censorship.
Far too much of the focus, however, has been on the delightful Tunisian gentleman who refused to buckle under pressure. I do not question his fortitude. Nor do I wish to take any credit away from his splendid family, many of whom I made a personal point of thanking—along with others—as they worked tirelessly to make the event as smooth as possible.
The problem is that sentimental tributes to ‘model immigrants’ run the risk of encouraging complacency. Even to talk of ‘integration’ presupposes that we are dealing with a question of values and ideas rather than a clash of identities and tribal allegiances. Diversity itself, not just multiculturalism, is the issue. This Tunisian family proved themselves to be an exceptional bunch, putting a universal moral principle—in this case, a commitment to free speech—before any particular ethnocentric interests.
However, the bigger picture might also be worth a look, starting with the Turkish mayor who owes his 11-year-long tenure to the huge number of Turks—along with several other non-Belgian foreigners—who now occupy the district. Distributing free leaflets plastered with bullet points listing what it means to subscribe to Belgian ‘values’ seems unlikely to shift the voting loyalties of Saint-Josse anytime soon. These people invite themselves into our countries and then forbid us to discuss the costs. That should be the headline. The bravery of our Tunisian host should not be belittled, but it belongs in the small print.
Farage was also keen to claim that the whole monstrous affair served to vindicate Britain’s departure from the European Union. “Today has told me,” he said, “and I shall never forget it: we were right to leave.” In case he has not noticed, free speech is faring little better in the birthplace of Milton and John Stuart Mill. In the last few months alone, we have seen the persecution of Sam Melia for circulating anti-immigration stickers—along with some obscene antisemitic slogans, it must be said—and the passage into law of a new hate speech bill in Scotland, designed to clamp down on those of us who dissent from the neo-communist dogmas on race, gender, and sexuality.
Moreover, it is not as though Brexit has been a political deliverance for the United Kingdom, least of all for the people who voted for it. The most fiscally burdensome and culturally incompatible non-EU immigration is now running at close to 1 million a year, compared to 347,000 in 2016. Despite voting to leave myself at the age of 18, I often wonder whether the people who spent decades campaigning for Brexit should have predicted that their cause would be hijacked by globalist drones like Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
It is also a tad rich to derive too much pleasure from attacking Brussels for turning over whole districts to foreign interests when we have surrendered the entire nation of Scotland to Humza Yousaf—a self-described “son of the soil of Pakistan” with a taste for parading his contempt for the native white Scots whose ancestors actually built the country.
The EU is a rotten organism. It should tell us everything we need to know about the oikophobes who run the show in Brussels that Turkish nationalism is more welcome in the capital of Europe, even being handed entire neighbourhoods to colonise and govern, than any European variety. However, the constitutional fix represented by Brexit has if anything delayed Britain’s national renewal. It has done so by lulling complacent Tories into supposing that it was secured by Boris Johnson, that treacherous bumbler, back in 2019. Alas, there is a great deal more to be done—and no amount of Anglo triumphalism about our supposedly splendid isolation from Europe will achieve any of it.
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