Freedom of speech

Modern technology is wonderful. As I knew that I would not be anywhere near a computer for several hours (and even longer, as it turned out) after the anti-Wilders demonstration outside the House of Lords offices, I could simply e-mail the pictures I took to the boss of EURef and up they went while I was still on my way to the next event in my life on Friday. However, I thought I would put them up here, as well.

The two posters with messages are self-explanatory; I could not get good photos of some of the others that threatened this country with Sharia and Geert Wilders with Islamic punishment. The kind that was dealt out to Theo Van Gogh, one assumes.

The other pictures show the size of the crowd – it was never more than about 30 or 40, easily contained by the police, who behaved extremely well and professionally (credit where credit is due) and outnumbered by the media from all over the world. Some of our wonderful TV journalists were heard to express the view that there was no point in listening to Wilders’s lunacies after watching and listening to the demonstrators’ lunacies and what would be really fun is Wilders coming out and there being a punch-up (or, perhaps, a decapitation).

Then there were the rhythmically scanned slogans: “Freedom go to hell”, “UK watch your back”, “Muslims rise up”, “Sharia for Holland”, “Sharia for Britain”, “Sharia for Europe”, “Wilders go to hell” and so on and so, boringly, on.

I have to admit to an unworthy thought: could Geert Wilders have paid these guys to turn up with those idiotic posters to look just threatening enough to annoy and upset people but not so threatening as to scare anyone? So far as I know he did not but he might as well have done so.

There was a group of Dutch tourists who came along to watch and they explained to me that they were not supporters of Mr Wilders but this, one of them said with a comprehensive wave of the hand towards the bearded youths, was just too much. So extremist. They want to dominate us. They want to be in power. My guess is that whatever these people thought before Friday’s performance in Abbey Gardens, they would view Mr Wilders with a different eye from now on.

In some ways this was a victory for legality and free speech. But not entirely. After all, Mr Wilders, whose views are mostly quite sensible with one or two points with which I would certainly disagree, could not leave the office at Abbey Gardens and had to see journalists inside the building. The demonstrators had, in that sense, triumphed because the police became nervous and did not think those bozos would disperse if Mr Wilders appeared. They could not guarantee his safety and that is a sad state of affairs.


As we both pointed out on EURef (here and here), the Home Office is wondering whether to waste some more of the taxpayers’ money in trying to overturn the decision that allows Geert Wilders into the country. The story is not over: there are many aspects of it that will develop. Those of us who believe in freedom of speech need to pay attention all the time. I will not say remain vigilant because that phrase has unpleasant connotations.

Which brings me to a couple of other points, nothing to do with the bearded wonders who were threatening us all with decapitation if we did not acknowledge the goodness and peaceful intentions of Sharia law.

First and foremost, there is the mob that sells Socialist Worker in the streets of London, usually choosing non-working class areas. They were out in force yesterday afternoon by Shepherds Bush Green, corralling people who could not move fast enough to get away from them. Usually, this meant those unfortunate women in their hijab who could not speak English very well. (I always said it was stupid to cover yourself from head to toe – not the face in this case – in heavy material. I rest my case.)

The SWP, too, were putting up carefully printed posters and shouting slogans. What was their problem? Can you not guess? It was the forthcoming appearance of Nick Griffin, BNP leader and Member of the Toy Parliament on Question Time.

This must be stopped, they kept proclaiming. Griffin is a Nazi. He must not be given a chance to speak. Sadly, none of them attempted to persuade me, possibly because I was wearing slacks and trainers. Otherwise I might have pointed out to them that Mr Griffin, for better for worse, has been elected to the Toy European Parliament whereas they have never been elected even to a Parish Council.

Those of us who dislike the BNP for all sorts of reasons, not least its socialist, big-state, protectionist policies, have a particular duty to proclaim that they, too, have the right to free speech. In any case, denying them the opportunity, refusing to debate with them, plays into their hands. Why, Nick Griffin is bound to ask, will Alan Johnson not debate with him? Can he not answer the points raised? Is he hiding anything? And let us be honest: if the main stream parties (I do not look upon the SWP with their Socialist Worker as anything but demented wannabe totalitarians) cannot put up people who can tear Nick Griffin apart, they should all resign.

All this has been said so often, I am not sure why I am repeating it. Except to remind readers of what Goethe said in Part II of Faust:

He only earns his freedom and his life
Who takes them every day by storm.

There was another curious and unpleasant development on Friday when I finally did sit down in front of my computer. I found a sequence of messages from two bloggers (I shall not name and shame them) about their demands that an article by Jan Moir in the Daily Mail about the recently deceased Stephen Gately (singer from Boyzone, since you ask) in which she denied that he was a saint on earth and made unflattering comments about him, his lifestyle and even cast aspersions on the happy ever after aspect of same sex civil unions.

One may agree or not agree with any of that. So far as I can make out there are many aspects of Mr Gately’s death that have not come out but I do not intend to spend much time on them. As for “happy ever after”, all too often this does not seem to be true about either same-sex unions or more traditional marriages. These are not the point at issue and neither is Ms Moir’s journalistic talent, which is somewhat doubtful in my opinion.

What seems to have taken place was a concerted attack on Ms Moir in letters, e-mails, blog postings, some full of foul abuse, some demanding that she should be silenced and her article taken off because of its homophobia. When I finally read the piece and Ms Moir’s semi-apologetic explanation, neither of which would have come my way otherwise, I was puzzled. None of it seemed homophobic; there were no demands to abolish civil unions or to make homosexuality illegal; the article simply expressed unhappiness about the Gately story. Up with this people were not prepared to put and, after a while, I found triumphant messages about the Daily Mail taking off links to her article.

Great, I thought. Here we are, trying to fight attempts to destroy freedom of speech made by Islamist extremists while some people within our culture are demanding exactly the same: the silencing of anyone they happen to disagree with. I suppose, they did not demand the beheading of Jan Moir.

Are they going to draw a line?

There is a general acceptance that Geert Wilders will be acquitted tomorrow on all charges after 29 months of legal struggle, which occasionally tipped over into black farce. Radio Netherlands gives quite a good summary of the developments here, explaining that, in the end it is the Dutch legal system that has found itself on trial.

Judicial system damaged
In the end, it was not Islam but the Dutch judicial system that came under the spotlight during the course of the trial. Three developments in particular have damaged the credibility of the judicial establishment.

First, the ruling of the Amsterdam court to prosecute Wilders was controversial in and of itself. The court made the ruling only after a special team at the national public prosecutor’s office had repeatedly decided not to prosecute Mr Wilders. This exposed an internal struggle between the district court and the justice ministry.

In that struggle, Amsterdam won the first round by forcing the trial to take place. But the justice ministry pushed back. They assigned two members of that same special team to conduct the prosecution at the trial in Amsterdam. Thus, Geert Wilders’ prosecutors were already on record as opposing his prosecution. And, indeed, during the trial they used the same argument, calling for Mr Wilders to be acquitted.

Attempt to silence Wilders
The second development was brought on by Mr Wilders’ defence. He and his lawyer have claimed that this trial is a politically motivated attempt to silence him. A strong accusation. But this claim became more plausible when the initial three judges hearing the trial were ruled to have demonstrated possible bias against Mr Wilders.

The trial had to resume with three new judges, but not before the Amsterdam district court went through an intensive process of self-reflection and public criticism.

That leaves the third development, one which again put the judicial system in a bad light: ‘the dinner’. For a few months, the trial focused on a social gathering involving the judge who wrote the decision to prosecute Mr Wilders and one of the three expert witnesses called by the defence. Allegations of witness tampering were shown to be unfounded, but the judge, and by extension the entire Amsterdam district court, came out looking naïve and amateurish.

Al-Jazeera agrees that Mr Wilders is likely to be acquitted. Their view is that the ending of this case will not end the debate about freedom of speech in the Netherlands (and, indeed, why should it?).

Whatever the verdict will be on Thursday, it seems clear that the debate about the limits of freedom of speech in the Netherlands will not be over.

Bas Paternotte, a political journalist for HP/De Tijd magazine and a frequent contributor to the highly popular right-wing shock-blog Geenstijl, argues that the Dutch political climate has shifted significantly over the past years.

"Fifteen years ago, Hans Janmaat [another extreme-right Dutch politician] was convicted for saying he wanted to abolish multiculturalism. Last week, the government said that multiculturalism has failed and that it will cut financial support for minority target groups. This is an evolution in thinking and political action and maybe the trial against Wilders is part of that same evolution."

This blog has followed the Wilders case (here, here partially, and here) as well as writing about Mr Wilders's electoral success, the attacks on him that, shamefully, included ones from the British media and his visit to Westminster to show his film Fitna to MPs and peers. Any reader who wishes to revisit those stories can follow this link.

"We must not be afraid of speaking up for freedom"

March 5 is an important day in the history of freedom and its slow, very slow spread across the world: it is the anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 and, although the Soviet Union struggled on for some decades, getting itself more and more bogged down in economic stagnation and the contradictions of its own ideology, his death did signal the beginning of the inevitable end. More immediately, his death began the process of release. Tens, hundreds of thousands of prisoners who had been kept in unspeakable conditions in camps, came home to their families. This did not happen as soon as he died. In fact, the first developments were uprisings in the camps, described by numerous writers such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and, more recently, the man I have mentioned in a previous posting, Tim Tzouliadis. The uprisings were put down with extraordinary brutality; people were still murdered and tortured and some never left the camps or not for many years after this date. But the thaw had begun. Indeed, that is how Russians refer to the period immediately after Stalin’s death: the thaw.

So, in a sense, it is right and proper that a man who is fighting what he calls a new totalitarian ideology and is, in many ways, suffering for his courage, should have finally managed to show his film Fitna, address a group of parliamentarians and their staff as well as hold a full press conference on March 5.

Readers of this blog will recall that Geert Wilders, the leader of what may well be after the coming election, the largest party in the Netherlands, was refused entry into the country by the egregious Jacqui Smith, then Home Secretary, on the grounds that other people might protest against his visit and that may lead to violence. Since then the decision was overthrown by an Appeal Court, Geert Wilders came once and was met by a demonstration of bearded freedom-loving individuals who assured us that they had our best interests at heart and to make sure that those best interests were served, they would decapitate us all if we did not submit to their ideas. All that, naturally enough, proved that they did not represent a totalitarian ideology and they were ready to murder anyone who suggested otherwise.

Curiously enough, they were not there on Friday. Instead, the police had to deal with something like a hundred (it was hard to tell as they were corralled on Millbank, just outside the garden, which boasts The Burghers of Calais as well as Mrs Pankhurst’s statue) rent-a-mob creatures who had clearly not been told against whom they were supposed to demonstrate. Whatever happened to Lord Ahmed’s threatened 10,000 warriors? Not one put in an appearance.

I cannot, in all honesty, say that Fitna is the best film I have ever seen, not even the best propaganda film that has ever hove into view in my life. (I have high standards of propaganda and have even written off Richard III, the first Shakespeare play I ever considered to be absolutely wonderful at the age of 10 and undoubtedly Tudor propaganda.) It is, nevertheless, a powerful work and I can quite understand that it has displeased many a freedom-loving individual who does not like attention being drawn to such matters as threats of wholesale slaughter, bombs going off, aeroplanes flying into buildings, women being murdered for going out without their faces being covered and other suchlike utterly unimportant matters.

The links between sundry texts in the Koran, rabid pronouncements by various Imams and actual acts by those who claim that they are committing atrocities in the name of Allah (whether Allah agrees with that or not) do create a disturbing whole, which, coupled with the obstinate reluctance by main-stream politicians and media to discuss undoubtedly serious problems in Europe, particularly Western Europe, makes it important that we should pay attention and, at the very least, talk about what is going on.

After all, as Lord Pearson of Rannoch pointed out to some not altogether friendly journalists at the subsequent press conference, there is a reason why Geert Wilders, an elected member of the Dutch parliament, leader of one of the main parties in that country, cannot walk the streets of any Dutch city (or of any British city, for that matter) freely; he has to be guarded all the time.

There is a reason why our own media, so proud, allegedly, of its history of struggling for freedom, refused to publish those Danish cartoons, whose authors are still in hiding. One of them was recently attacked and barely escaped with his life.

There is a reason why Oriana Fallaci had to live out the last years of her life in the United States, unable to return to Italy. There is a reason why Ayaan Hirsi Ali is permanently guarded. I could go on but my readers must have got the point. Lord Pearson repeated several times that the violence tends to flow from one direction and even the most hostile journalist could merely say that it was unwise to invite someone like Mr Wilders if the intention to talk to “moderate Muslims” was genuine. They would not come to a meeting if he was present. But why not? – asked Lord Pearson. That is precisely what they should do. Answer came there none.

Nevertheless, Mr Wilders’s presence in London was a triumph for freedom of speech as he, Lord Pearson and Baroness Cox, who chaired the press conference, pointed out. He proclaimed himself to be particularly pleased to be able to speak freely in what he, erroneously, called the Mother of Parliaments (it’s England that was described thus) and referred with some emotion to the time when the Dutch, living under Nazi occupation, tuned to the BBC that proclaimed the word of hope and liberty (those were the days). People risked their lives to hear the words: “This is London”. What, Mr Wilders asked rhetorically, will be heard in fifty years’ time? This is London or This is Londonistan?

It is easy with all the media hullabaloo and the personal attacks on Mr Wilders (for instance here and here) to miss what it is he is saying and has been saying for some time. Let us try to sum it up.

His main argument is that he does not consider Islam, certainly not in the form it is propagated by a number of Imams, to be a religion like others, whether Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism or such secular religions as Humanism. Islamism, which is what really meant here, is a totalitarian ideology and Mr Wilders could back that argument up by quotations from the Koran but, more importantly, fiery statements by various Islamic religious leaders. Totalitarian ideologies have to be defeated for us to live in freedom; just as Nazism and Communism were defeated (in Europe, anyway), so we must fight against Islamism in order to protect our culture and our values: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal rights, an open society.

None of this is particularly strange or controversial. Even those on the left and the right who think Mr Wilders is an appalling little man who says nasty things about poor persecuted minorities, cannot argue with those points thought they sometimes pretend that these are not values of any importance (except for them). Instead, they prefer not to quote him or to argue with him but to attack him personally.

Mr Wilders’s related point is the need to affirm our values proudly. We must not be afraid of speaking up for freedom, he repeated several times and the truth is that he has shown the way.

Following from that Mr Wilders would like to see the Koran banned in the Netherlands. This is something many of us do not agree with, as Lord Pearson explained to the assembled hacks. Needless to say, a blog called Your Freedom and Ours cannot lend support to such an idea. Mr Wilders’s argument is that as long as Mein Kampf is banned (something the left, misguidedly, agrees with) the Koran should be as well, since many of the ideas it produces are the same. The answer to that is very simple: Mein Kampf should not be banned either. Not now, not in any country, not after all these years. In fact, Germany seems to be coming round to that point of view. (My suggestion would be to force all would-be neo-Nazis to read that turgid text and then ask whether they still wanted to follow those ideas.)

Mr Wilders and his Freedom Party are in an interesting electoral position. They did very well in the recent local elections coming first in and second in the Hague. There is a strong possibility that they will be the largest party after the June election caused by the collapse of the government over the question of whether to continue the deployment of Dutch troops in Afghanistan. Mr Wilders’s view is quite interesting. He and his party supported the original deployment and continue to support the fight against terrorism and Islamic totalitarianism, wherever that fight may be. However, he feels that the Dutch, a small nation, have already done more than their fair share and it is time for other NATO countries to shoulder the burden. He did not explain whom exactly he had in mind since Britain, Denmark, Poland and other East European countries are there with as much strength as they can muster.

The system in the Netherlands is such that coalition governments are inevitable and Mr Wilders described himself as a pragmatic politician. His party will not join any grouping, preferring to remain independent but if they are the largest party they will have to try to form a coalition government. It is highly probable that other parties will refuse to join them, thus alienating voters even more. That does not bother Mr Wilders. He is prepared for a situation in which the largest party will be in opposition, watching the coalition government as it tears itself apart.

What are Mr Wilders’s policies? It’s worth asking that question since you will never find out the answer from the main-stream media whose denizens consider the state of Mr Wilders’s hair far more important.

He wants a complete moratorium on immigration from Islamic countries, not because he dislikes the people but because he considers the ideology inimical to what he sees as European (not European Union) values: Judeo-Christianity and Humanism. Mr Wilders is a strong opponent of cultural relativism and considers that the eradication of that pernicious attitude is of the utmost importance. Who can argue with that? Certainly not the people who proclaim the superiority of Islam and of Sharia law. They do not exactly believe in cultural relativism (or open-mindedness).

His party would crack down on crime, no matter where it comes from. It would appear that the problems the Netherlands face are not dissimilar from our own.

What of the Muslim immigrants already in place? Simple, says Mr Wilders. They have a choice: either they conform to our very liberal standards or they leave. That let’s face it, might cause problems. Those who were not born in the Netherlands can be said to have no right to stay there and try to undermine the country and society. But what of those who were born there? Mr Wilders talked of dual citizenship and other suchlike matters but it is obvious that there will be difficulties with those who are second generation immigrants and ought to be Dutch Muslims but prefer to see themselves as Muslims who are out to subvert Holland. That, as Mr Wilders pointed out, applies only to a minority of Muslims, which is true in Britain as well but, so far, only individuals (and very brave they are, too) have accepted the situation and have turned against Islamism. Mr Wilders’s party intends to put surveillance on all the mosques (I suspect quite a lot of that in place already) and close down madrassahs. Will they close down all Muslim schools, even if they accept the curriculum others teach? Will they even be Muslim schools if they accept that curriculum and the duty to teach girls and boys equally? There are many problems here but the general outline is clear. The question is, will the Freedom Party’s opponents argue these matters openly. If they will not, where will the vote go?

On some matters, as Mr Wilders pointed out, his party tends to be somewhat leftish. For example, they intend to put more money into the health service. On others, they are on the right: they believe in smaller government and lower taxes (no, I am not sure either if they have worked their figures out properly). In particular, they want to cut back on child benefit, intending to give it only for the first two children. This, too, is perceived as an attack on the Muslim families as they tend to be larger and claim far more benefits.

Asked about Turkey, Mr Wilders accepted that she is a very good neighbour, being among others, a strong and active member of NATO. However, a good neighbour is not necessarily part of the family. His party would oppose Turkey’s membership of the EU for two very good reasons. Firstly, there is the question of Islamic immigration that cannot be controlled once Turkey is a member state. The second point is a very astute one and had clearly not occurred to any of our own politicians or political analysts. The EU demands that member states should place armed forces under the control of an elected government. In Turkey, however, the army is the guardian of the Kemalist secular politics and the strongest bulwark against Islamism. Therefore, the usual rules cannot apply to her.

If Turkey becomes a member of the EU or if there is any likelihood of it, Mr Wilders will campaign for the Netherlands to leave. That strikes me as an excellent argument for Turkey’s membership as, otherwise, Mr Wilders believes in the EU being radically reformed. This, as Lord Pearson explained to the assembled hacks, is a point of some disagreement between his party and UKIP. It was not clear whether the hacks understood that.

In general, there was an attempt to bring the whole session round to UKIP, despite the fact that it was chaired by Baroness Cox, and independent peer. But bless those little hacks, their minds cannot accommodate too many ideas all at once.

So we come to the question of the legal case against Geert Wilder. As he pointed out, this is a political trial. He is, undoubtedly, being tried for his opinions. Furthermore, he is not allowed to produce adequate defence. Of the eighteen experts on the subject, whose names he submitted to the court, fifteen were rejected for no very good reason at all. The remaining three will not be allowed to give their evidence in public but behind closed doors. It is a sad day for European history when the Netherlands, one of the first countries to accept the notions of free speech and religious tolerance decides to put its politicians on trial for their opinions and to dispense with the notions of free, fair and open.

We must, indeed, remember

Raoul Wallenberg was one of the great heroes of the Second World War, a man who selflessly and courageously saved thousands of Jews (particularly Jewish children) in Hungary from an appalling death and one who was eventually kidnapped and, one way or another killed, by the Soviet authorities, with the West doing nothing to help. Indeed, his story is a paradigm of mid-twentieth century history down to the suggestion that the Communist government in Hungary was planning a show trial in 1953 that would tell the tale of Wallenberg being murdered by the Zionists. And you know what? People in the West would have believed it. The idea was abandoned along with many similar ones after the death of Stalin and the fall of Beria.

So I was rather pleased to see an article in the Economist about Wallenberg and the need to remember him and his achievements. I was also pleased to see that another memorial to Wallenberg was unveiled yesterday the anniversary of the Nyilas (Arrowhead - the local Hungarian Nazis) take-over in 1944 on the wall of the building he had used as a sanctuary for Jewish children. Apparently it is now the British embassy, which has a pleasing symmetry. It is impressive that public contribution paid for the memorial. But I do wonder why it is still impossible to point out on it what actually happened (so far as we know) to this man.

There are other memorials to him in Budapest, there is a park, a statue and another plaque on the street that is named after him. But that is irrelevant except that I think the Economist article ought to have mentioned this as well.

What the article does is to use the Wallenberg theme to rant on a bit about its fear of growing right-wing politics in Eastern Europe, particularly Hungary.

In Hungary, like much of Europe, intolerance, racism and xenophobia is on the rise. The far-right Jobbik party, no friend of Hungary’s Jews or Roma minorities, won 16.7 per cent of the vote in April elections, making it the third-largest party in parliament.

We have a problem here. It is called a muddled approach, whether deliberately or otherwise. The Jobbik party is undoubtedly a very unpleasant, openly anti-Semitic and racist party with rather incoherent ideas: on the one hand they want Hungary to take its proud position in the world, on the other hand they want to shut Hungary away from the world. It has a support of around 16 per cent of the electorate.

However, the argument about the intolerance, racism and xenophobia being on the rise (surely that cannot be true while we are all members of the benevolent EU?) rests largely on calling such parties as the Sweden Democrats and Geert Wilders's Freedom Party as being far-right, though their openly expressed concern is with groups of people who arrive in Western Europe and refuse to adjust to its enlightened social and political structures, demanding that these should be abolished.

Today's Financial Times Magazine has a very silly article by Simon Kuper, who is wondering what happened to the Holland he knew that has now become so intolerant and full of nasty murders such as that Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, which is all, somehow, the fault of all those intolerant people for whom Geert Wilders is a hero. A somewhat muddled and patronizing piece that is unlikely to please anyone. (I seem to be using the word "muddled" a lot.)

Charlemagne in last week's Economist even excelled that, garnering some very serious attacks from readers, I am glad to say. Geert Wilders, then still on trial, is a false prophet, the article opined and was mildly amused that Mr Wilders chose not to speak at a certain point in his trial. And he a champion of free speech. Tee-hee-hee. Clearly, the author had no understanding of what constitutes defence in court and reserving said defence.

Then came the muddled arguments:

Maybe the state should not be in the business of prosecuting politicians for their offensive views. But these are highly charged times in the Netherlands. The threat of murder hangs over the traditionally tolerant country. In 2002 Pim Fortuyn, an earlier anti-immigrant politician, was killed. Two years later so was Theo van Gogh, an anti-Islamist film-maker. Mr Wilders now moves only with a posse of bodyguards, and lives at a secret location.

Even more importantly, he has become the political kingmaker. His party came third in June’s general election, winning 15% of the vote, and will now prop up a minority government of the liberal VVD with the centre-right Christian Democrats. In exchange, Mr Wilders has secured the promise of tighter immigration rules, a ban on some Islamic garb and more money for care of the elderly. Newspapers are calling this the “Wilders 1” government.

The implication is that probably the state should be in the "business of prosecuting politicians for their offensive views" (something that a number of readers took exception to) if the times are, for some unexplained reason, "highly charged". The fact that two people have been murdered rather publicly and several people, including Mr Wilders, are under protection is, according to this argument, a good enough reason for prosecuting Mr Wilders for his opinions. And to think that once upon a time the Economist was, in every sense of the word, a liberal publication.

When it comes to Hungary, the muddle becomes even worse. Fear of the right is routinely extended to FIDESZ, the party that won a two-thirds majority in April, the first time any party managed to do this with Hungary's complicated election procedures. The reason for that is not terribly mysterious: the previous Socialist government was extraordinarily inefficient, corrupt and stupid even by East European standards. To some extent, the Jobbik rode into Parliament on that wave of disaffection, too.

FIDESZ is not an extreme right-wing party but a fairly muddled, vaguely centre-right one. They did flirt with the Jobbik for obvious electoral reasons (no longer necessary) and have announced that all Hungarians wherever they happen to live have a right to Hungarian citizenship, something that is viewed as a provocation to the surrounding countries.

Two days ago Der Spiegel also had a long article about the horrors of growing xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Hungary, particularly in Budapest. It is a curious piece, that starts off by asserting that Jews are being openly intimidated but presenting no evidence; going on to detail a number of disturbing episodes, some true, some not or just threats; interviewing various people but no-one, as one comment puts it, from the main-stream right or even centre-left; and finishing, after several divergences, with an interview with the far-left (which we are not told, this being less important than the fact that he is Jewish) philosopher and politician Gáspár Miklós Tamás, whose view is that Hungary is pretty well finished because the Socialists lost control even of the cities. (In Central Europe cities are traditionally more likely to have Socialist local government than the countryside.)

Somehow, I cannot agree that a completely feckless and dishonest Socialist government losing heavily in a free and fair election necessarily indicates a situation in which there will soon be a need for another Wallenberg.

Whither the Dutch government?

Eighty eight per cent of the votes have been counted in the Netherlands, according to the Telegraph report this morning, and the result is promising to be very interesting. Setting aside the newspaper's mindlessly repetitive description of Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV)as being "far-right" because it wants to control immigration of people who have no desire to adapt to the country's very liberal culture, what the article tells us ought to make a lot of people sit up.

With 88 per cent of the votes counted, published partial results showed the Liberals with 31 and Labour on 30.

But the real victory went to Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom (PVV), which demands an end to immigration from Muslim countries and a ban on new mosques. The PVV took its number of seats from nine in the last parliament to 24, and could hope to enter a coalition government.

Mark Rutte, the Liberal leader may have the mandage to become Prime Minister but he will need at least three other parties to secure the necessary majority in Parliament. He can, of course, leave out the PVV but that is likely to cause a few problems. Geert Wilders said quite firmly when he was in London that he did not mind leading the largest party in opposition.

AP suggests, on the basis of 93 per cent counted, that

The most likely outcome appears to be a centrist coalition with VVD and Labor combining with two smaller parties on the left, the Green-Left and Democrats-66, who both won 10 seats.

Yet neither the top two parties will be able to form a government without major compromises on ideology.

The VVD has pledged to slash the deficit by cutting government spending and welfare programs while Labor has criticized the program as harmful to the poor.

Labor wants to preserve government social programs, raise taxes on the wealthy and make it easier for immigrants to integrate rather than punishing those that fail.
Although not as outspoken against immigration as Wilders, Rutte has also argued that immigrants who cannot contribute to the Dutch economy should not be allowed to come, and he would ban them from receiving welfare for 10 years after arrival.

In the meantime, the ousted PM, Jan Peter Balkenende stays on as caretaker Prime Minister. What a good thing that this sort of a messy situation cannot happen in Britain. Oh wait ....

UPDATE: The talk is now of a Centre-Right coalition government in the Netherlands, which would included Geert Wilders. We shall see. In the meantime, I have spotted a truly idiotic headline on Sky News website: Far-Right Breakthrough Shocks Netherlands. Remind me, how did that far-right breakthrough happen?

Dutch government farce continues

A slightly incoherent piece on EUObserver tells us that a minority government may well be formed in the Netherlands very soon. Geert Wilders's Freedom Party (PVV), described here as "far-right", presumably because it is against the destruction of real liberalism, will not be part of it but has promised to support it on a case-by-case basis. In return, the government will attempt to impose some control on immigration.

Interestingly, the Financial Times is a little more cautious about labels and describes Geert Wilders merely as being anti-Islamic. Even that is not entirely accurate as this blog has pointed out before but it will have to do as a short-hand. In general, both pieces (and other articles) agree: Mr Wilders has gained a great deal. He will have no formal cabinet role and no cabinet discipline. He has shown himself to be a reasonable politicians, ready to back a centre-right government but has not had to surrender his core principles. Indeed, he will be able to speak out on them if the agreement goes ahead.

Last month Geert Wilders was nominated for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by Dutch MEP, Barry Madlener. Named after the great Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, the prize has had a chequered history. Most of those who received it did so deservedly, though they were not always in danger of their lives when they spoke out, but I cannot but wonder at the idiocy of awarding it to the United Nations and SecGen Kofi Annan who presided over some of the worst scandals, in 2003.

Geert Wilders will be back

Geert Wilders, whose trial on charges of inciting racial hatred, is continuing in the Netherlands, is scheduled to return to Britain early in March. Once again he has been invited by the Lord Pearson of Rannoch to address both Houses of Parliament and assorted hacks from the media, show his film Fitna and explain his point of view with a question and answer session.

Reuters sums up the legal situation in the Netherlands with a curious contradiction that, possibly, the author of the article did not even notice.

The case is considered to be at the heart of the Dutch constitutional state, exploring the line between the right to freedom of speech and the ban on discrimination in the traditionally tolerant Netherlands.

Wilders is not actually discriminating against anybody but, it is arguable, the Amsterdam court is discriminating against him by trying him for exercising his right to freedom of speech. If found guilty on the various counts he can face imprisonment of up to one year and three months. One wonders what will happen in the normally peaceful country of the Dutch if the leader of the most popular party is imprisoned for daring to criticize Islam after a somewhat limited trial. (The court has refused to call the murderer of Theo Van Gogh as witness, for instance.) Let us not forget that, historically, the Dutch are not that peaceable.

HMG will not be able to stop Mr Wilders from coming to the UK as it could not last time though did the time before because the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal ruled in his favour last October. Bruno Waterfield quoted an unnamed British official:

The ruling is pretty crucial here - if he did try to travel it would be very difficult for the Government to stop him entering as the tribunal made it very clear they do not support the Government's position.

Well, indeed, though why this story is being reported from Brussels is something only the editorial board of the Daily Telegraph can tell.

At the end of the article we are once again reminded that Lord Ahmed has threatened promised to bring out 10,000 Muslims in an anti-Wilders demonstration but whether that he or Mr Waterfield are recycling old threats promises or whether new ones are being made is not clear. As readers of this blog will recall, last time barely thirty heavily bearded demonstrators materialized with carefully printed offensive posters. (See above.) But, of course, it is not they who spread hatred. No, no, no.

A misleading headline

EUObserver, usually quite reliable, has come up with something problematic: Extremists pose challenge to Danish democracy screams the title but the story unfolds in a somewhat misleading fashion.

The "extremists" of the title are right-wing politicians from the Golden Dawn, a deeply unpleasant, authoritarian and racist Greek party to Geert Wilders, whose mostly main stream opinions are seen as beyond the pale because of his insistence on the need for immigrants to adapt to European values and for immigration to be controlled.

Far-right European politicians, Golden Dawn from Greece and Geert Wilders from the Netherlands, are attending a festival (Folkemodet) on the Danish island of Bornholm on 11-14 June.

The open-air political festival features prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt as a main speaker as well as most of the government, opposition party leaders, business representatives, trade unions, media and cultural celebrities.

Folkemodet is a Danish counterpart to the famous Swedish Almedalveckan, which each year draws up to thousands of visitors to the Swedish island of Gotland.

So far, so unthreatening to democracy.

As many as 100,000 participants are expected to attend the Baltic sea island Bornholm event but this year's first-ever attendence by far-right politicians will prove a challenge to Denmark's tradition of openness and freedom of speech.

The presence of Wilders – who has received scores of death threats over the years for his anti-Islamic views – will also mean a large security upgrade at the popular festival.

The press freedom organisation, Trykkefrihedsselskabet, invited Wilders to speak.

Georgios Epitideios, a former general and Golden Dawn member of the European Parliament, has also confirmed his participation. Golden Dawn, from Greece, is considered to be a neo-Nazi party.

Epitideios was invited by ’The Danes’ party’, a small ultra-right party, which has no elected representatives at the national or local level.

"We have chosen to debate, among other things, what we want in Europe. And it is natural to invite a party that is really big," head of the party, Daniel Carlsen, told Berlingske Tidende.

The news has already caused several politicians to cancel their participation.

"There will be so many police on the island that it will spoil the whole mood, and it will ruin my experience," Liberal member of the Zealand Regional Council, Claus Bakke said.

So, let me get this straight. Certain politicians have been threatened by other people and will, therefore, need increased security; certain other politicians have, therefore, pulled out of the event either because as they blandly explain the atmosphere will be different or, as is much more likely, because they are scared; and it is the politicians who are being directly threatened that "pose challenge to Danish democracy" not those who issue the threats and are, as we know, prepared to carry them out or those who are virtually blackmailing the organizers by refusing the attend. Logical, it ain't.

European values victorious?

Over and over we have been told that the purpose of the European project is to consolidate and spread European values which are, for the purposes of this argument, democracy, liberalism, freedom of just about everything (unless the EU says otherwise) and suchlike extremely admirable concepts. Of course, European history shows quite clearly that other values come to the fore quite frequently but those are the ones the European project wants defeated and destroyed. To put it as succinctly as possible, the European project intends to use European values to defeat European history.

How is that project working out? Not so well in Greece, where the twists and turns of the Golden Dawn saga merit a posting all of its own. Not so well in some other countries, according to latest reports.

EurActiv informs us that the far-right Front National is doing rather well in the opinion polls in France.

France's far-right National Front could top European Parliament elections next May, pulling ahead of the two big mainstream parties for the first time in a nationwide vote, a poll showed on Wednesday.

Some 24% of those surveyed by for the Nouvel Observateur magazine said they would back the anti-immigrant party, compared with 22% for the centre-right UMP and 19% for the governing Socialist Party.

The party has acquired a respectable look under the leadership of Marine Le Pen and

knocked out left-wing rivals and pulled far ahead of the UMP in the first round of a local election in southern France this week.

The party's next major political test will be municipal elections in March, in which Le Pen says she wants the party to build up a strong local base by winning control of hundreds of seats in local councils.

A strong showing in that ballot could set the party up for further gains in the European Parliament elections, where Eurosceptic and nationalistic parties often do well.

That, of course, is the problem. The European project expects European values to transcend boundaries and eventually overwhelm the electorate across Europe particularly in elections for the European Parliament (a. k. a. Toy Parliament). This seems not to happen and, as the EUObserver points out, things could get worse next May:

Anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, who PVV party advocates withdrawing from both the euro and the EU, remains a major force in the Netherlands.

It has been polling top in the domestic scene in recent weeks amid frustration with the current government's economic policies and amid rising euroscepticism among the Dutch.

Both Wilders and Le Pen have mooted the possibly teaming up to campaign ahead of the elections.

The eurosceptic, anti-immigration UK Independence Party, came third in local elections in May.

It is currently polling at 11 percent, ahead of the junior governing party, the Liberal Democrats, but is tipped to exceed the 16 percent it claimed in 2009, while party leader Nigel Farage has himself predicted an "earthquake" next year.

The National Front poll is set to heighten fears - already alive in Brussels - that the elections to the European Parliament will result in large gains for extremist parties.

Let us accept that some parties that oppose the cosy political consensus that is the European project will do well in the European elections in May and might do well in various local elections. (In fact, have done relatively well in the case of UKIP.)

Before we start worrying about extremism, though, would it not be a good idea to define it? Is it extremism to point out that the euro was a monumentally stupid idea that has not done any good to anyone and is doing active harm to many? So extreme as to be off the accepted political scale?

Is it unspeakably extreme to oppose the European Union, which is, by its own admission an undemocratic body, ever less popular with the people and whose accounts have never been signed off by its own Court of Auditors?

Is it extreme to say as does Geert Wilders that there should be a moratorium on the immigration of people who not only do not share but actively oppose and try to destroy the accepted liberal (and supposedly European) values of the Netherlands?

Do those much-vaunted European values not include opposition to the current establishment?

An international alliance of eurosceptic parties?

The Financial Times is somewhat sniffy about the proposed electoral pact between Geert Wilders' Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) and Marine Le Pen's National Front (FN) but that is to be expected. In fact, it is rather sniffy about the parties themselves, not bothering to differentiate much between them and calling them extreme right-wing and all anti-EU parties "nationalistic and xenophobic". Why is it, asks one rhetorically, that all parties, regardless of other political ideas, who prefer their countries to be independent and self-governing as well as have more accountable governments, are described as extremist while those who campaign for greater European integration (not a very popular idea across the member states of the EU) as moderates?

Anyway, back to the electoral pact.

Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, two of Europe’s best-known far-right leaders, vowed to fight side by side in a coalition of nationalist parties in next year’s European Parliament elections to bring down the “monster in Brussels”.

The anti-EU alliance between the French National Front party (FN) and the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) will seek to attract other eurosceptic groups as they try to capitalise on the economic misery and high unemployment plaguing the continent.

Pretty bad, eh? Fancy trying to capitalize on the fact that certain political decisions have made the economic situation across Europe considerably worse than it would have been otherwise. Shockingly bad behaviour.

The two party leaders intend to campaign together next year in the European elections and to form a group with, they hope, other parties in the European Parliament, thus shifting somewhat the debate or what passes for debate in that institution. Among parties that they hope will join them is our very own UKIP but the Dear Leader has remained aloof, claiming with justification that certain past political pronouncements by the FN and its then leader, Papa Le Pen are incompatible with UKIP's stance. Indeed, it would be an excellent idea if the FN would distance itself from those anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying comments. Mr Wilders has also spoken of Belgium's Vlaams Belang and Italy's Lega Norda as possible allies.

Other anti-EU parties that could consider joining forces in next year’s European polls include the Danish People’s party, Finland’s The Finns, Austria’s Freedom party, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland and Italy’s Five Star Movement.

However, eurosceptics have often had divergent views, ranging from ending the EU to quitting the euro or simply forming a looser union. The divisions have often outstripped points in common. For example, Alternative für Deutschland and the Five Star Movement, led by comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, would find it difficult to form an alliance with a neo-fascist party like the FN.

Nevertheless, analysts said the FN-PVV alliance had potential because the two leaders agree on several issues, including reducing EU powers, imposing tougher immigration laws and reinstating border controls. The two remain divided on gay rights, openness to Islam and some socioeconomic matters.

Covered by the BBC and the Washington Post that is a little less biased than our own media, perhaps because it is all so far away for them and they cannot  imagine the EU ever breaking up. 

Those results ....

1.23 Not sure I can be bothered to go on. Tomorrow or, rather later today, I shall do a kind of summing up but, on the whole, it would appear that the inevitable happened: as things started going wrong, people started to think that the EU is actively part of the problem. Well, some people. Not all and not even the majority, as it happens, either in the UK or across the EU. Even UKIP's success (if one can call it that, given that the overwhelming majority of the electorate stayed away) came after them ditching any talk about the EU and playing to general dissatisfaction. That is my final thought.

1.13 The BBC is recording 33.77% turn-out.

1.09 West Midlands MEPs: Philip Bradbourn (C), Anthea McIntyre (C), Neena Gill (Lab), Sion Simon (Lab), Jill Seymour (UKIP), James Carver (UKIP), Bill Etheridge (UKIP).

01.00 How are those votes stacking up? UKIP 3,988,791, Conservatives 3,300,166, Labour 3,244,352, Greens: 1,058,284, Lib-Dims 943,629, Plaid Cymru 111,864, SNP 386,193 though they have not yet got their MEPs sorted because of that peculiar Scottish problem of the Western Isles not declaring till tomorrow.

00.58 Best result for UKIP so far in the South-East, as expected:

UKIP - 32.3% (4) CON - 31.1% (3) LAB - 14.7% (1) GRN - 9.1% (1) LDEM - 7.6% (1) OTH - 5.2%.

Daniel Hannan (C), Nirj Deva (C), Richard Ashworth (C), Anneliese Dodds (Lab), Catherine Bearder (LD), Keith Taylor (Green), Nigel Farage (UKIP), Janice Atkinson (UKIP), Diane James (UKIP), Ray Finch (UKIP). I can see fireworks ahead.

00.55 Yes, it seems to be true: UKIP now has an MEP in Scotland. David Coburn is that historic personality. The calculations seems a little convoluted but it would appear that

After the first 31 declarations, the SNP had a 28.9% share of the vote, ahead of Labour with 25.9% and the Conservatives on 17.2%.

Ukip had 10.4%, ahead of the Greens on 8.1% and the LibDems on 7.1%.

00.52 UKIP now has 22 MEPs, Conservatives 16, Labour 14 (huh?), Greens 2, Lib-Dims and Plaid Cymru 1 each.

00.45 In Denmark: the EU-sceptic (used correctly by the Guardian) and thus described as far-Right Danish People's Party took the biggest share of the votes.

The DPP, which had campaigned to reclaim border controls and curb benefits to other EU citizens living in Denmark, won nearly 27% of the vote and doubled its number of MEPs from two to four.

00.39 In his Daily Telegraph column, Tim Stanley says that the UKIP revolution is broad, radical and worthy of respect. Even for an historian that is a bit steep. Exactly wherein lies the revolution and how broad is it, given that the majority of the country did not bother to vote?

00.37 West Midlands: UKIP 31%, Labour 27%, Conservatives 24%, Lib-Dems 6%, Greens 5%.

00.30 Additional news on Greece: Golden Dawn looks like winning 10% thus sending several members to the Toy Parliament. What fun it is all going to be.

00.28 North West: Labour 34%, UKIP 27%, Conservatives 20%, Greens 7%, Lib-Dims 6%.

00.25 According to the BBC, UKIP now has 15 MEPs with the Conservatives and Labour 11 each and Greens and Plaid Cymru 1 each. No Lib-Dims. Unfortunately, there seems to be no break-down by region.

00.18 I seem to have missed the South-West results earlier. ElectedAshley Fox (C), Julie Girling (C), Clare Moody (Lab), Molly Scott Cato (Green), William Dartmouth (UKIP), Julia Reid (UKIP).

Figures: UKIP 32.29% (484,184), Conservatives 28.89% (433,151), Labour 13.75% (206,124), Greens 11.10% (166,447).

00.12 Mind you, their neighbours and erstwhile union members didn't do much better with a turn-out of 18.2%.

The centrist ANO movement of Finance Minister Andrej Babis narrowly won European Parliament elections in the Czech Republic which was largely shunned by voters, final results showed on Sunday.

ANO won 16.13 percent of the vote, narrowly ahead of the opposition center-right TOP09 with 15.95 and Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka's center-left Social Democrats with 14.17 percent. All the three leading parties take largely pro-European stance on major policy issues.

Turnout dropped to a record low 18.2 percent, confirming polls that showed Czechs did not believe they could change much in Europe by taking part in the vote.

The Eurosceptic center-right Civic Democrats won 7.67 percent while the libertarian and anti- European Party of Free Citizens scored their first-ever election success with 5.24 percent of the vote, giving them one seat in European Parliament.

00.10 Slovakia beats all for low turn-out: 13%. We have some way to go. Prime Minister's centre-left Smer party won but it hardly matters.

00.01 In the Netherlands Geert Wilders's party did better than some many predicted. From Reuters

The pro-European Christian Democratic party topped the Dutch vote for the European Parliament in the Netherlands, with the far-right Freedom Party of Eurosceptic politician Geert Wilders in equal second place, news agency ANP reported.

According to a preliminary count, the Christian Democrats will have 5 of the 26 Dutch seats in the European Parliament, while Wilders' party and the centrist pro-European Democrats 66 party will each have four seats.

The electoral commission will not publish the definitive result until later this week.

23.59 From the BBC

Support for Eurosceptic parties must be heard "loud & clear" across EU, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague says.

I always said the man was a waste of space.

23.58 In Spain:

The centre-right People's Party narrowly beat the Socialists in Spain's European elections, writes Ashifa Kassam in Madrid, in a result Spanish media called a "punishment" for Spain's two dominant political parties. The two mainstream parties together lost more than 5m votes against the 2009 election results, with the governing People's Party winning 16 EP seats, eight fewer than 2009, and the Socialists 14, down nine.

Small parties appear to be doing very well.

23.54 Tim Montgomerie still dreaming on Twitter:

UKIP surge and resilience of Tory vote points to a good night for Eurosceptics. Now the small matter of uniting that vote for 2015...

Not to mention the small matter of understanding what he is talking about.  But, I suppose, now that UKIP has abandoned any talk of Brexit, there really is no difference between them and the Tories as far as the EU goes.

23.52 In Wales the seats remain the same: one each for Labour, UKIP, Conservatives and Plaid Cymru. Kay Swinburne (C), Derek Vaughan (Lab), Jill Evans (PC), Nathan Gill (UKIP)

23.46 In Hungary, the ruling Fidesz party wins again: 51.5% of the vote and 12 of the 21 seats. Jobbik stay at 14.8% with 3 seats. Not clear whether the remaining seats all go to the Socialists or not.

23.43  South West Result UKIP 484,184 Conservative 433,151 Lib Dem 160,376 so MEPs 2UKIP, 2 Conservative, 1 Green, 1 Labour. LibDem wipeout. They do seem to be doing worse in the euros than in the locals. Odd.

23.41 In Greece it's the radical left that seems to be doing well. That means not liking austerity measures, in Greek terms but, like everywhere else, the government party will live to fight another day.

23.39 Just saw on Twitter:

Spain COLLAPSE - in 2009 two main centre-right and left parties had 80% of vote, tonight after #EP2014 they have less than 50%

23.35 German results as projected by Deutsche Welle

German projections showed Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU party leading in the European elections with 36.1 percent of the vote, ahead of their center-left junior coalition partners the SPD at 27.6 percent.

Germany elects 96 members of parliament.

The Green party was at 10.9 percent, the Left party at 7.8 percent and the euroskeptic AfD at 6.5 percent - giving the party seats in parliament for the first time. "The AfD has been put firmly on the political map here. Germany does have now a Euroskeptic party, but it should not be confused with a far right party," said DW's political analyst Melinda Crane.

"Exactly what direction they would like to change things, that is not quite clear. They have backed off some of their radical pronouncements. They are not saying that Germany should return to the Deutsche Mark, but clearly they want changes in the constellation of the Eurozone."

Martin Schulz, EU parliament president and Social Democrat top candidate, was triumphant in the face of his party's 7 percent increase.

23.28 This is what the Guardian said at 23.04 in answer to the question of what the European Parliament might look like:

As expected, the mainstream, pro-European Social Democrats and Christian Democrats maintain their comfortable majority – but the anti-federalists, Eurosceptics and far right have made major advances. 

At least, they have separated the anti-federalists, Eurosceptics and far right. For this we must be thankful.

23.20 Just seen that UKIP comes top and gets two seats in East Midlands, two seats for Tories and one for Labour. The Guardian says turn-out is 36%, higher than in previous euro-elections but they may be confusing matters with the local ones. Still well under 40%. They also continue predictions for FN victory on basis of exit polls in France. Roger Helmer and Margot Parker are in from UKIP and Bill Newton Dunn (Lib Dim) is out.

23.12 The first thing that strikes me is that the BBC website is very hard to get information from. I shall have to look to others as well. Then again, they are doing the right thing and looking at groups not parties.The turn-out for the euro vote was, according to the BBC, and I think they must have got that right, 33.81 per cent. The indifference party wins again.

As I mentioned before, I am having severe computer problems and may not be able to get very far in this posting. The Boss is following events, needless to say and so are various other bloggers such as Guido, all of whom have discovered that there are other member states in the EU and a number of them might elect MEPs from vaguely eurosceptic parties though the notion that this will change anything is slightly ridiculous. As the Boss said even if UKIP gets those 27 seats they will have 3.7% of the vote in the Toy Parliament.

I think I may be able to continue, having fiddled about with my internet connection and computer during which time we have had a few results so I have much to catch up on.

Not guilty!

Through the Corner on the National Review website to Dutch News.nl

The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.

Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.

Why they could not have done that careful reading and viewing before, instead of trying to ban the film, I cannot imagine. Then again, Geert Wilders has acquired a great deal of political clout recently and, just possibly, this has been noticed.

Of course, he will still have to have round the clock protection as his life is still in danger.

Sometimes I miss the old left

As a matter of fact, I do not feel even remotely sentimental about the death of Michael Foot. No, there was nothing fine about the man, despite that flying mane of hair, as people, even on the right, keep telling me. He was not particularly honest or honourable and, having spent decades telling all who would listen and many who would not that he would never accept a position on the front benches, would never be anything but a fiery radical, who opposed his own party’s leadership, if needs be, he jumped at the chance of becoming leader, scuppering the chances of the far more sensible and intelligent Peter Shore. The outcome is well known: Michael Foot led the party to oblivion; he made it unelectable; he allowed the widespread infiltration by Militant Tendency, which led to the prolonged and expensive struggle to root that organization out. Apart from that, Foot spoke at numerous Morning Star rallies (non-British readers: that was the in-house newspaper of the CPGB, funded by the Kremlin, until the CPGB existed) and supported every pro-Soviet cause that happened to be around.However, he and his like did have brain cells and these often interconnected. The new lot seems to have nothing. Or, as Eeyore would put it, just some grey fluff that blew in. I was convinced of this when I saw the demonstration of about a hundred people against Geert Wilders’s visit.

As we walked rather rapidly (he was bundled into a car by burly security men and was driven the fifty yards) I noted the group, corralled by the police who had arrived in vans with dogs, the latter being rather bored and pleading to be allowed to have some fun. Sternly, their handlers restrained them.

No, these were not the bearded, freedom-loving representatives of the religion of peace who were promising to put us all under Sharia law last time. None of them bothered to turn up this time. These were rent-a-mob with carefully printed identical signs that told us about the BNP and the EDL (English Defence League) being Nazi-Racist Thugs. Small problem: neither of those organizations was there. Geert Wilders has nothing to do with them and his party is a long way from being national socialist. He had been invited by Lord Pearson of Rannoch and Baroness Cox to show his film in the House of Lords and was on his way to give a press conference in another part of the House.

Did nobody tell these bozos, particularly the singularly unpleasant specimen, who was yelling “EDL are Scum” what they were supposed to be demonstrating against?

PS It has been pointed out to me that this was not a sign of stupidity merely but of a general parochialism in British politics that prevents activists on whatever side they happen to be from realizing that there is a big bad world outside their own petty considerations. Someone must have said that there was a “fascist racist” appearing somewhere in Westminster. D’uh! – they thought. Must be BNP and/or EDL. Let’s go for both of them, just in case.

Yet again, I miss the old left. Misguided and misinformed they may have been but they saw themselves as internationalists. At least, they would have heard of politicians from other countries and I don’t mean just Republican Presidents of the United States.

Geert Wilders again

Geert Wilders, the highly memorable Dutch politician whom neither the Islamists nor the political establishment can silence, has written a book, entitled Marked for Death: Islam's War Against the West and Me. FrontPage Magazine has an article on him and his long fight against the Western political classes and media as much as anything else.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands

The crisis goes on and the government has either resigned or about to resign. The Guardian's constant update is quite useful but, by definition, cannot give clear answers as it has to provide minutiae. For example stating as a certainty what one opinion poll has predicted at a time of see-sawing opinion, is asking for trouble.

The Financial Times is certain that Mark Ruttke will be resigning as the austerity talks have come to nothing and Geert Wilders continues in his refusal to support the government. Much laughter and schadenfreue in Brussels, according to the Wall Street Journal with Neelie Kroes also attacking Wilders.

Sanity in sight?

As predicted, Geert Wilders has been acquitted of hate speech and discrimination (whatever that may mean). Lots of links but here is an American one that is relatively objective. Bloomberg mentions in the first paragraph that this farce has lasted for three years. Mr Wilders's comments "fell within the bounds of legitimate political debate", according to the judge. And so I should think. Ed West is absolutely right: the mere fact that this trial took place is a disgrace. One can only surmise that the Dutch legal system has nothing else to deal with.

Curious

The Guardian tells us that the Dutch election result produced an even more fragmented result than usual but the outcome might be a good thing. Coalitions are a new thing in Britain (not precisely if one looks at nineteenth century history but let that pass) but in the Netherlands it is the stuff of politics. Why that should be considered something to emulate is not clear.

Never mind. The Guardian does not see this result as a good outcome for the Right or the Centre Right. No, indeed.

A less exciting but more accurate reading of Wednesday's result would be that the votes of the centre-left parties held up, while those of the right splintered both to the Liberals and the Freedom party. Indisputably the Christian Democrats were the big losers. In an election dominated not by immigration but by the economy and the deficit, Dutch voters could therefore be said to have opted for fiscal austerity with a social conscience, much as British voters did a month ago. This leaves the Liberals well placed to govern with the centre-left in what would here be called a progressive coalition.

Furthermore, let us not get over-excited about Geert Wilders's party.

Dutch voters have not given Mr Wilders a mandate to govern, and he should certainly not now be rewarded with one.

Given the Dutch system, that is not exactly accurate since a third party is often in the Cabinet. In Britain, on the other hand, the Lib-Dims were most definitely not given a mandate to govern, coming third and losing seats. Yet, somehow, they have been rewarded with that mandate and the Guardian seems very happy about that.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands ...

... the government is in trouble.

The liberal and conservative Dutch government cabinet holds an emergency meeting on Monday after talks on a £7 billion cuts package, demanded by the EU under eurozone budget deficit rules, broke down at the weekend. Mark Rutte, the Dutch Prime Minister, a Liberal, will try to find support for austerity measures with the opposition Labour Party this week but will have to offer early elections in September in return.

Apparently, the crisis was caused by Geert Wilders withdrawing his support from the government, arguing "against Europe, against the euro". If he has seen the light, I am going to take some credit for that, as I was instructed by Lord Pearson during Mr Wilders's visit to enlighten the man about the EU. I did my best but did not think I had succeeded. Who knows? I may have been more successful than I had realized.

Partial victory

I still have not caught up quite with developments in various EU member states such as the Netherlands, Sweden and France (where public sector strikes over pension reforms are in their second day). However, it is good to be able to report that there is a partial victory in the Geert Wilders case.

Through Atlas Shrugged I have found the Radio Netherlands report that informs us of the Dutch Public Prosecutors dropping the charge group defamation.

Public prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman now say his comments on the Qur’an referred to Islam and its holy book, and not to Muslim people.

In explaining their call for acquittal on the defamation charges, the prosecutors also explained that statements contained in the MP’s film, Fitna, referred to Islam as a religion and not to its followers. Even though the statements could hurt the feelings of Muslims, that was not the same as defamation of the group.

On Friday we shall see whether the charge of inciting hatred and discrimination (in effect exercising free speech as Ayaan Hirsi Ali explains in her article in the Wall Street Journal) will be pressed.

The EU is easily pleased

The things that please the EU are numerous: decisions to buy up worthless bonds, complicated pronouncements by the German Constitutional Court and, now, the somewhat doubtful (from their point of view) result in the Dutch election.

Whoppee, whooppee, they are saying: the pro-EU parties have triumphed.

The outcome of elections in the Netherlands was greeted with relief elsewhere in Europe as an unexpected vote of confidence in the EU, with voters shunning eurosceptic candidates on the far right and far left and turning towards mainstream parties that have backed eurozone rescue measures.

Rather than punishing Mark Rutte, the Liberal party prime minister, for approving bailout packages for Greece and Spain, the Dutch re-elected him and awarded his conservative party with its largest-ever share of the vote.

The centre-left Labour party did almost as well, after a summer in which leftwing voters appeared to have rejected it for the eurosceptic Socialists.

Meanwhile, the anti-European campaign run by far-right populist Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) was a failure, as his vote share dropped to 10 per cent from 16 per cent in 2010.

Brussels must be so happy, someone commented without, apparently, any irony. But not everything in the garden is rosy.

It seems that, in order to get the vote, the two top parties borrowed more of their "more extreme" rivals' ideas. Specifically, the Liberals campaigned on a far more eurosceptic platform than they have ever done and it will be difficult to row back from that.

The problem of how those two parties, now further apart than ever before, might manage to form a coalition remains. I predict some fun and games in the weeks to come.