Stephen Pollard posts one of his articles from the Times online. You really need to go and read it.
Belgium has banned a political party because the chattering classes do not like it. Seriously, in an EU state there are now political opinions which it is verboten to have.
We could of course hope that the new European Union Constitution and the associated Charter of Fundamental Human Rights will remedy such matters : surely the right to think and vote as one wishes is such a right ?
Probably not. When Austria voted Jorg Haider’s ( admittedly not very nice ) right wing party into a coalition in the Austrian Govt, the EU refused to deal with that Govt. Yup, 14 nations took it upon themselves to outlaw a fellow EU nation as a result of the democratically expressed will of that nation. Nationalism, anti- immigration, lower taxes, these things just didn’t go down well with the bien pensants.
Looking to the future we should be more worried. That EU Constitution that we’re all supposed to have a referendum about…..it defines ” ever closer union” as one of the main fundamental aims of the new state. So if you want to vote for the UK Independence Party, or for another group that advocates leaving this new superstate : well, you won’t be able to. Can’t have a party that advocates policies against the Constitution now can we ?
Think it won’t happen ?
Wanna bet ?
Democracy ? Not in the EU.
6 responses
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I feel like I’m on a mission or something 🙂
First of all, there’s a clear conflict of interest with Stephen Pollard. He’s a senior fellow at the Centre for a New Europe, a Brussels conservative think tank co-founded by Paul Belien, husband of Alexandra Colen, member of parliament for the Vlaams Blok.
His article is cribbed almost word for word from a Vlaams Blok website, http://www.flemishrepublic.org, and is in full of factual errors. To name but a few: the Vlaams Blok is not banned. It’s three organisations surrounding the VB that have been convicted for manifest and repeated violation of a law that forbids the incitement of violence and hatred.
There is no poll indicating the Blok is likely to be the biggest Belgian party. The Blok is hardly the only party advocating secession (it *is* the only party blaming all evils in society on immigrants). Et cetera.
Of course you’ll still be able to vote for any party you want. Of course you’ll still be able to say and think what you want. What you cannot do, in Belgium at least, is to break the law.
Just like an imam or (for that matter) a catholic cardinal are entitled to their opinions about homophilia, but that they cannot call for the mass execution by defenestration of gay people.
Belgium is a complex country. The issues the Vlaams Blok highlights are serious problems–immigration, crime, a Flemish state versus a federal state versus the European Union, unemployment, etc.–the main problem is that all the Blok does is blame other people.
If it’s not “foreigners” it’s “intelligentsia”. If it’s not the mayor of Antwerp it’s the Flemish government. And if it’s not the Flemish governement then it’s the federal governement, or the European Union.
They have no real answers or solutions. All they effectively do is incite, yes, hatred and violence.
As I sais, Belgium is a complex country, with three official languages, three Communities and three Regions, each with their respective governments and parliaments.
One of the reasons the Vlaams Blok is succesful, is precisely because of their very straightforward and simplistic programme.
One important lesson I take away from Pollard’s artice is that we, well-informed Belgians, can now see first-hand how lack of information about the realities of a complex situation can make a normally scrupulous journalist write an article that sounds plausible but is in actual fact completely wrong on all possible levels.
And this is Belgium, a country that’s just on the other side of the Channel, well within the same European judeo-christian frame of reference as the UK. And these are facts that can be verified objectively. -
oh yes, and one of these days I’ll learn to proofread what I submit 🙂
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I hear what you say although find it uncompelling. I do not think one should ban a group or what it says. Laws against incitement to violence exist in many places, but they are directed against the individual that utters them and prosecuted in a criminal court. Not as in Belgium, in a civil court. And not by taking away the only possible method of funding a political party, in a country where individual donations are almost banned.
You might say that I believe in freedom of association, a freedom that is not moderated by who the State decides who I may associate with.
Much of your argument could be described as Vlaams Block having problems because they are not nuanced, too much simplisme. To an Anglo Saxon such as myself my retort would be good basic Anglo Saxon words.
And no, we haven’t forgiven Belgium for refusing to sell ammunition to a fellow member of NATO during the Falklands War. -
“Of course you’ll still be able to vote for any party you want. Of course you’ll still be able to say and think what you want. What you cannot do, in Belgium at least, is to break the law. ”
This sounds like sophistry to me.
If the law says that particular party can’t exist any more, then we’re back where we started, no?
Pollard may well have a conflict of interest – I didn’t know that, and thanks for pointing it out.
But his central point was, I think, that the right response to unsavoury opinions and parties is to argue against them, not to ban them. -
Why the Vlaams Blok party in Belgium is it condemned to be disbanded and will (for the next five years) all of their actual members be forbidden to be re-elected again? Is it secession or “racism”?
In a normal country, I suppose most left-wingers would like to abolish their local far right European party, but in Belgium there is the additional unison support of 38% French-speakers from the south of Belgium for that project, because these people get each year between 5,2 billion to maximum 11 billion (according to the source) Euro of financial transfers under circumstances that are shrouded in mystery and deceit…
Also to compare: if the Arabs in Israel would make out 38% instead of 20% actually, they perhaps would also conspire with Israel’s left to disband Likud, isn’t it?
They are so convinced of their political correctness, that they hesitate at nothing: remind their plan to jail president Bush and PM Sharon with the Belgian genocide law, of course after those leaders would have lost some election in future… -
Ref Stephen Pollard’s so-alled conflict of interest. It is true that he is a fellow of ythe CNE, it is also true that Paul Belien was one of its co-founders, and that Mr Belien is married to Alexandra Colen (an Irishwoman, oddly). But what your correspondent misses is that Belien has had nolinks with the CNE, other than social with some of its people for a number of years because of his wifes Blok position, and Pollard joined the CNE after Belien was removed.
To follow up it seems that the appeal launched by the Blok will be heard in time for the reguional and European Elections,(This in a country when getting a court date is nigh on impossible they have managed two significant dates in time for the elections, hmmm.) if they lose, and in Belgium they no doubt will then they will be barred from competing in those elections from what I understand from the Belgian media.
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