Former Trump adviser forms antiEU NGO
LONDON: Former Donald Trump political strategist Steve Bannon and a top associate have created a Brusselsbased political organisation intended to undermine, and ultimately paralyse, the European Union, Bannon and the associate said.
Bannon and Raheem Kassam, a former chief aide to British antiEU leader Nigel Farage who now serves as a Bannon lieutenant, said the group, known as The Movement, was already operating and hiring.
‘‘The Movement will be our clearing house for the populist, nationalist movement in Europe. We’re focusing attention on assisting individuals or groups concerned with the matters of sovereignty, border control, jobs, amongst other things,’’ Kassam said.
‘‘The organisation is already a structured foundation with a significant annual budget and we have started to staff up,’’ he said.
Bannon, who during a London visit last week met Farage and Louis Aliot, a close associate of French farright politician Marine Le Pen, described the organisation he was creating as a ‘‘populist project’’ intended to touch off a ‘‘tectonic plate shift in Europe’’.
‘‘Next year’s European parliamentary elections are going to be a major test for both Eurosceptics and reformers alike, and The Movement is where those two causes dovetail,’’ Kassam said.
Bannon and Kassam said their plan was to use their new movement to organise a major turnout of nationalist and populist voters in European Parliament elections, which take place in all EU member states next May. Voter turnout in European Parliament elections historically is low, and Bannon said he and his organisation hope that by mobilising local antiEU groups they can elect a large enough group of Members of the European Parliament to disrupt and even shut down the Parliament and the European Commission.
Parliament in itself is the weakest of the three main political bodies in Brussels, after the Council of member states and the Commission. It cannot propose legislation and would need a majority to block laws and budgets.
Rightwing, antiEU groups have about 100 seats in the current 751seat assembly.
With Britain’s departure next March, Farage and 18 other UK Independence Party members will lose their seats in what will be a 705seat chamber. —