Rally closure for daring to question Brussels is extreme cancel culture

IT WAS no surprise to me that I wouldn’t be welcomed back to Brussels. I first got wind that trouble was brewing on Saturday afternoon, when I received word from the organisers of the National Conservatism Conference that political pressure was being put on the venue to cancel the rally.

A new venue was found, but despite best efforts, that option was also closed off. One venue cancellation I could live with, but two is absolutely outrageous. Yet we hadn’t even reached the lowest point. On arrival, the mood was tense and we were told by security that the police were on their way to stop people from entering the venue, midway through the conference. A warm welcome back indeed.

The excuse given by officials to harass a peaceful political event “to guarantee public safety” is simply extraordinary. How could the public be threatened by speeches from Hungary’s prime minister and leaders of national political parties set to win in the next European elections? No, the real threat is ideological: questioning Brussels’ “ever closer union”. Holding these beliefs seems to have been enough to attempt to shut us down.

As the day progressed, we heard of increasingly frantic calls from a local mayor. Even the caterers were told not to come. Our friendly Tunisian host feared his business would be ruined. I will in time announce the name of our host from Tunisia’s establishment and advocate every British tourist in Brussels spends as much money there as they possibly can, in protest at the city’s Eu-crazy authoritarianism.

The monstrous reaction in Brussels to this conference comes as no surprise to me. I was banned from restaurants, pubs and coffee bars in my last few years in this city. But today, the Brussels elite have exhibited their cancel culture on a global stage. In fact, it’s far more serious than that.

Cancel culture is saying, “I do not want to hear your opinion”. What happened today is an updated form of Soviet communism. It says that no other view is allowed, that anybody that holds it is, by definition, mad, bad, and dangerous. It’s an approach that has, and will always, fail in the end.

Yesterday might well have been my most productive day ever in Brussels, even after 20 years as an MEP. I was forever the devil, forever the outsider – but now I can see a growing number are beginning to understand what this globalist project of ever closer union represents. It is not just undemocratic, but anti-democratic in its very nature.

These people have done the cause of freedom an enormous favour.