This was the year when democracy punched massive holes in the smug and consensual regimes of the global liberal elite. And there is more to come from the so-called populists who are derided by the elites in direct correlation to the threat they pose to them.
In 2017 populist parties are standing on the verge of victory, include Marine Le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and parties such as Italy’s Lega Nord and Germany’s Alternative fur Deutschland.
It started in 2016 with the Brexit campaign. The liberal elites of David Cameron’s government and his political cronies across the globe insisted the United Kingdom should stay in the European Union. This patronizing view was shared by global banks, big business, the taxpayer-funded BBC and the liberal media.
Despite a collective pat on the head from the great, the good and the unaccountable, the British people calmly and deliberately voted to take back control of their nation, its borders and their destiny.
I started the year at CPAC in Washington, where I met leading Republicans and a number of President-elect Trump’s advisors. From Speaker Paul Ryan, to K.T. McFarland of Fox News, to Breitbart’s Steve Bannon — they all understood Brexit. All were baffled at Britain’s ceding of its historic sovereignty to a supra-national entity hell-bent on opening its borders to the uncontrolled mayhem of mass immigration.
I saw the power of Trump’s campaign focusing on security, immigration and the economy. I believed then that both he and the Nigel Farage-inspired Brexit movements would triumph.
President Obama’s intervention in Brexit was a game-changer. We had a special relationship. The Thatcher/Reagan alliance changed the world, brought communism to and end and all without a shot being fired. That relationship was put under strain during the Blair/Bush/Clinton/Cameron/Obama era with bloody and messy Middle East failures, which led to the birth of the Islamic State. Their meddling in the so-called Arab Spring, which saw the fall of Mubarak in Egypt and Gaddafi in Libya, led to the ensuing chaos of mass migration to Europe. The Arab world is not predisposed to liberal democracy, and now we are all paying the price.
The Islamic State’s modus operandi is for its murderers to infiltrate Europe via the masses of migrants queuing up to get in, as in Paris, Brussels and Berlin.
Some migrants we welcomed abused our generosity. On New Year’s Eve in German and Swedish cities, young male migrants sexually attacked women. These attacks were initially unreported by the liberal media, guided by police and governments who believed that to publicize them would be politically incorrect.
It was left to social media to expose the crimes.
In Calais, France, 10,000 people — mainly young economic migrant men from Africa and the Middle East — were camped awaiting the chance to break into the U.K. Many hijacked cars, broke into lorries and rioted, encouraged by British anarchists and the human rights industry. At the same time, the U.K. government reduced the Border Force, police and prison services.
In the U.K. we saw our cities and villages swamped by migrants seeking a better life. There were not enough schools, homes or healthcare to provide properly for all. British-born children were frequently taught in classrooms where 30 languages were spoken. And yet the politicians kept telling us that immigration was good, open borders were sacrosanct and that to complain was racist and xenophobic.
In the criminal justice system, the human rights of migrants who committed crimes were seen as more important than the victims. The European Court of Human Rights prevented deportations. And those we did try and deport frustrated the police and judiciary with publicly funded human rights lawyers, arguing their case to stay in a country that they had no respect for.
The start of the backlash came with the European Parliament elections of 2014. The Eurosceptic parties formed one-third of the Parliament. Suddenly this consensual institution had an opposition questioning its failed policies.
Whenever we mentioned immigration we were howled down as racists and xenophobes. The public reacted, taking offense that they were being smeared too.
The scene was set for Brexit. The French started talking about Frexit, the Italians Italexit, and the Dutch, Nexit. The elite then started using the term “populist” (correctly defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “those that represent the ordinary people” — the irony).
In the U.K., those who had always voted socialist could see that the rich, London-centric, well educated, privileged politicians, did not represent their views or fully understand their lives.
Former prime minister Tony Blair and his wife, both lawyers, were responsible for the human rights act and for bringing the term “hate crime” into British law. David Cameron, a lightweight version of Blair, was seen as more of the same.
No one should believe that what is now happening on the political stages in Britain and Europe represents a threat. Rather, it is an opportunity to restore proper, accountable democracy. The “populists” are not protectionist, inward looking or xenophobic. Like Donald Trump, we are concerned about our children’s future, our culture, our identity, our security and our inability to adapt to uncontrolled cheap labor and different cultures.
That’s why I traveled to New York with like-minded Europeans to campaign for Trump and was in Trump Tower on election night.
We are outward looking, believing that NATO countries should pay their membership fees and that the world will be a safer place because Trump has a pragmatic approach to the Middle East and Russia.
Every month, I speak in Parliament about security, open borders, jihadism and the protection of our women against sexual violence.
The fear this strikes into the old establishment was firmly in evidence when the outgoing U.S.-EU Ambassador, Anthony J Gardner, heartbroken that Hillary Clinton did not win the U.S. elections, addressed the Parliament’s U.S.-EU Delegation, on which I serve. In an unprecedented attack on Brexit and the “populists” in the EU, Gardner vowed to return to London to fight Brexit. We will fight him.
You can find that encounter here.
Janice Atkinson is a British Independent Member of the European Parliament. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
