A quote from The Sunday Telegraph, 4 November 2007

A Conservative parliamentary candidate has been summoned to meet the Tory Party chairwoman after praising Enoch Powell's infamous "rivers of blood" speech. Nigel Hastilow, the Conservative candidate in the key Midlands seat of Halesowen and Rowley Regis, wrote in a newspaper column that Mr Powell's warnings about uncontrolled immigration were right.

According to the American website Little Green Footballs the late Pim Fortuyn, who was murdered in the Netherlands by a political opponent in May 2002,

may have been labeled a ‘racist’ by the usual suspects for his opposition to the invasion of radical Islam, but he was also strongly opposed to the Belgian Vlaams Belang party; he called them a ‘fascist’ group.

 
Did he, indeed? This is from a column which Fortuyn wrote in 2000 after Filip Dewinter, one of the leaders of the Flemish-separatist Vlaams Blok (Vlaams Belang), had been assaulted in a television studio in the Netherlands. As Filip Dewinter fled from the studio his car was smashed and destroyed with iron bars. The far-left activists who demolished the car conspicuously left Nazi literature on the back seat.

A quote from the Italian press agency Ansa, 2 October 2007

Italy was set Friday to start expelling European Union citizens considered a menace to society. The move came amid a crime wave involving many immigrants from new EU member Romania – and after a deadly assault on a navy officer's wife that shocked the nation. […]

A quote from Roger Scruton in The American Spectator, October 2007

Europeans, who are snobbish about American culture, are also shamed by American altruism. Once they have made their fortune, Americans devote themselves to giving it away. They lavish gifts on their school, their church, their college, or their hospital, taking an obvious pleasure in doing so. They also take pleasure in others' success – an emotion that seems to have vanished entirely from European society. Of course, Europeans are great preachers of altruism. But the more they preach, the less they give. For they do not regard others as their personal concern: It is the state, not the individual, that has assumed the duty of charity, and when things go wrong – as in the recent floods in England – it is the state that must step in to help.

A quote from Open Europe’s Press Summary, 2 November 2007

The Times reports that controversy has arisen over the signing of the revised EU Constitution. It has been decided that the Treaty will be signed in Lisbon by all 27 EU leaders, and after a matter of hours in the Portuguese capital, the politicians will then reboard their planes and follow one another to Brussels, where by evening they will be sitting together again around a different table for the EU summit.

A quote from Bruce Bawer on Charles Johnson’s website, 1 November 2007

Hi Charles,

Your concerns about Vlaams Belang/Blok and the Sverigedemokraterna are totally justified.

In May, Paul Belien wrote as follows in the Washington Times: "Europe is in the middle of a three-way culture war between the defenders of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, the proponents of secular hedonism and the forces of Islamic Jihadism."

”Secular hedonism” is plainly his term for secular liberalism. Plainly he identifies with what he calls ”traditional Judeo-Christian morality.” And the structure of his sentence suggests that for him both ”secular hedonism” and ”Islamic Jihadism” are equal enemies.

And what about those of us who foolishly think this is a war for INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY? Are we just supposed to sit back and shut up and take orders from a bunch of little Euro-fascists?

As we say in Norway, stå på! (Stick to your guns!)
All best,
Bruce

A quote from the Daily Mail, 1 November 2007

Christmas should be downgraded in favour of festivals from other religions to improve race relations, says an explosive report. Labour's favourite think-tank says that because it would be hard to "expunge" Christmas from the national calendar, 'even-handedness' means public organisations must start giving other religions equal footing. [...]

As most readers know by now, I have been involved in what has unfortunately become a very public brawl — some would probably say witch-hunt — with Charles Johnson of major American blog Little Green Footballs about the supposed “racism” of the Sweden Democrats and the Vlaams Belang. Many of these claims have already been countered, though LGF refuses to link to this. I have announced my intention to take a break from commenting at LGF, where I have been active for several years, since it has become abundantly clear that neither Charles nor many of his readers have any interest whatsoever in having an actual debate, and certainly not about the real threats to freedom in Europe.

However, I’d like to continue the debate about “racism,” which now frequently means something along the lines of “I’m a Multiculturalist. I’ve just lost the debate because I have poor arguments in favor of my case. I want to shut you up, therefore you are a racist.”

A quote from Charles Johnson at his ‘Little Green Footballs’ website, 31 October 2007

The more I look into what Brussels Journal really stands for, the more repugnant it seems.

[We criticized him here, here, and here. -- pb]

A quote from Daniel Hannan MEP in The Daily Telegraph, 1 November 2007

Belgium has now gone for 144 days without a government and you know what?… everything seems normal. [...] Which prompts the thought: perhaps there should never be a Belgian government. Next week, Belgium will break its previous record for going unadministered, and no one – other than the armies of fonctionnaires who fret for their pensions – seems especially bothered.