This week, France’s government punished a Moroccan migrant. Caught on camera lighting a cigarette in the flame of Paris’ Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the interior ministry announced that his permanent residency would be revoked. This is one of a litany of recent stories which, if you hear it from European establishmentarians, prove that they have finally cracked the case on how to stop the populists: Keep out dangerous migrants and harshly punish those who do not respect the societies which have granted them asylum. The German government has frozen refugee programmes and closed its borders. The Austrians have even begun deporting Syrians back to their homeland, now that the civil war is over. And recently, the European Parliament even endorsed building border walls.
It sounds good. But yet voters around the continent are still enraged. In fact, in all of the aforementioned countries, right-populists are jumping to first place in polling. In others, nationalists are keeping or gaining ground. Why? Aren’t the people demanding walls? Are they not demanding deportations?
Well, no. They demanded walls ten years ago, when masses of individuals began entering Europe. Since then, millions have continued to enter illegally or by claiming “asylum,” a process which takes years to prove. Even if all entry was blocked tomorrow, there would still be millions of migrants in Europe. The time for walls has passed. Voters want something more: Remigration.
This is not guesswork. A recent poll from the United Kingdom revealed that nearly half of Britons want to ban all immigration and begin mass deportations. For a country which has had “Diversity is our strength” forcibly baked into their DNA, this is a shocking reversal. In Austria – a country which has only elected the centre-right or the centre-left – the populist-right won last year’s election on a platform of the “remigration of strangers.” While that party, the Freedom Party, was kept out of government – in favour of a current, rickety establishment coalition – they are still far ahead in nationwide polling, with averages showing them 14 per cent higher than second-place. Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki – who was just sworn in this week – is a nationalist whose entire presidential campaign was predicated on a platform which could be described as, “I will not allow Poland to become like Western Europe.”
Where does the rage come from?
Start with the aforementioned stories, the triumphs of the establishments which have supposedly finally started to take action. The Moroccan whose right of residency was stripped by the French government? You would think no longer having residency would mean being deported. But think again: Losing his right of residency is only the first of many steps which may, eventually, result in deportation (but there are no guarantees on that front).
How about Germany’s bold move? It lasted a few weeks before a judge ruled that it was unlawful to turn asylum seekers away in the manner Germany had wished to. And Austria’s vaunted deportation of a Syrian in early July? It seems to be one-and-done; although Austria promised that “more will follow,” none have thus far.
If one traces most of the stories which prove that establishmentarians are finally tackling migration, the unfortunate truth becomes clear: that they are in fact not doing so, and are only trying to act tough for the cameras. This becomes especially clear when one reads the absolute horror stories which constantly emerge of violence done to Westerners by migrants.
Take Luna, whose story was recently spotlighted by the Women’s Safety Initiative, a group of British women who have become so concerned for their safety that they have taken to raising awareness of migrant violence. Luna, who is nine, was attacked and raped so brutally by an Ethiopian migrant that she now is wheelchair-bound with permanent brain damage. A bevy of similar crimes committed by Afghan asylum seekers in the UK caused some politicians to note that they commit sex crimes at higher rates. Liberal fact checkers bravely tried to put out the fire, critiquing Britons who have suggested Afghan migrants commit sexual assaults at significantly higher rates than native Britons: They are only four times more likely to sexually assault a woman.
Well, ok.
And this of course leaves out the litany of stabbings through France, Germany (including one horrific stabbing of a toddler), Austria, Spain, and many, many more. These headlines – “Migrant stabs [Insert victim here]” – have become so common that they are no longer shocking. They are just sad. They created a feeling of helplessness in the reader, but that feeling is now curdling to rage.
That rage is, for now, being poured into activism and voting. There is the aforementioned Women’s Safety Initiative in the UK, but across the continent, more and more groups are gaining strength. The right-wing Identitarian – who just over a decade ago were portrayed as far-right untouchables – just marched through Vienna for the second time this year surrounded by crowds and like-minded individuals. And as mentioned, populist-right parties are doing very well electorally.
But all the while, establishmentarians are doing all they can to block these efforts. Unelected judges are blocking efforts to make deportations happen faster. Populists are being investigated, blocked from running, or outright jailed. Questioning the judiciary earns you the label of “Attacker of Democracy,” and progressives have co-opted the very term “liberal democracy” to include any of their preferred issues – from LGBT rights to unlimited migration – meaning that if you question those, you question liberal democracy itself. This was not always the case, of course; “liberal democracy” once meant that individuals have individual liberties which will be protected by the government. But now, in the 21st century, it might as well be progressive democracy.
This particular bone boiled even more recently, when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that deportations could only happen when countries are truly safe, meaning they offer protections to the entirety of their populations; they further clarified that national judges can block deportations on these grounds. This ruling essentially destroyed any ability to partake in mass deportations or remigration of any sort.
No populist has yet to ignore outright these rulings. But the time is coming. If Westerners consistently pour their energies into activism but rapes don’t stop, they will not simply grow apathetic. If voters constantly pour their energies into voting, but that does not effect change, they will not simply go home. Their rage will not go away. It will instead be turned toward the system itself.
Establishmentarians love to scream about attacks on liberal democracy whenever a populist politician even sneezes in the direction of a court. But if they continue with these piecemeal manoeuvres and fail to make streets safer and to produce real remigration, they will find out what a real attack on democracy really looks like. They may soon have to choose: The liberal democratic system, or unlimited migration.
They should choose carefully.
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