Engeland: Populisten hebben met het doordrukken van Brexit Engeland's ekonomie in grote moeilijkheden gebracht

Het moet toch hopenlijk in de EU tot de ingezetenen en politici van de bij de EU aangesloten lidstaten zijn doorgedrongen dat eenheid macht betekend en verdeeltheid catastrofe.

Vooral als we zien hoe de "moedige" Theresa May nu langs de Europese lidstaten loopt te bedelen om "water bij de wijn te doen", wat betreft de Brexit overeenkomst met de EU.

Notabene het Brexit drama, die de Engelsen zich door ,nationalistische populisten, zoals Nigel Farage en Boris Johnson hebben laten inluizen en die nu in geen velden of wegen te bekennen zijn terwijl Engeland ten onder gaat.

Een duidelijk omschreven 2e referendum is waarschijnlijk de enige redding voor Engeland.

Hopenlijk laten de ingezetenen van de EU zich voor en tijdens de Europese Parlements verkiezingen in mei 2019 niet om de tuin leiden door nationalistische en populistische politici en andere onrust kraaiers.

We hebben zeer zeker geen nieuwe dramas als Brexit meer nodig.

Almere-Digest 

EU-US Relations: The new Trump Isolationist Doctrine and Strategy requires a reevaluation of the EU foreign policy objectives

A wall around America, instead 
of one between Mexico and US

President Donald Trump declared a new national security strategy on Monday,December 18, stressing the "America first" message of his 2016 campaign and faulting previous U.S. leaders for failing to measure up to it and look out for the nation's citizens. Isolation

"Our leaders engaged in nation building abroad while they failed to build up and replenish our nation at home," he said, pointing to the economy's strong performance and predicting even better under his policies.

His security strategy envisions nations in constant competition, reverses Obama-era warnings on climate change and affirms that the United States will unilaterally defend its sovereignty, even if that means risking existing the agreements with other countries that have dominated the United States' foreign policy since the Cold War.

The strategy from the Republican president could sharply alter U.S. international relationships if fully implemented. It focuses on four main themes: protecting the homeland, promoting American prosperity, demonstrating peace through strength and advancing American influence in an ever-competitive world.

Trump's doctrine holds that nation-states are in perpetual competition and that the U.S. must fight on all fronts to protect and defend its sovereignty from friend and foe alike. While the administration often says that "America First" does not mean "America Alone," the national security strategy makes clear that the United States will stand up for itself even if that means acting unilaterally or alienating others on issues such as trade, climate change and immigration.

Despite the risk of potential isolation presented by Trump's strategy, its fundamentals are not a surprise. The strategy emphasizes that U.S. economic security is national security. And it stresses that the U.S. is interested only in relationships with other countries, including in alliances such as NATO, that are fair and reciprocal.

The strategy also details the threats of "rogue regimes," like North Korea. It says that China and Russia "challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity."

Despite international challenges, the document cites emerging opportunities to advance American interests in the Middle East. "Some of our partners are working together to reject radical ideologies and key leaders are calling for a rejection of Islamist extremism and violence," it says. "Encouraging political stability and sustainable prosperity would contribute to dampening the conditions that fuel sectarian grievances."

Note EU-Digest: Obviously the President of the USA can and must do what in his eyes he believes is good for America. As to the EU, what is good for America, necessarily does not have to be good for the EU. Consequently, as has been written many times, the EU must stop being the "lapdog" of America, given its importance as a world class economy, with a population of close to half a billion people, and establish its own independent foreign policy based on EU principles and  priorities, and include a review of its military objectives within this context.

As to the leaders of European Populists and Nationalist parties, like Geert Wilders, Jean Marie Lr Pen, Nigel Farage, and others, who apparently admire Trump's "America First Isolationist Doctrine",  we  recommend they pack their bags and request asylum in the US  from their idol Danald Trump.   

Read more: Trump unveils details of 'America First' security strategy

EU: Nationalism Raising Its Ugly Head in Europe at Populists TRUMP Disciples Meeting in Germany, praising Fuhrer Trump - by Simon Shuster

European Nationalist TRUMP Disciples  Wilders, Petry, and LePen

Across the European Union, politicians on the right-wing fringe have been invigorated by Trump’s victory, which has given them a chance to attract new supporters, build coalitions and argue that, despite the often glaring differences between them, they are all part of a movement with seemingly unstoppable momentum.disciples

The most striking proof yet of that movement came on Saturday in the cross-section of far-right populists who met for the first time, at the AfD's invitation, at a convention in the German city of Koblenz. A day after Trump’s inauguration, the stars of the European right drew a direct line between Trump’s success at the ballot box and their own looming electoral battles.

“In 2016, the Anglo-Saxon world woke up,” said Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader currently favorite to become France's next President, referring to Trump’s victory and the British vote to leave the European Union in June. “In 2017, I am sure that it will be the year of the Continental peoples rising up,” she said to raucous applause.

The speech was the first Le Pen has ever delivered to an audience in Germany, whose right-wing leaders had previously avoided associating themselves with her more radical and xenophobic positions. But on Saturday she shared a stage with AfD leader Frauke Petry, signaling to the world they are now on the same team.

Taking the podium by turns, leading political upstarts from France, Germany, Italy, Austria and other European nations stuck to a strikingly similar message for their audience of roughly a thousand delegates. They raged against the globalist elites, the European Union, the media and, in particular, the millions of Arab and African immigrants whom they accuse of threatening European culture.

After a few weeks of reading online about Donald Trump’s transition to the presidency, Marco Kopping, a 36-year-old apprentice at a car-parts supplier near Frankfurt, decided to get involved in German politics. He had never sympathized with a political party before, let alone joined one. But in December he received his glossy membership card from Alternative for Germany (AfD), one of the far-right movements now riding the updraft from Trump’s ascent. What drove him, Kopping says, “was the feeling of a revolution.” He didn’t want to be left behind.

Across the European Union, politicians on the right-wing fringe have been invigorated by Trump’s victory, which has given them a chance to attract new supporters, build coalitions and argue that, despite the often glaring differences between them, they are all part of a movement with seemingly unstoppable momentum.

 The most striking proof yet of that movement came on Saturday in the cross-section of far-right populists who met for the first time, at the AfD's invitation, at a convention in the German city of Koblenz. A day after Trump’s inauguration, the stars of the European right drew a direct line between Trump’s success at the ballot box and their own looming electoral battles.“In 2016, the Anglo-Saxon world woke up,” said Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader currently favorite to become France's next President, referring to Trump’s victory and the British vote to leave the European Union in June. “In 2017, I am sure that it will be the year of the Continental peoples rising up,” she said to raucous applause.

The speech was the first Le Pen has ever delivered to an audience in Germany, whose right-wing leaders had previously avoided associating themselves with her more radical and xenophobic positions. But on Saturday she shared a stage with AfD leader Frauke Petry, signaling to the world they are now on the same team.

Taking the podium by turns, leading political upstarts from France, Germany, Italy, Austria and other European nations stuck to a strikingly similar message for their audience of roughly a thousand delegates. They raged against the globalist elites, the European Union, the media and, in particular, the millions of Arab and African immigrants whom they accuse of threatening European culture.

Just a few years ago, such rhetoric would have confined these voices to the margins of European politics, especially in Germany, whose history with fascism has long provided a level of resistance to the allure of nationalism and identity politics. But today, buoyed by Trumpism, their message has entered the mainstream.

Two of the party leaders at Saturday’s event — Le Pen of the National Front and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom — are leading in the polls ahead of elections scheduled for this spring. The Austrian Freedom Party, whose two top leaders skipped the event in Koblenz in order to attend Trump’s Inauguration, narrowly lost a presidential race last month, even though the party’s founders in the 1950s were former officers of the Nazi SS.

“We all stand for the same things,” the party’s representative at the event, Harald Vilimsky, said from the stage on Saturday. “And if Trump is the winner, we are also winners.”

The new U.S. President has gone out of his way to encourage his admirers in Europe. The first foreign politician he met with after winning the election in November was Nigel Farage, the populist leader of the U.K. Independence Party, which drove the British vote to leave the European Union. In an interview last week with two European newspapers, Trump echoed the attacks that European nationalists have leveled against their favorite bugbear, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling her immigration policy "catastrophic." He also predicted that other E.U. members would follow Britain's lead in breaking away from the bloc.

“They’ve managed to create a public discourse that I thought was impossible here,” says Sylke Tempel, the editor of the Berlin Policy Journal, referring to the AfD. “You feel it in the little things, the use of language, the way people have started to talk.”One case in point took place about 10 minutes into the summit on Saturday, when the crowd turned on the attending journalists and began chanting "Lügenpresse!" — “lying press” — a term first popularized by the Nazis and, in the past couple of years, revived by European nationalists as a means of vilifying the media. Some of Trump’s supporters also adopted the term during his campaign rallies.

What matters to them now is maintaining a sense of unity behind the idea that their time has come, and Trump’s victory has made that a lot easier. “Yesterday you got a new America,” said Kopping, the AfD member, at Saturday’s event. "Now we want a new Europe."

Note EU-Digest: Given the track record of the new US President Donald Trump so far, European voters should at least be forewarned that Trump's European disciples of the far right Nationalist Camp are not the answer to a better, stable and economically strong Europe. 

Read more: Europe's Populists Meet at Koblenz, Germany, in Awe of Trump | Time.com

The Netherkands: Geert Wilders tweets image of Angela Merkel with blood on her hands but does not point at the real culprits of EU Refugee crises

EU Populists: Geert Wilders and Marie Le Pen

Far-right leaders across Europe have accused German Chancellor Angela Merkel of having blood on her hands following Monday's Berlin terror attack.

Not one European politician, however, from the right or left, so far has dared to point their finger at the US Government Middle East Policies as the direct cause of this refugee disaster and terrorism in Europe, or demanded that George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Tony Blair be tried as war criminals. 
  

Instead obsessed out of control Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders  tweeted a provocative photo of Angela Merkel with blood on her hands as he blamed Europe's 'cowardly leaders' for a 'tsunami' of Islamic terrorist attacks.

In a previous tweet, he wrote: 'They hate and kill us. And nobody protects us. Our leaders betray us. We need a political revolution. And defend our people. 

Germany's far-right has also blamed Angela Merkel's immigration policy for the Berlin Christmas attacks as the chancellor insisted terrorists will not destroy 'freedom' in the country.

Mrs Merkel has laid white roses at the scene where 12 died after she said she was 'shocked and shaken' by the deadly attack in Berlin. She admitted it would be 'particularly sickening' if the terrorist was an asylum-seeker.

In Britain, the extremist Britain First organisation also claimed Mrs Merkel's immigration policy has put the entire continent at risk.

The party's 'acting leader' Jayda Fransen issued a two-and-a-half minute video for her organisation's followers claiming they had predicted such an attack would happen.

She said: 'After allowing millions of asylum seekers into Europe, Angela Merkel has put every single one of us at risk. 

There are now millions of people who are able to move freely throughout Europe who want us dead. 

The war in Iraq was the beginning of all this drama and disasters we are facing today.

Europe has to change its Middle East Policies by stepping away from blindly following the US lead in this area and thereby providing deranged populists politicians like Geert Wilders and others of his kind with the amunition to spout their hate speeches and other nonsense.

EU-DIGEST

European Politics & populism: Marine Le Pen, Beppe Grillo, Geert Wilders, Frauke Petry: has their big moment arrived? - by Toby Helm

Populism and the media

Dogged by the migration crisis and the traumatic business of Brexit – to name just two current, existential challenges to their project – those who run the European Union felt they had enough on their plates before Donald Trump seized the White House.

News of his triumph broke on Europe, as had that of the British vote to leave the European Union on 23 June, in defiance of opinion pollsters and the assumptions of political elites that maintained that the world’s most advanced democracy could never deliver such a blow to the established order. Then it did.

In EU capitals, where they had preferred to dismiss Brexit as a one-off revolt by the union’s most difficult member, Trump’s election prompted the same elites to question their easy assumptions and entertain, for the first time, the impossible.

For the European Union such an outcome – Le Pen winning – would be far, far worse than Brexit. Brexit is containable. A France conquered by an anti-EU presidential candidate is not.

Everyone agreed last week that her winning would destroy the EU. “It would be cataclysmic, existential, the end,” said one EU diplomat.

In Berlin, Stephan Mayer, a Christian Social Union (CSU) MP in the Bundestag and his party’s home affairs spokesman, declared that, if Le Pen took France out of the euro and the EU, the European project would be done for.

Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag, and one not prone to dramatic overstatement, said countries at the heart of the EU integration process could no longer regard themselves as necessarily immune from populist movements. “What we have to take into account is that disruptive things can happen and the unthinkable can happen, so we should not take it for granted that Le Pen cannot win,” he said.

Note EU-Digest: Yes indeed everything is now possible, given the "average stupidity of the voter", who usually votes with his or her emotions rather than their head. 

Yes it will bring change, but eventually also chaos. The perspective is that globalism is at fault here. Initiated and expanded by a tiny group of banking interests, globalism has also been consolidating worldwide power with a group of massive corporations, governments and technocratic leaders. 

The danger is that populism could also be their plan B, giving them even more power, but in a different way. Time will tell , but it is so much resembling the mood of Europe when the Treaty of Versaille was signed on the twenty eighth of June 1919 that set conditions for drastic change throughout Europe. 

Many of the war reperations imposed on the defeated nations of the Central Powers were too much to be ever repaid. The economies of European nations were in turmoil after the war and many nations were politically unstable. This political instability had pathed the way for new reforms in many countries in Europe during this period. The early years of the twentieth century ushered in new radical ideologies that presented new challenges in inter-state relations. Mass uprisings and government reforms were on the main agenda. 

It resulted in the birth of two also populist based ideologies - Fascism and Nazism.

Are we going back to that scenario ?

Read more: Marine Le Pen, Beppe Grillo, Geert Wilders, Frauke Petry: has their big moment arrived? | World news | The Guardian

EU Politics: Austrian (European) Democrats Must Unite To Stop The Far Right - by Robert Misik

"Alarming populist"ultra-right-wing surge in European politics"

The resistible rise of the Far Right in Austria. The presidential election is on a knife-edge before the deciding round of the deciding round of at the end of May.  It did indeed come as a shock that moment when the blue bar on the TV screen last Sunday at 5 pm shot upwards: 35 per cent of the votes for the far right FPÖ presidential candidate Norbert Hofer with his nearest challenger – the Greens’ ex-chairman Alexander van der Bellen – pretty far behind on 21 per cent.

And the candidates of the two ruling (former) big parties, the Christian democrats and the social democrats, had shrunk to barely more than ten per cent. Nobody had bet on an upset on this scale, not one political expert, not one opinion pollster.

For the FPÖ this first round of the presidential election represents the biggest breakthrough they’ve ever had in a federal election. Behind it lie several pivotal reasons. First: the candidate and his campaign. From a FPÖ point of view the candidate and campaign were simply brilliant. One banked on Austria First, anti-EU, anti-refugees and on the well-honed, all-encompassing anti-Establishment messaging. But with Hofer they had a candidate who came across as a man one could trust, a little bit nerdy, a shade too boyish. Of the type: a right-wing radical nobody can be afraid of; an extremist but harmless. So he was the ideal figure to exceed his party’s potential support so dramatically. If party boss Strache is like an agitator who frightens people away then Hofer is the nice and sweet son-in-law type one can plump for one time at least out of sheer dissatisfaction with the rest.

This explains why Hofer ended up significantly ahead of the expected potential vote for his party. This potential is in any case frighteningly high and is nurtured by everything that generally favours right-wing populists in today’s Europe: utter disenchantment with the political and economic elites, the feeling of the “man on the street” that nobody gives a fig. Add to that in Austria: rage about a grand coalition of those parties that have marked post-war Austria, which, in the eyes of the people, have for ever and a day viewed the country as in their possession and today put dreadfully incapable apparatchiks into the top jobs. This is all embodied in the person of the chancellor, Werner Faymann. The candidates of the two established but now former big parties experienced a pretty unprecedented collapse. Incredibly, Faymann clings to his seat even after this debacle as in no way responsible.

The next four weeks will be tricky. The FPÖ man Hofer has by no means won. Of course, the significant gap between him and second placed but favourite Alexander van der Bellen is a shock to the system for the centre-left camp. And courage and energy are now required if this advantage is to be wiped out. We need solidarity among democrats – though this is complicated by the fear it might possibly help Hofer if the entire country, from the chancellor to the cardinal, lines up against him, enabling the FPÖ to bang the drum: “Look, the entire Establishment is joining forces to block the candidate of the little people.”

From today’s perspective the final round in four weeks is on a knife-edge. Hofer has comprehensively exhausted the voter potential of the FPÖ but can still net a few votes from the conservative camp. Traditional Green and social democrat voters, on the other hand, largely stayed at home in the first round. So that means van der Bellen might win on the backs of non-voters. If he wins the bigger part of voters for the independent, liberal democrat candidate Irmgard Gris and, on top, half of those who voted in the first round for the SPÖ candidate, then he might well get over the required 50 per cent plus-1 hurdle. Equally, the FPÖ has got huge momentum after this first round result – it’s brimming with confidence.

Blocking Hofer as federal president is anyway just the immediate minimalist programme that, even if it succeeds, will do nothing about the deep crisis afflicting the political system. The government is a spent force, the social democrats are a lifeless torso with a chancellor and party chairman Werner Faymann who has absolutely zero credibility after the dozens of twists and turns and endless tactical manoeuvrings he’s carried out. The governing parties haven’t even the shred of a positive idea in their heads about how one can help the country progress. For months polls have shown that the Freedom lot would be the biggest party when it came to National Assembly elections. And by a distance too: The far right is on a stable 32 per cent, with the Christian and social democrats ten points behind.

The old political scene is breaking up. If we want to stop the turn in Austria towards ‘Orbanistan’ it would require open-heart surgery: the social democrats in particular would have to get rid of the greater part of their political top brass and do so whilst chained to a government whose protagonists simply block each other. It’s not entirely impossible that might happen but let’s put it like this: This is not exactly the best time for such an operation. The country is tilting to the right and a left-wing alternative that can use popular disenchantment and dissatisfaction to its own purposes is nowhere in sight. If the social democrats cannot execute this U-turn then such an alternative will have to be built with lightning speed. The next parliamentary elections are due in 2018 but nobody is betting on the coalition dragging on for as long as that after this debacle.

Note EU-Digest: "It is high time for Europeans to recognize the dangers of this "populist" ultra-right-wing surge in European politics. For those that seem to have forgotten - remember that man with the mustache?  - also from Austria - who promised many things which would make a better and stronger Europe. It turned out into a disaster ".   

Read more: Austrian Democrats Must Unite To Stop The Far Right