Results tagged “Geert Wilders” from Birmingham Mail - Is It Just Me

The most alarming thing about the Geert Wilders incident - and forget the Dutch MP whose only importance was the principle involved - is that our own MPs, the people we misguidedly thought were charged with defending and protecting our rights and liberties, have accepted the Government's shoddy appeasement of militant Islam with hardly a murmur.

While Jacqui Smith was hacking the freedom out of free speech and Foreign Secretary David Milliband was knowledgably condemning Wilders' film as illegal before being forced to admit he had not actually seen it, the majority of our representatives of the people kept their heads down and carried on filling in their expenses or whatever is important to them these days.

Give up freedoms without a fight and one day our MPs may well find they have lost even the basic freedom to put up any fight at all.

Last week if you had asked in the pub, perhaps even in the weekly quiz, who Geert Wilders was, women would have shrugged, picked up their glass of pinot and carried on chatting about womanly things.

The men, meanwhile, would have done manly things and racked their brains for any glimmer of recognition of the name in one of the great Ajax, PSV or even Anderlecht teams of the past. Wasn't he the substitute left back in that team where Van Basten scored that wonder goal?

As for Wilders' film, Fitna, that was just about as big a hit as Sex Lives of the Potato Men dubbed into Inuit.

Move on a week and thanks to the clunking fist of Government he is now better known than all the current Ajax, PSV and Anderlecht players combined and, come to think of it, most of the cabinet as well.

Not only that but the principle of free speech has been redefined by the ban on the Dutch MP entering the country. You can say what you like as long as the Government agrees with it and it does not upset the PC gauleiters or militant Islamic groups. Effectively you are now free to say whatever you want as long as it has prior approval and, presumably, you have submitted the appropriate risk assessment form.

The decision is better than a recruiting poster for any right-wing, nationalist or racist groups and must be seen as a late Christmas present by the BNP who will be photocopying membership forms as we speak. Manna from heaven to them. As a bonus it has also upset civil liberty and freedom groups of all hues with the only people gaining anything from the whole debacle being the City slickers who will no doubt be relieved that is has produced a brief respite from the new sport of banker baiting.

To add to the row it has also created a major diplomatic incident with an EU citizen being denied entry to another EU state which will have them bristling with indignation in Brussels. Not only that but to really rattle cages he is not just an ordinary punter or even an ordinary MP but the leader of a legitimate political party in a democratic member state which has really endeared us to the Dutch, who were among our best allies in Europe. Imagine the furore if a British MP had accepted an official invitation and had been denied entry to some foreign gaffe?

And all this for someone whose views were largely unknown in this country and who had limited support in Holland. It is not as if he was even coming to a public meeting where there could have been a breach of the peace - i.e. a punch-up. He had been asked by a couple of Lords to show his film and answer questions in the Palace of Westminster. It was a case of a Dutch parliamentarian invited to address British parliamentarians.

With no interference he would have flown in, shown his film to a couple of dozen peers, answered a few questions, sunk and pie and a pint and gone home. End of story.

Instead we have made him a world celebrity, given fuel to right-wing campaigns, damaged the concept of free speech, ensured his film, easily found, will become a big hit on the internet and managed to upset most of the EU while at the same time attempting to stifle any discussion on his views of an Islamic terrorist threat.

Views which must be either so persuasive or so terrible we cannot even allow peers of the realm to hear them.

Behind all this it also appears the Government has bowed down to a reported threat by Muslim peer Lord Ahmed to mobilise 10,000 Muslims to blockade Parliament if Wilders appeared - that is real democracy at work. Brilliant.

But I suppose that's what comes of running the Home Office from the back bedroom of a terraced house in South London.

Incidentally, I understand the 17 minute film will still be shown, no doubt to what will now be a much larger audience who will be there to see what all the fuss is about, but Wilders will not be there to justify the claims it makes. Instead he will be back in Holland where his entry refusal will no doubt have brought him a few more supporters and his website will be getting more hits than ever before with even more people learning about his views.