The Remain claim - regularly trumpeted by David Cameron - that Britain would be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks outside the EU, took a bit of a knock yesterday. Watching coverage of the slaughter in Brussels, I've been struck by the number of security experts - former practitioners and journalists - willing to give the lie to that particular falsehood. Several reported that the Belgian security services don't share information with the police, and vice-versa, let alone with other countries - hence, presumably, the hubristic joint press conferences involving the Prime Minister of Belgium and the President of France following the recent capture of Salah Abdeslam in the terrorist redoubt of Molenbeek: when two European leaders indulge in hyperbolic displays of mutual congratulation, you know that something pretty damned smelly is having perfume sprayed all over it: in this instance, the turd in the swimming pool was the lamentable inability of the Belgian authorities to locate Europe's most wanted terrorist, despite the fact that he appears to have been living in plain sight in their capital city for several months.
One security expert (I'm sorry to say I've forgotten his name) told Sky that intelligence was routinely and effectively shared among what are known as The Five Eyes - i.e. the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - but not across Europe. In other words, the old allies of the Anglosphere are getting on with it, while our new European chums aren't. Why am I not surprised?
Even more worrying than the incompetence of Belgium's security forces is the suspicion that rather a large number of locals must have known that Abdeslam was in their midst, and yet felt no inclination to share that knowledge with the authorities. Anyone questioning the loyalties of at least a portion of Molenbeek's large Muslim population is instantly branded a hate-mongering right-wing racist: but if we're wrong, why did the government flood the area with soldiers on the night of Abdeslam's arrest (to protect Muslims from enraged white Belgians?) and place a special guard on the Molenbeek police station? They were evidently worried that young Muslim men would be outraged by the arrest of a man who had committed mass murder in the name of their religion.
The response from the West's political and media class to last year's Charlie Hebdo massacre was to indulge in mass-posturing. "JeSuisCharlie" was to be seen everywhere. Politicians marched arm in arm through the streets of Paris, looking suitably sombre. The Americans sent James Taylor to sing a song. Monuments and buildings around the globe were lit up with the colours of the tricoleur. Defiant cartoons abounded. Politicians told us that the terrorists would be defeated, by golly. Muslims were not our enemy - and if you hinted that some of them actually, you know, were our enemies, you were told that you were playing the terrorists' game. The people, united, will never be defeated.
There was some more of this sort of feelgood defiance after the horrific attack in Paris in November. But it was a bit muted. There was more scepticism, less of an inclination to be swept along by left-liberal political rhetoric and ceremonial posturing - especially when it became obvious that, while showing "solidarity" might provide temporary catharsis, it wouldn't actually stop it happening all over again. What did it mean to "stand with" France? Why, exactly, weren't we allowed to ask Muslims in Europe to demonstrate - preferably in a convincingly vigorous fashion - their loyalty to the countries that had allowed them in? Why were we supposed to welcome yet more Muslim immigrants when many of those who were already here seemed to despise us, and quite a few seemed bent on killing us? If islam was a "religion of peace" why were so many of its adherents so barbarically violent - and why was its Holy Book full of commands to slaughter the infidel (i.e us)? If the violence being visited on Europe was "nothing to do with Islam", why did all the perpetrators just happen to be Muslims who prefaced their murders by loudly proclaiming the greatness of the God of Islam?
Most frustrating was the realisation that what the politicians telling us not to "give in" to terrorism by treating Muslims with suspicion were actually asking was for us to absolve them of any blame for having created this ghastly, dangerous mess in the first place - which they did, of course, albeit without bothering to ask our permission. I popped out to buy some Lemsip earlier this afternoon, and, in the space of two hundred yards, passed three Somali women walking their kids home from the local state primary school. All three were - inevitably - pushing prams. My memory may be at fault, of course - I'm getting on - but I can't recall any politician asking for my vote on the basis that they'd ensure Britain increased its Muslim population to 2.9m by 2016 (almost all of whom live in England). And I doubt if any French or German politician ever uttered the words, "Vote for me, and I absolutely guarantee we'll have 4.9 million Muslims by the end of 2015! Are you with me?" To which the answer would obviously have been, "No, we're bloody well not, actually!"
I'm getting the impression, following these latest horrors, that the "standing shoulder-to-shoulder" exhortations and changing your Facebook avatar and lighting up public buildings in the colours of the Belgian flag (whatever they might be) and "JesSuisBrussels" hashtags and shaming people on social media who ask awkward questions about immigration policies for "politicising" the issue are all beginning to smack of desperation. We've been there, done that... and nothing has changed. Yesterday afternoon someone tweeted the comment: "Channel 4 News will be busy lining up Muslims in headscarves to tell us it's nothing to do with Islam." I switched over to Channel 4 News at 7.25 - and, blow me down if they weren't interviewing a headscarved female Muslim telling us that the attacks -carried out by Khalid and Brahim el-Bakraoui and claimed by Islamic State - had nothing whatsoever to do with to do with Islam. Earlier today I switched on Sky News to find Kay Burley interviewing some daft old Belgian leftie woman who was busy blaming Belgians for "excluding" Muslims and not making immigrants feel welcome.
How many people are still buying this species of tripe? It is to do with islam. It has sod all to do with nasty racist white Europeans. I'm not disposed to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the idiot politicians who made this nightmare possible. Leaving the EU and rejoining the Anglosphere will make us safer.
The general reaction to what happened in Brussels yesterday feels like a turning point - at least, I hope it is, because I'm fond of European civilisation and would rather like to see it survive this latest barbarian onslaught.
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