Netherlands: growing opposition to deal with Wilders among Christian Democrats

With cabinet negotiations entering their third week, a weekend poll shows that 39% of Christian Democrat party members are against any form of political cooperation with Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam PVV.

The poll, carried out by TNS Nipo for the Algemeen Dagblad, also shows that 13% of the 67,000 party members would give up their membership if Wilders is involved in a new right-wing government.

Fewer than half the members, 49%, are in favour of a right-wing government with the involvement of Wilders.

Dutch News, 23 August 2010

The Nazis who infest the EDL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZjFU47Ia7rs

Via Lancaster Unity

One of the EDL’s staunchest defenders is of course Pamela Geller, who has written:

“The EDL is routinely smeared in the British media, as the Tea Party activists are smeared in the U.S. media. The corrupt, biased media defames any group, person, or organization standing against Islamic supremacism. They tar, feather, and destroy the good name of good people who stand for life, liberty, and individual rights. Libel and slander like ‘racist’, ‘fascist’, ‘bigot’, etc. color every news report of every counter-jihad action. The quisling media is the propaganda arm of jihad. It’s despicable. There is nothing racist, fascist, or bigoted about the EDL.”

See also “Racist thugs urged to hurl pork at Muslims”, Daily Star, 22 August 2010

Demos defends EDL’s right to march in Bradford, says it would help them ‘feel a sense of belonging to the society in which they live’

EDL Dudley2The Home Secretary should lift the ban on marches in Bradford this weekend or risk making protesters more radical, according to a think-tank. Banning protests by extremist groups is an ineffective way of combating their ideology, Demos said.

The warning comes as police in the West Yorkshire city prepares for clashes between the English Defence League (EDL) and Unite Against Fascism this weekend, despite Home Secretary Theresa May authorising a blanket ban on marches in the city.

Jamie Bartlett, a researcher at Demos, said banning the march “could push members of the English Defence League into more radical groups like Combat 18 or the Racial Volunteer Force”.

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Dutch Christian Democrats’ leader in damage-limitation exercise over collaboration with Wilders

The Dutch government has launched a damage-limitation campaign to try to counter what it fears is the disastrous international impact of the Islam-bashing populist Geert Wilders.

Wilders, whose success in June’s general election catapulted him into the role of kingmaker in attempts to form a new coalition government, is to travel to New York to take part in protests on 11 September against the proposed Muslim community centre near Ground Zero.

Maxime Verhagen, the acting foreign minister and Christian Democrats’ leader, has voiced fears that Wilders’s speech in New York will tarnish Dutch reputations. He has also taken the unusual step of circulating confidential orders to Dutch diplomats around the world on how to answer questions about Wilders’s influence in a new government and on the fallout for Muslims in the Netherlands.

With characteristic robustness, Wilders has told Verhagen to mind his own business. He clearly intends to grab attention with a tub-thumping exercise in Islamophobia in New York. “Good feeling. Important speech. No one will stop me. No mosque at Ground Zero,” he tweeted after booking a flight to New York. “Stop Islam, defend freedom” is his rallying cry.

The tensions over 9/11 and New York come as Wilders savours his growing clout at home. His Freedom party is running at 31% in the most recent opinion poll, ahead of all other contenders, and he has spent most of this week at a secret location with Verhagen and Mark Rutte, the liberals’ leader, haggling over the terms for a new coalition government.

Wilders, whose party almost tripled its seats, from nine to 24, in the June election, is not joining the new cabinet. Instead, he will prop up a rightwing coalition of liberals and Christian Democrats in return for pledges of a tough new crackdown on immigration and other policy concessions. If the talks succeed, Wilders will be in the enviable position of wielding power while abjuring responsibility.

Guardian, 21 August 2010

Home secretary bans EDL march in Bradford

EDL in BirminghamHome Secretary Theresa May has authorised a blanket ban on marches in Bradford on August 28 – the day the English Defence League (EDL) was planning a protest.

The far-right group had intended to march down Manchester Road, one of the biggest Asian areas in the city, and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) had planned a protest in the city on the same day.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Having carefully balanced rights to protest against the need to ensure local communities and property are protected, the Home Secretary gave her consent to a Bradford Council order banning any marches in the city over the bank holiday weekend.”

The city council sought a marching ban following an 11,000-strong public petition and a formal request by West Yorkshire Chief Constable Norman Bettison. Mr Bettison said he was taking the action after considering the “understandable concerns of the community.”

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Netherlands: Christian Democrat leaders face internal revolt against alliance with Wilders

The Dutch centre-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) was facing internal backlash Thursday from members concerned about its decision to hold coalition talks that involve Geert Wilders’ Islamophobic party.

A manifesto released by the group argued against a minority coalition made up of the CDA and the People’s Party for Freedom (VVD) that would rely on the votes of Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), although it would not be a formal part of the new government.

The manifesto, titled “We stand up for our basic rights”, was initiated by 44 CDA activists who are now hoping to receive broad support from their party. They include delegates, professors and local politicians.

They accused Wilders of using his anti-Muslim and anti-Islam policies to turn “a large minority of our population into a scapegoat for almost all of our society’s problems”.

“With that, the PVV threatens not only the freedom of Muslims, but also the basic principles of our constitutional state and the freedom of us all,” they added.

No leading politicians of the CDA have signed up to the manifesto so far, media reports said. But the newspaper Trouw argued that it could now be difficult for CDA leader Maxime Verhagen to secure the party support he needs to back an agreement with Wilders.

DPA, 12 August 2010

Update:  See “Resistance grows among Christian Democrats”, Dutch News, 13 August 2010

BNP want Jewish ‘comrades’ to fight Muslims

EDL We Support IsraelMembers of far-right organisations are urging colleagues to support an unlikely ally – Israel. Small groups of BNP and English Defence League supporters are championing the Jewish state as part of a perceived struggle with the Muslim world. They call for Israel and the BNP to be “comrades in arms”.

One person commenting on a pro-BNP blog suggested that the party should open an office in Israel to “show solidarity with the Israeli people”. But Jon Benjamin, Board of Deputies chief executive, warned: “No one in their right mind should have any truck with the BNP or their ilk.”

A blogger on The Green Arrow, an independent website which supports the BNP, encouraged others to look to Israel to avoid the West’s “meek surrender to Islam”.

Under the name Reconquista, the blogger wrote: “Against the backdrop of an enormous anti-Israel propaganda campaign waged by Muslims and by the Marxist left, Israel continues to fight for its very survival.

“I believe it is absolutely imperative for British Nationalists to be fully aware of the lies, deceptions, hypocrisy and moral cowardice surrounding Israel and the Jewish people.”

One person commented on the blog: “I have written several times calling for committees for the mutual defence of white and Jewish communities to be set up here. Both people are under attack… Jewish people need to stop opposing us as their enemy.”

Another adds: “We need Israel. We must join with them to fight this terrible wave of Islam trying to take over the world. The Jews know all about ethnic cleansing, and they will never allow themselves to be in that position again.”

In May, the extreme right-wing anti-Islamic fundamentalism group the English Defence League launched a “Jewish division”, encouraging Jews to “lead the counter-Jihad fight in England”.

Mr Benjamin said: “Short-term political expediency and pronouncements of this kind are merely a cynical ploy by the BNP to try to re-invent themselves to capture the support of those who should know better.”

A CST spokesman said: “There may be the odd BNP activist who thinks that antisemitism is stupid, and there may well be others who think that supporting Israel is a good idea, but none of it changes what the BNP is all about.”

Jewish Chronicle, 12 August 2010

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Bradford delegation calls for ban on EDL march

A delegation of politicians, religious leaders and campaigners from Bradford will arrive in London tomorrow to ask the home secretary to ban a planned demonstration in the Yorkshire city by the far-right English Defence League (EDL).

The delegation, which includes the Bradford West MP, Marsha Singh, says the proposed demonstration is an attempt to provoke trouble in a city still recovering from the riots in 2001 that followed an attempted march by the National Front.

“The EDL is a racist, anti-Muslim organisation that is coming to Bradford with the sole intention of whipping up tensions and trying to provoke a riot,” said Singh. “Unfortunately, we know only too well what this type of terror can bring and Bradford is still recovering from the disturbances of 2001.”

Guardian, 10 August 2010

Wilders to speak at SIOA’s ‘Ground Zero mosque’ protest

Geert Wilders is to speak at the rally being held in New York on September 11 to protest at plans to build a mosque close to the site of Ground Zero, the PVV said on Friday. The rally is being organised by a group called Stop Islamization Of America which says it is wrong to build a mosque so close to the place where some 3,000 died when Islamic extremists flew two planes into the World Trade centre.

Dutch News, 6 August 2010

See also Atlas Shrugs, 6 August 2010