The EU Iron Curtain

Freedom of expression is being targeted by the bureaucratic cliques in Brussels, and most recently they are doing it without any pretenses. 

Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the prevalence of dogmatic leftism with totalitarian tendencies has especially challenged the people of Eastern Europe, who  revealed their opposition at the ballot box. They had  fought hard for freedom against communism, they recovered their faith and national identity, and they rediscovered their cultural heritage. 

After their experience of Marxism, people in Eastern Europe are not eager to exchange their acquired freedom for a new form of liberal totalitarianism, composed of atheism, political correctness and ‘wokeness,’ radical ecological agendas, open borders, tolerance of crime and social justice mania.  Todd Huizinga, Senior Fellow for Europe at the Religious Freedom Institute has described in clear terms the revolution that is taking place:

Like communism, contemporary Western liberal democracy (especially in Western Europe) is about transforming the world; it is progressive. It is animated by the fight ‘against the forces of backwardness’ and a r ejection of the commitments of ‘religion, social morality and tradition’.”  (Cf.  Ryszard Antoni Legutko’s The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies.)

While American conservatives stood by their principles and identified so-called progressive and liberal ideas with the left.  the mainstream right In Europe has been transformed; secularized long ago, it has embraced woke “principles” and continually allies itself with the social democrats.  They are Christian Democrats in name only. 

We are facing on the Old Continent a new, intolerant and very aggressive form of “social liberalism” that leads straight to totalitarianism.  European politicians are walking down the road to unfreedom; they just follow the trend.  Sometimes, in their summits they look like a bunch of zombies that go after living human beings. They are pushed back from time to time, but they keep coming. European liberalism has turned radical, and the destruction of the Old Continent is right around the corner. The Churches are silent to avoid being accused of meddling in politics. 

In Britain, when demonstrations broke out in response to  the massacre (in Southport) of three girls by the son of Rwandan immigrants in an attack at a dance class, guess who has been demonized. Not the killer, but Brits who stormed the streets of their cities complaining about the horrendous crime. They were called straight away “far right” “thugs” and “racists” and the mainstream press followed. 

Some of the arrested during the demonstrations are already incarcerated because of what they shouted to the police in some cases or for what they posted in their social media profiles.  A mother of six also went to prison. “Think before you post, content that incites violence or hatred isn't just harmful—it can be illegal. The CPS takes online violence seriously and will prosecute when the legal test is met. Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences”, warned the Crown Prosecution Service. No one in the British government has really dealt with the cause of the outrage. 

In Western Europe’s “sovietized” democracies, people no longer have the right to complain, to assemble, to protest or express themselves.  Until yesterday, they were just being cancelled. Today, they are arrested, sentenced and incarcerated.  Two-tier policing is the norm in Britain those days; they are lenient towards the loony left or pro-Hamas protesters, but “thugs” are dealt with harshly. 

Hannah Cox, President and Co-Founder of BASEDPolitics, wrote recently in Newsweek that “The Brits are in a full-fledged free fall into oppression, where citizens will be terrified to push back, unable to meaningfully participate in their government or their society, where neighbors will turn on neighbors, and in the process, where ultimately more violence will certainly ensue”, emphasizing that “there's a reason Europe's economy has no real tech sector to speak of, and that reason is a mix of regressive, anti-capitalist regulations, aggressive antitrust laws, and hostility to free speech”.  

British bureaucrats are brazen, though.  Here are the chilling words of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.

“We will throw the full force of the law at people. And whether you’re in this country committing crimes on the streets or committing crimes from further afield online, we will come after you,” 

We all know someone who might deal with these people if he makes it to the White House, but someone else has already made his weight felt. Elon Musk stepped in; he said via X (where he’s got over 195 million followers) that in Britain “civil war is inevitable” and he added that “if incompatible cultures are brought together without assimilation, conflict is inevitable.”  What a political blow that was to the new British PM, who reacted; his spokesman said that there is “no justification for comments like that… Anyone who is whipping up violence online will face the full force of the law”.  

When the PM declared, “We will not tolerate attacks on mosques or on Muslim communities,” Musk stepped in again, asking: “Shouldn't you be concerned about attacks on all communities?” That was really a million-dollar question. And he continued challenging the PM, concerning the arrests of citizens who posted material that was considered “hateful” and “incitement to violence”. 

Elon Musk also re-posted a video that showed police arresting a man for making offensive comments on Facebook and observed: “Arrested for making comments on Facebook!... Is this Britain or the Soviet Union?”  He got that right and added, “The UK is turning into a police state.” 

Gulags for dissenters is the new reality in the UK. “Ministers have activated emergency measures to ease prison overcrowding in the north of England as more rioters are sentenced for their role in the recent unrest”, we read in The Standard. By the way, Starmer’s popularity is already plummeting. 

Elon Musk is doing a great job, using X to reverse the “totalitarianism of technical activity” (to mention here a term used by Italian philosopher Augusto Del Noce) and turning X into a pass to freedom. What about the Tories though? “Britain needs the Tories to become a real Opposition” we read in The Telegraph. Probably they haven’t realized what Nigel Farage is up to, but that’s another issue. Conservative ex-PM Liz Truss stepped in saying “I am appalled by the attacks on free speech in Britain and Europe. We can't be truly free without free speech. Good for Elon Musk and X for standing up to these bullies”.  

Truss is not alone.  Writing in The Telegraph, Lord David Frost put the issue squarely: “We can no longer say that Britain is a free country, laws criminalizing certain opinions are now having a chilling effect on freedom of expression in the UK.” 

Brussels has been quick to join the campaign both to censor Elon Musk and to interfere in American elections. French EU commissioner Thierry Breton, Emanuel Macron’s confidant, sent a letter to Elon Musk, alarmed by the notification for his interview with Donald Trump and issued this warning: 

In the context of recent events in the UK”, the EU is “monitoring the potential risks in the EU associated with the dissemination of context that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political or societal events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections. 

They are afraid of Donald Trump in Brussels, and they are losing their minds.  Although the Commission did disassociate itself from Breton’s letter, a few days later, Sandro Gozi—an Italian liberal MEP elected with Macron’s party in a French constituency—told La Repubblica that if Elon Musk does not abide by the rules on digital services set by Brussels, the Commission should block X in the EU’s territory. 

All over the West, two worlds are in collision. Freedom is what is at stake.  George Orwell has been vindicated, as Leftists and liberals in Europe have agreed on all the key issues of social formation. In their attempt to transform the world and export democracy, they are bringing the West to the brink of World War III via the Ukraine War, and they are turning our societies into cesspools.  Free speech is declining.  Left-wing governments in Brazil and Venezuela are trying to block X, and there are liberal and left-wing politicians in Europe that want to follow suit. For them, democracy is just a set of formalities. No wonder why Vladimir Putin is trolling the West, declaring in Tass that “Russia offers safe haven for people trying to escape Western liberal ideas.”  Things get ironic sometimes. 

Nikos Hidiroglou is a Greek journalist writing from Athens.