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Watching images of the riot in the city of Leeds in the north of England, I said to myself: “And they wonder why millions of Brits voted for Nigel.” Yet to follow the media coverage of that conflagration here in the UK, you might have imagined that Nigel Farage had somehow started it!

Where does the threat to European democracy and civilization come from today? Is our society being pulled apart by the establishment policies of mass migration and multiculturalism? Or does the blame somehow lie with those who dare to point this out and protest against it? A stupid question, of course, yet one seriously posed by recent events in the European parliament and on the streets.

In her final pitch for MEPs to endorse her reappointment last week, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that, “I will never let the extreme polarization of our societies become accepted”. Who did she blame for these divisions? “I will never accept that demagogues and extremists destroy our European way of life. And I stand here today ready to lead the fight with all the democratic forces in this house.”

In other words, President Ursula wants to blame the “extreme right” for the dangers of “extreme polarisation” in Europe. The implication is that these divisions are not founded in the reality of European life, but are simply being stirred up by the rhetoric of the “far right”.

The nonsense idea that the populist right are the ones threatening to “destroy our European way of life” and democracy has now become the excuse for imposing a so-called cordon sanitaire around national conservative MEPs. As reported by The European Conservative, the cordon sanitaire means that the new grouping Patriots for Europe has been barred from taking up important posts in the European Parliament—posts they are entitled to as the third-largest group of MEPs. This blatant act of political censorship is presented as a health measure, a cordon sanitaire to keep European democracy safe from what the Left often calls the “virus” of populism.

However, on the very same day that Von der Leyen made her speech about right-wing “demagogues and extremists” causing “extreme polarization of our societies,” reality interrupted her Ursula-Through-the-Looking-Glass fantasy. Right on cue, in Leeds, the real divisions in European society literally burst into flames, as local rioters torched the heavily migrant-occupied district of Harehills.

The cause of the Leeds riot was not the “inflammatory” rhetoric of far-right politicians. It was violence by migrants that have not been integrated into British society and feel no part of the country that accepted them. It began with a clash between social workers, the police, and a family of Roma origins, then spread and intensified as others of Asian background joined the party. Sporadic rioting continued all night because the Yorkshire police, who evidently don’t believe in standing up for Britain either, retreated and let the mob take over the streets

This was a searing indictment of the official policies of mass migration and divisive multiculturalism. Yet the mainstream reaction was to attack those who tried to tell the truth about what was happening.

Farage, the leader of Reform UK and newly-elected MP, tweeted during the riot that “The politics of the subcontinent are currently playing out on the streets of Leeds. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Far from heeding his warning, Labour MPs in Leeds went into denial-and-distortion mode, accusing Farage of spreading “misinformation” and even demanding that he apologise. Farage’s typically blunt reply was to ask when the Labour Party would “apologise for irresponsible mass migration?”

According to many media accounts, meanwhile, the hero of the hour was local Green Party councillor Mothin Ali, who asked the rioters not to burn down the area where they lived. This is the same Ali who celebrated his election to Leeds city council in May by shouting the Islamic proclamation “Allahu Akbar!” Such a Green community activist is not, of course, to be confused in any way with an “extremist” stirring “extreme polarisation”.

The UK’s political and media establishment effectively tried to throw a cordon sanitaire around the Leeds riots—not to save society from actual sectarian violence, but to keep at bay those who pointed the finger at the causes. It was a disgraceful case of the politics of denial that has dogged debates about migration and cultural cohesion in Europe for decades, and has reached the point where you can be called racist for condemning rioters.

Back in Brussels, the phrase “cordon sanitaire” is now openly bandied about in EU politics as if it were a legitimate democratic tool, indeed a defence of democracy. In reality, it is an anti-democratic device aimed at isolating and silencing those politicians deemed beyond the conformist pale—and depriving the millions who vote for them of a voice.

The origins of the cordon sanitaire are instructive. Historically it was a medical term, describing a physical barrier designed to enclose the sick and prevent a plague or cholera outbreak from spreading, at a time when little was known about the origins of diseases or potential cures.

Although the practice of forcibly isolating the diseased was longstanding, the phrase “cordon sanitaire” was first used in 1821, when the Duke de Richelieu deployed 30,000 French troops along the border with Spain in the Pyrenees, to keep France safe from the yellow fever rampant in Catalonia. However, even then there was a political element. As Wikipedia notes, the Duke lined up his army along the border, “allegedly to prevent yellow fever spreading from Barcelona into France, but in fact mainly to prevent the spread of liberal ideas from constitutional Spain” into a nineteenth-century France that was in one of its monarchist phases, between revolutions.

Today the cordon sanitaire is wielded openly in Europe as a political weapon, used to keep at bay the “virus” of populism that allegedly threatens to “infect” the EU body politic. Despite the claims of Von der Leyen and her allies, this is not about containing “extremism”. It is about delegitimising the national conservatives whose belief in the European principles of national sovereignty and democracy appears outrageous to the globalist elites.

Those “anti-extremist” elites remain happy to entertain the far left. They robbed the Patriots group of a prestigious post of vice-president of the European Parliament, and gave it instead to the French leftist MEP Yonous Omarjee, accused of being a cheerleader for the Islamist terrorists of Hamas. That infamy did not prevent the “moderates” celebrating his appointment as a supposed victory for democracy.

Many Europeans understandably take little interest in the game of musical chairs that decides who gets what seat on a Brussels committee. But there is much more at stake here. The cordon sanitaire has not only been thrown around sovereigntist MEPS. It has also been imposed on the millions they represent, who demanded real change in the European elections. By excluding these voices, the centre-left elites plot to carry on business as usual in Brussels, imposing their disastrous Green Deal and Migration Pact without having to worry about trouble-making MEPs or the revolting peoples of Europe. Dream on.

Attacks on populism are always ultimately aimed at the populace, the people—the ones who put the demos in democracy. That is why we have to fight back in the face of all the slurs and censorship. Breaking through the cordon sanitaire is not just about chairs and vice chairs in Brussels. It is about defending our right to challenge the establishment and our freedom to speak the truth as we see it about what is happening to Europe.  The freedom to expose their denials and distortions about the real threat to “our European way of life”, to call a spade a spade—and call a riot an anti-British, anti-European riot.

Original article: europeanconservative.com