The unfettered immigration so encouraged by the elites ensconced in the halls of the European Union headquarters in Brussels is finally starting to eat at the very foundation of their globalist agenda.
We've watched as populist parties have made continued gains despite enormous push-back and, frankly, undemocratic barriers, in election after election across the length and breadth of the continent. To a great extent, it was motivated by the pressure of the foreign invasion affecting nearly every EU member, and the looming threat undoubtedly influenced the voting in the others.
The Dutch government just collapsed over the coalition's refusal to act on a mandate from voters for immigration reform, a conservative was elected president in Poland over a heavily favored pro-EU candidate, and an initial effort by the German government to deny asylum requests was struck down by the German courts as illegal.
The Berlin court said Monday that German border officials cannot turn away asylum seekers before it was determined which country should process their cases under EU rules.
The decision, in response to a challenge brought by three Somali nationals refused entry to Germany, dealt a blow to the crackdown Merz launched when he took power last month.
But his government insists it is legal to continue turning away asylum seekers while it tries to challenge the ruling, and conservative leader Merz reiterated that stance.
At the heart of every difficulty are those binding EU rules.
The body that enumerates and determines who is following 'the rules' is something called the European Convention on Human Rights, and it actually pre-dates the EU. The convention also established an 'international judicial organ' which became the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, better known as the “European Convention on Human Rights”, was opened for signature in Rome on 4 November 1950; it entered into force on 3 September 1953.
The Convention gave effect to certain of the rights stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and established an international judicial organ with jurisdiction to find against States that do not fulfil their undertakings.
For the first few decades after its founding in 1950, the ECHR didn't seem to cause much controversy. But post-1970, it has experienced a great deal of mission creep and power accumulation, which is only now beginning to truly chafe signatory member countries as they deal with the migrant influx.
...All these critiques of the European Convention on Human Rights ultimately stem from the “living instrument” doctrine, adopted by the court in the late 1970s. Under this the court essentially gave itself the power to move away from the words of the convention and the intentions of its original drafters in favour of evolving its doctrines to respond to contemporary challenges.
This has allowed the court in effect to create its own powers. For example, it allowed the abandonment of the territorial idea of jurisdiction in Article 1 and the consequent invention of an obligation under Article 2 (right to life) requiring states to investigate deaths in conflict theatres like Iraq or Afghanistan. One can take different views of whether this is desirable or not, but it is surely a matter of political debate whether a country’s troops should be subject to the ECHR, not something that the court should simply make up.
Similarly, much domestic policy is now within the ambit of the court through the medium of the convention’s Article 8, the right to family life. As Lord Sumption, a former UK Supreme Court judge has put it, “the [Court] has emancipated itself from the text and allowed itself to wander freely over the whole realm of social policy.” The recent judgment in Verein Klimaseniorinnen Schweiz and others v. Switzerland says Article 8 even encompasses a ”right for individuals to effective protection by the State authorities from serious adverse effects of climate change.”
This has resulted in what is, for tightly controlled EU politics, a scandal of sorts. The leaders of nine EU member countries put together a joint letter and sent it to the judges at the ECHR, politely urging the jurists to 'rethink' their stance on European migration law.
In other words, everyone from Meloni to the Danes would be delighted if the justices would quit telling what used to be sovereign nations they have to retain foreign criminals...for starters.
The push for more restrictive migration policies from some European governments has pivoted toward Europe's top human rights court. Spearheaded by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, nine European Union member states have penned an open letter calling for a reinterpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights to make it easier to "expel foreign national criminals."
The leaders' exact demands are unclear. The signatories say their goal is to "launch a new and open-minded conversation" rather than elicit quick legal changes. But the move in itself is controversial, sparking questions about judicial independence in Europe and the legal architecture designed to protect human rights.
...In the open letter dated May 22, nine European states call for "more room" to "decide on when to expel criminal foreign nationals" and "more freedom" to track "criminal foreigners who cannot be deported." The states also say they "need to be able to take effective steps" against "hostile states" that are "instrumentalizing migrants."
"The world has changed fundamentally since many of our ideas were conceived," they write. "We now live in a globalized world where people migrate across borders on a completely different scale."
"We believe that the development in the court's interpretation has, in some cases, limited our ability to make political decisions in our own democracies," the letter reads.
The leaders note that their group — which also includes the leaders of Austria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belgium, Estonia and the Czech Republic — spans the width of Europe's political spectrum. While Italy's Meloni hails from the hard right, her Danish counterpart is a prominent figure from the EU's center-left.
"We know that this is a sensitive discussion. Although our aim is to safeguard our democracies, we will likely be accused of the opposite," they write.
The signers were exactly right about predicting that reaction. Hands went to chests in horror or fumbled for smelling salts, as Brussels Brahmins swooned in shock and umbrage over the nerve of undue pressure being leveled at the court and such a base political attempt being made to twist its purity of purpose.
..."Debate is healthy, but politicizing the court is not. In a society governed by the rule of law, no judiciary should face political pressure," Alain Berset said on Saturday.
"Institutions that protect fundamental rights cannot bend to political cycles. If they do, we risk eroding the very stability they were built to ensure.
It seems a tad hypocritical for an institution that has grown its power through a 'living instrument doctrine,' which is very much the essence of bending to cycles, should then be so stuffy when challenged by those who are affected by their evolving rule changes.
There was a very different reaction in England, though, where they might have had a Brexit, but the ECHR was something they still adhered to. Tories have been hounding Starmer to leave the Convention completely after the letter was made public.
The Tories are prepared to quit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) after nine European leaders attacked it for preventing the deportation of foreign criminals.
In the clearest indication yet that the party is ready to leave, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said countries would have to quit the body unless there was “radical and fundamental change”.
It follows a letter signed by the nine leaders, which said European judges were interpreting the ECHR so widely that the “wrong people” were being protected. This was placing “too many limitations” on their governments’ abilities to deport “serious violent” offenders and drug dealers.
They warned that the ECHR was threatening the safety of citizens because the way it was being interpreted prevented governments from tracking foreign criminals they could not deport.
Particularly as the ECHR had returned several high-profile deportees back to the UK on absolutely ludicrous humanitarian grounds, and 'the rules' are actively interfering with what few plans Starmer has proposed to stop the boatloads of migrants coming from France.
A proposed crackdown on family visas aimed at reducing immigration risks breaching human rights laws, Government advisers have warned.
The advisers have said that raising the annual salary threshold required for a Briton to bring their foreign partner or spouse to the UK from its current £29,000 to £38,700 would “most likely” conflict with rules ensuring rights to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
While 'The Nine', as they called the letter signatories, are all EU members in good standing, hence their cautious tone of deference when addressing the court, it was still considered a jolting shot across the bow of the establishment.
And the gasps and outrage accompanying it are a sign that the Brahims know their position is becoming tenuous in a Europe whose population is growing restless and increasingly refocused on their national identities.
...His sharp reaction, and the wave of pearl-clutching from Europe’s legal establishment, betrays not confidence but the lack of it. If he was confident that positions taken by the court stood up to scrutiny, he would surely welcome debate. In fact, any minimally attentive observer can see that a dangerous gap is opening up between Europe’s human rights court on the one hand, and many of its politicians and voters on the other. That is not limited to the countries of signatories of the letter: Hungary and Slovakia, non-signatories, would surely sympathise too.
Those sentiments were echoed in the first interview Polish president-elect, Karol Nawrocki, gave the other day, and the sentiments have to be very worrying to Brussels.
...Nawrocki described the last two years of liberal rule as a period of institutional abuse, in which state institutions were used for partisan purposes with the backing of Brussels and the European People’s Party. “This campaign was unlike anything Poland has seen since 1989,” he said. “And yet, the European elites remained silent. If any of this had happened elsewhere, the EU would have triggered immediate action.”
He positioned himself as the voice of ordinary Poles who felt ignored or alienated under Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government. “The key to our success was that I gave voice to farmers who reject the Green Deal, to parents who don’t want foreign ideologies in our schools, and to all those whose voices weren’t heard in Tusk’s Poland,” he said.
Nawrocki emphasized that he is not against the European Union in principle but rejected what he called its federalist overreach. “I support the EU, but not as a quasi-state,” he said. “Poland wants to remain a free, sovereign nation within a union of equal states. Our identity, our Christian values, our thousand-year history — these are not negotiable.”
Poland wants to remain a free, sovereign nation, Nawrocki said.
Our identity, our values, are non-negotiable.
Terrifying concepts. God forbid everyone starts thinking that way.
You can hear the globalist knees quaking from here.
