How much do you know about the history and meaning of our most stirring patriotic tunes? Historian and NCF Senior Fellow Rafe Heydel-Mankoo takes us on a quick journey through the story of three of Britain’s best loved compositions: Land of Hope & Glory (Elgar), Jerusalem (Parry) and Rule, Britannia! (Arne).
Month: February 2024
Majority of Germans reject left-liberal government’s radical immigration law
A majority of Germans oppose the government’s radical immigration law, which will allow up to 2.5 million foreigners to obtain German citizenship in time for the federal election in 2025.
The poll, which was conducted by Insa on behalf of the Protestant News Agency, found that 51 percent of Germans are opposed to the new law, with only 32 percent supporting it. Not only is the law opposed by the majority of Germans, but they have a 19-point lead over supporters. Another 14 percent said they did not know how they felt about the law, and 3 percent had no answer for pollsters.
However, arguably an even more devastating poll from the Security Report 2024, conducted by the Allensbach Institute, shows that the population’s overall approval of the federal government’s current refugee policy is extremely low, with 65 percent of those surveyed saying that they did not consider their policy to be correct. According to the security report, over 80 percent of those surveyed have little or no trust in the federal government’s migration policy.
In the same poll, almost half (48 percent) of those questioned said that crime in Germany was increasing due to the influx of refugees, while in 2016, this figure was only 37 percent. The actual federal crime data shows that foreigners are vastly overrepresented in serious crimes, including murder, rape, robbery, and assault.
Germany’s new law would reduce the amount of time foreigners need to reside in Germany to be eligible for citizenship from seven years to five years, and in some cases, allow them to obtain citizenship in as little as three years. It would also allow for dual passports.
The recent Insa poll found that Alternative for Germany (AfD) supporters are the most opposed to the new law, with 86 percent rejecting easier naturalization. However, majorities also exist with the left-wing Sahra Wagenknecht alliance (BSW), with 61 percent against it, while supporters of the Christian Democrats (CDU) and Free Voters, both reject the law with 54 percent each.
Only 20 percent of voters of the Left reject the law, 29 percent from the Social Democrats (SPD) and 46 percent from the Free Democrats (FDP). Rejection is lowest among Green party supporters, at 18 percent.
The poll also shows that foreigners are very much in favor of the law, with only 35 percent saying they reject it, while half of them support faster naturalization. Fifty-three percent of those Germans without a migration background reject the law.
There is high support for the liberal immigration law among Germany’s Muslim population, with 57 percent saying they approve. However, despite the pro-refugee stance of many Christian organizations, there is a high rate of rejection among Christians for the new law, with majorities rejecting it for Catholics (52 percent), evangelicals (53 percent) and Free Church members (56 percent).
However, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews form a plurality in support of the law (40 percent) to allow for faster naturalization for foreign citizens.
The polling shows a growing trend towards anti-immigration sentiment in Germany. For example, recent polls show a strong majority of Germans believe migrants bring more problems than benefits.
UK: Half of Rotherham Muslim rape gang core members already back on streets, trafficked up to 1,400 girls
“Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.”
No. No, it isn’t. Not appearing to be “racist” and “Islamophobic” is your number one priority. It was fear of charges of “racism” and “Islamophobia” that led British authorities to allow the Muslim rape gangs to continue operating with impunity in the first place. “At least 1,400 children were subjected to appalling sexual exploitation in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013,” and British officials did nothing; they “described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought as racist; others remembered clear direction from their managers not to do so.”
Britain is desperately ill, so deeply diseased in its political culture that it is extremely unlikely that it will recover.
Muslim London chemical attacker travelled from Newcastle before hurling dangerous substance over woman
A man who allegedly attacked a woman and her two children with a corrosive substance in Clapham, south London, last night has been named by Met Police.
Abdul Ezedi, believed to be from the Newcastle area, is alleged to have thrown an alkaline substance at the mother and her two daughters in a “targeted” attack which saw a total of 11 people taken to hospital.
Officers have described Ezedi as being around 35 years old.
Following the attack, a huge manhunt was launched which included several forces. The manhunt remains underway.
Ezedi was last seen in Caledonian Road in North London. He has injuries to the right side of his face.
Police said in his attempt to drive away from the scene, the attacker crashed into a stationary vehicle and made off on foot.
Superintendent Gabriel Cameron said police were working with other agencies to locate Abdul Ezedi.
“So we’re liaising with other partners agencies,” he said.
“We’re working alongside Northumbria, we believe the male is from the Newcastle area. And he could be going back there, he may not be, but he could be.
“British Transport Police are also working alongside us as well. So we are working in collaboration with other agencies to try and locate this male.”
The mother, who is believed to be known to Ezedi, has been treated in hospital with her two daughters, three and eight, and remains in stable condition.
One of the children and the mother are reported to have suffered potentially life-changing injuries.
Superintendent Gabriel Cameron added: “At this stage, I believe he may have been known to police, but he’s not a local resident from London as far as I’m aware.
“He’s come down from Newcastle.”
He said that it was a “horrific crime” against a “vulnerable female”.
He added: “We will catch him, I am wholeheartedly confident.”
Three members of the public who came to the aid of the family, two in their 30s and one in her 50s, have all been discharged from hospital with minor burns injuries.
One witness to the attack, bus driver Shannon Christi, said she was affected by the substance while trying to help the woman and two children outside her home.
She said: “I heard a bang and I heard someone saying ‘help’.
“I run outside and as I run outside I’ve seen this guy throwing a child on the floor, he picked her up and threw her again.
“So, at that point I ran in and I grabbed her and took her into my block.”
Christi said the three-year-old girl she had helped at the scene was crying and did not give her name, meanwhile the older child stood outside her flat block and was also in tears.
She added: “I’ve then seen her mum walking up the road again saying ‘I can’t see, I can’t see’.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the incident as a “ghastly attack”.
“Fortunately, attacks using acid and chemicals are exceedingly rare. We did have a spate of them two or three years ago, you might remember,” he told the BBC.
“It’s not something we’ve seen much of at all recently, I’m pleased to say.”
Met Police said in a statment: “We are working with partner agencies and forces including the British Transport Police to locate and arrest him.
“If you see Ezedi, call 999 immediately. He should NOT be approached.”
https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-chemical-attacker-newcastle-woman-police-name-suspect
Let Them Eat Cake: Macron Dines with Swedish Royalty as French Farmers Sleep on the Motorway
French President Emanuel Macron dined with Swedish royalty on Wednesday as French farmers continued their massive protest in Paris.
Let them eat cake.
The protesters are not backing down in France.
French police are now arresting the protesting farmers and confiscating their tractors.
How Wikipedia is making the Muslim Brotherhood look respectable
When we published our investigation into the Safwa Centre and its Islamist influences, Factuel found that the Wikipedia page about the organisation’s founder, who had called for the murder of the Charlie Hebdo editorial team, was not only mentioned approvingly, but also had any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood removed. The article was written by an author known for his incitement against French personalities.
“On the Wikipedia page of Mohamed Hassan Dadou, you can see in the history that the information proving his proximity to the Muslim Brotherhood was deleted by the same author who can be found on the page of another user who was recently expelled from France: Hassan Iquioussen,” declares Michel Sandrin, a long-time Wikipedia contributor and author of a study on the subject, which will be published by Editions du Cerf in 2024.
“On the Wikipedia page of the ominous “Mohamed El Hassan Ould Dedew”, the founder of the Safwa Centre, a new organisation based on BarakaCity, which was dissolved by the current Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, is praised to the skies: “Muslim scholar”, “scholar”. Although he was portrayed as a highly gifted young man who was able to memorise “the entire Quran” at the age of five, it turned out that the famous Mohamed El Hassan Ould Dedew is none other than Mohamed Hassan Dadou, an influential preacher within the Muslim Brotherhood who wrote a call for murder against the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, as the newspaper Marianne reported in 2020.
The problem: on the Wikipedia page, which is available in seven languages, there is currently no reference to the danger posed by the preacher, although his entry is the first entry suggested by Google. […] Factuel
“L’inquiétant lissage de profils liés aux Frères musulmans sur Wikipédia” (Factuel) – Fdesouche
France: A man from Brest is arrested for sharing videos glorifying Al-Qaeda on social networks
2,759 subscribers on his TikTok account, 97 followers on Instagram – enough to attract the attention of the police to the publication of videos praising radical Islam and bring the 16-year-old teenager to justice. It has to be said that he was not squeamish with his messages. One shows a video in which several armed fighters recite religious songs calling for enemies to be killed in order to achieve justice and victory. The other video is an audio sermon by Al-Qaeda strategist Faris Al-Zahrani, who died in 2016, in which he warns Muslims against those who disobey Allah’s commandments.
The trial starts on April 4. Le Télégramme
Farmers bring EU quarter to a standstill
Farmers brought their message of frustration and anger directly to Brussels lawmakers on February 1 by bringing the EU quarter to a standstill.
Men and women from across the bloc burned hay and tyres from early in the morning on Luxembourg Square, in front of the European Parliament, while dozens of tractors blocked the surrounding roads.
Protestors said they were angry and fed up with EU legislation and “bureaucracy” which had reduced profits. They were all the more frustrated, they said, because food imports from outside the EU did not have to comply with the same norms.
“Without us, you can’t eat. No farmers no food. We are very angry,” said Enrico Parisi, youth wing president of the Italian farmers’ association Coldiretti, told Brussels Signal. “We are not against Europe, we’d like to change the culture, the paradigm within Europe.”
One of the main problems he said was “unfair competition”. Non-EU imports “don’t respect our rules”.
Another farmer, a Belgian, handed out a tract to commuters arriving at the Brussels Luxembourg train station, many of them EU officials.
European agriculture had become a world of “more measures, dates, paperwork, constraints, and punitive sanctions,” it read. Europe “permitted ever-growing imports of products that are banned here”. Imported meat was “raised without any notion of animal well-being”.
The EU was capable of imposing anti-dumping measures on Chinese steel, why was it not able to do likewise with these imports?
Riot police with shields blocked access to the European Parliament. There were half-hearted attempts by police to extinguish the burning tyres that divided them from the protestors. Fireworks were thrown in the direction of police though mood was generally festive; some farmers were drinking beer.
https://brusselssignal.eu/2024/02/farmers-bring-eu-quarter-to-a-standstill/
Portuguese President Vetoes ‘Gender Self-Determination’
Portuguese conservatives and opponents of the woke agenda won a major victory this week as President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa vetoed a last-minute legal package that would have allowed parents to choose ‘gender-neutral’ names for their children. The Left is in uproar.
Just as Portugal embarked on an unprecedented, three-way election campaign that might see the national-conservative Chega! party rise to second place, the Left was busy using its crumbling parliamentary majority to codify a number of ‘gender ideology’-inspired provisions. The new legislation, which was approved by parliament after it had been dissolved by President Rebelo de Sousa, would have allowed citizens to register ‘non-male and non-female names.’ Another bill known as the ‘gender identity self-determination law’ would open the way for ‘mixed’ bathrooms and locker rooms for school-age children. The proposals earned stiff opposition from civil society, with a petition against them drawing over 50,000 signatures in a few weeks.
The presidential veto now means the survival of the legislation will be decided after the upcoming election, which the Right is widely expected to win. Faced with the prospect of it being dropped by the next parliament, left-wing groups and activists have reacted to the news with dismay. Socialist MP Isabel Moreira, one of her party’s most vocal supporters of woke politics, has accused the president of legitimising the notion that ‘trans[sexual] rights are a threat’ and, thus, of benefiting the ‘ultra-right agenda.’
Conservative celebration—just as Moreira’s fury—might, however, be premature. Both the pro-market, socially progressive Liberal Initiative and the centre-right Social Democrats voted in favour of allowing ‘gender-neutral’ names, with Chega! being the sole parliamentary force to oppose the notion altogether. The likelihood of at least some of the measures still securing approval is, thus, substantial.
Teachers, schools, and conservative figures reacted with relief to the presidential decision. The chairman of ANDE, the National Association of School Leaders, told Catholic broadcaster Renascença that schools would simply be unable to comply with the requirements of the new law for ‘safe spaces for trans children.’ Thereza Ameal, who launched the petition opposing the legislation, has praised the president for “saying that the decree does not sufficiently respect the role of parents,” while Rita Maria Matias, a Chega! MP and rising star, warned against complacency. “When you vote, remember [that] a left-wing majority would again approve this law.”
German minister defends spending millions in foreign aid on cycle paths in Peru to fight climate change
Germany’s Federal Development Minister Svenja Schulze has refuted claims by opposition politicians her department has spent over €350 million on the construction of cycle paths in Peru to help fight climate change.
In an interview with Zeit Online, the Social Democrat (SPD) minister admitted that significant funding had been sent to Peru for these projects but claimed the figure was closer to €44 million and stressed the importance of Germany’s continued involvement in such initiatives.
“Germany pledged a subsidy of €20 million for cycle paths in 2020 and a further subsidy of €24 million in 2022,” Schulze told the newspaper.
She insisted that “these funds flow back to us” but did not explain how, and said using German taxpayers’ cash on cycle paths in South America was helping to protect the climate — “a task for humanity” that most Germans expect their government to lead on.
“The majority in the country sees a German responsibility to get involved in solving global problems. Whether that is in climate policy or the fight against hunger,” she claimed.
The development minister also noted that handouts to other countries build relationships that encourage economic migrants to choose Germany.
“We need cooperation with other countries, including with the poorer countries. Because we rely on raw materials from these countries. We are increasingly dependent on skilled workers from such countries. And in order to be able to react better to refugee movements,” she said.
Foreign aid from Germany has been questionably allocated for years, including on eco-feminist development centers in South Africa and a project promoting positive masculinity in Rwanda.
Highlighting the recent conflicts in the latter, Schulze replied: “If you want to combat this violence, then you have to adopt a different ideal of masculinity.”
Opposition politicians, including CSU General Secretary Martin Huber, highlighted other schemes that have received German funding including the financing of “green refrigerators in Colombia, public transport in Latin America, gender-sensitive village development in Bangladesh, and the protection of rural culture in China.”
What Huber failed to mention, however, was that funding for all of these projects was signed off before 2021 under the previous administration. The development minister at the time was none other than Dr. Gerd Müller — his own party colleague.