On March 5th, 2025, an Iraqi man sexually harassed a 22-year-old woman in Dresden, and the next day he allegedly grabbed a 17-year-old girl’s buttocks, demanding that she go with him. When the minor resisted, the man fled. Shortly thereafter, he started harassing a 10-year-old girl, who started screaming for help, causing the man to flee again. After this latter incident, the police successfully apprehended and arrested him. At the police station, the man continued his rampage by verbally abusing the interpreter and then threatening to kill her.
23-year-old Ismail A. was first granted asylum in Sweden upon his arrival in Europe. He then traveled to Germany and submitted another application there. According to the Dublin Regulation, the country where the application was first submitted is responsible for assessing the asylum application. Accordingly, the police sent him back to Sweden for the second time. After being deported to Sweden in June, 2025 he returned a month later.
Ismail had already come to the attention of the Federal Police in 2024 for resisting ticket inspections, sexual harassment, public indecency, defamation, and obtaining services by deception. When he returned to Germany in the summer of 2025, the Dresden public prosecutor’s office issued an involuntary commitment order against him. He was therefore temporarily placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he was diagnosed with psychosis and schizophrenia. Although this was most likely caused by drug use, he cannot be held criminally responsible.
The Dresden Regional Court then examined whether the Iraqi man posed a threat to public safety and could be detained on a permanent basis. In this context, the court examined the possibility of permanent placement in a psychiatric institution. Although Judge Andreas Ziegel considered the sexual harassment to be proven, he rejected the prosecution’s request for placement in a psychiatric institution, citing legal constraints.
“I don’t want to downplay this; it’s an unpleasant situation for any woman, and also for us, if something worse were to happen,” the judge said. “But we have no evidence that he is using violence to enforce his demands. We are fully aware that this is possible. However, we are bound by the law.”
The Iraqi man was then released and given medication sufficient for three days. The judge noted that further crimes could be committed if he stopped taking the medication.
However, the public prosecutor’s office stated that it intends to appeal the verdict.
“A deportation to the country of origin would not fail at the Dresden public prosecutor’s office if requested,” said Senior Public Prosecutor Jürgen Schmidt.
French President Emmanuel Macron said social media has abandoned “informational neutrality”, a phenomenon that is undermining democracy in this “time of crisis”.
Macron argued that the foundations of democracy, which are free thought, independent media and truthful information, are eroding due to the way people now consume information, especially through social media.
“We cannot form a free opinion or vote freely if we don’t know how to establish a proper relationship with facts and with a political landscape that is free from manipulation,” he told a conference on October 29.
“In [western] countries like ours, we used to think this was a given, that the media were independent and protected by law. That’s no longer the case. We have allowed our informational infrastructure to drift away,” he added.
Macron accused social media of radicalising young minds, saying: “A young French person who goes on TikTok and searches for the word ‘Islam’ will, by the third suggested video, be exposed to Salafist content.”
Salafism promotes strict adherence to early Islamic teachings and lifestyles, rejecting modern interpretations. It is often described as a fundamentalist or puritan movement within Islam.
Macron went on to single out US billionaire and X owner Elon Musk.
The French President argued that Musk had “openly engaged in political and reactionary activism on a global scale,” turning X into a platform that amplifies far-right talking points.
“I challenge you,” Macron said, “open X in France today: if you don’t immediately come across far-right content, it’s because you’re poorly organised. You’ll see far-right material, from France or from abroad.”
He also accused foreign powers of exploiting X to destabilise western democracies, claiming that “the biggest buyers of fake accounts on X are the Russians, who use them to undermine Europe’s democratic systems”.
For Macron, the problem goes deeper than Musk alone.
The President argued that the algorithms driving modern platforms reward outrage over reason, pushing anger, fear and division because those emotions keep users scrolling and advertisers paying.
In doing so, he warned, the link between truth, public debate and democracy itself has been corrupted.
“The people who inform us and the channels through which we get our information are no longer independent media,” Macron lamented. “The result is confusion.”
A scandal erupted after secret recordings surfaced in September of Socialist Party officials meeting with senior journalists from State-owned broadcasters to discuss campaign strategies for the 2026 municipal and 2027 national elections. That reignited concerns over the politicisation of public media in the country.
Macron’s latest speech was part of the Paris Peace Forum, where 29 countries, including 15 European Union member states, signed a declaration pledging to strengthen “information integrity” and support “independent media”. That would be through multilateral bodies such as the International Fund for Public Interest Media and the Forum on Information and Democracy.
Macron’s word echoed those of co-president of the French National Digital Council, Gilles Babinet, who warned in June that social media “in their current forms are not compatible with democracy”.
Co-President of the French National Digital Council, Gilles Babinet, has warned that social media “in their current forms are not compatible with democracy”. https://t.co/Jd7ZhuZlcX
Four men of North African origin, aged between 20 and 33, have been arrested in Pamplona for the gang rape of a young university student during a large student party last Friday night.
Three of the suspects are in Spain illegally and were already subject to unenforced deportation orders, according to police sources cited by El Mundo and Antena 3.
The attack occurred near Media Luna Park in central Pamplona, close to the Amaya sports complex, where the annual event to celebrate the new academic year was taking place. Organized by students from the Public University of Navarre, the annual celebration drew more than 2,000 attendees.
Shortly after 10:00 p.m., several people walking through the park discovered the victim lying semi-conscious under a tree. She was visibly disoriented and showed signs of sexual assault. Her phone and several personal belongings were missing. Police officers arriving on the scene noted that her clothing was torn and that she appeared intoxicated. The young woman told them she had been raped, initially recalling only fragments of the attack.
Medical examinations later confirmed that she had suffered what investigators described as a “high-impact” sexual assault by multiple attackers. She was transferred to the University Hospital of Navarra for medical and psychological care.
Evidence gathered from the area, combined with security camera footage, led to the identification of four suspects who lived together in a makeshift encampment along the river.
All four men were arrested on Tuesday in the San Juan neighborhood of Pamplona. The suspects are acquaintances who shared the same tent in the migrant ghetto, where police believe they returned after the assault. Officers later brought them back to the encampment for a reconstruction of events.
According to Antena 3, the men are of Maghrebi nationality, and three of them are in Spain illegally with pending deportation orders.
Investigators have seized their mobile phones amid suspicions that they may have recorded the assault. DNA samples collected from the victim and the scene are being compared with biological traces from the detainees. Authorities say the results will determine whether all four participated in the rape.
Spain has seen an alarming rise in sexual violence over recent years, culminating in a record-high number of rapes, which reached 5,206 incidents in 2024, according to official statistics published by the Ministry of the Interior in May.
Last month, VOX leader Santiago Abascal posted on social media after news of two other rapes by migrants in Tenerife and Bilbao made headlines.
“Today again. Every day, our women, mothers, and daughters are attacked. Every day, the government of the PSOE and the PP remain silent. Feminism disappears when the rapist is not Spanish,” he wrote on X.
A report in London local paper The Evening Standardclaims to have knowledge of “several” Tower Hamlets councillors who are standing, or have declared an intention to stand for the Bangladeshi parliament. While there is no law against this in the United Kingdom, the paper notes the British government has criticised the councillors for neglecting down their constituents in London by seeking election abroad.
The report names Councillor Sabina Khan, who was elected as a Labour councillor in Mile End, Tower Hamlets in 2022 but who later defected to Bangladeshi-born Mayor Rahman’s Aspire Party at some point last year. Khan’s social media presence reveals an X account that has been essentially politics or local government-free for months, but which shows that Khan was a long time Labour activist and keen supporter of London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Sabina Khan is post holder for “influential” roles at Tower Hamlet council including the Overview and Scrutiny Committee and others, posts for which she is paid, per the local Labour Party.
Tower Hamlets Labour has previously noted that Khan has been adopted as the official candidate of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) for Golapganj, an administrative division of some 330,000 people in north-east Bangladesh.
The recent reports on Khan state she has been absent at many meetings, the implication made this may be because of her Bangladeshi electoral run. This may or may not be true, but a 2019 article by Labour List names a councillor called Sabina Khan linked to the Tower Hamlets area which they describe as having been “criticised by Labour members for low attendance of council meetings”, suggesting the issue may be more long-standing.
Had the honour of speaking at the reception for our incredible community leader, Mahidur Rahman. After 17 long years, he is returning to #Bangladesh, showcasing resilience against political harassment under past tyranny. His journey inspires us all to stand for justice and hope. pic.twitter.com/LSAkuVVUSe
Also named by the Standard article is Councillor Ohid Ahmed, again elected with a Labour rosette for the area of Lansbury, Poplar in Tower Hamlets in 2022. As before, Ahmed is recording as having defected to the Mayor Lutfur Rahman banner, first his Tower Hamlets First Party and then to Aspire. Ahmed is now an independent.
Ahmed is a regular on social media and in-between posts about local Tower Hamlets council business he has also shared posts on opposing tightening migration rules for the UK, about Palestine and Gaza, and has tweeted at a Bangladeshi airline to complain about difficulties in booking flights. Many of Ahmed’s posts are in the Bengali language and are about the BNP party and about Bangladeshi politics and current affairs.
A profile on Ahmed in Bangladeshi daily newspaper The New Nationstates he is, like Khan, a native of the Golapganj area and that he already serves as the foreign affairs advisor to the BNP party.
A third Tower Hamlets councillor, unnamed by the paper, is also said to be preparing to run in the election next year.
Claim: Disgraced Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman Plots Political Comeback https://t.co/iBf7KKfneI
The revelations of the UK-elected politicians also going for office abroad is not the first time of late that Bangladesh has been entangled in British politics. Earlier this year, Labour government anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq stood down from her post over graft allegations tied to her influential Bangladeshi family. Siddiq’s grandfather had been both President and Prime Minister of Bangladesh, and her aunt was its longest-serving Prime Minister until the 2024 coup.
In August, it was confirmed Siddiq would be facing corruption charges in Bangladesh. The trial began in her absence, she having refused to attend and accusing the court itself of being corrupt and not fit to judge, and the evidence against her of being fake.
These developments came as another Labour government minister was forced to step down this year, again over money woes connected to property, with Bangladeshi-born Rushanara Ali falling on her sword.
A failed asylum seeker who entered the UK on a small boat used a translation app to threaten his victim before he raped her, a court has heard.
Moustafa Elbohy, 31, allegedly attacked a woman he has encountered at Charing Cross railway station in London in the early hours of September 20.
The Egyptian national, who entered to country in June having crossed the Channel in a dinghy, is said to have been at the train station with friends from the taxpayer-funded migrant hotel where he was staying.
The victim is believed to have been trying to catch a train home after a work night out with colleagues.
The woman allegedly asked the group of migrants what language they were speaking, at which point it is claimed that Mr Elbohy asked for her name and started to shout, despite not being able to speak any English.
When she attempted to leave in order to board her train, Mr Elbohy is said to have put his arm around her before leading her from the station.
It is understood the alleged attack took place on a nearby rooftop.
He stands accused of sexually assaulting her before he is said to have used a translation app on his phone to tell her: “I want to f**k you.”
The victim, who cannot be named, told police the Egyptian man then ripped her clothes off and raped her in an attack which is said to have been caught by CCTV.
The woman allegedly managed to escaped by climbing over a wall and calling a friend for help.
They then reported the attack at Charing Cross police station.
Mr Elbohy appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ court on Wednesday.
Aided by an Arabic interpreter, he spoke only to confirm his name and age.
Nimrah Ashraf, defending, told the court that Mr Elbohy should be given bail due to his depression, insomnia and anxiety.
She said: “He suffers from claustrophobia which will naturally be a problem within the prison environment. He gets extremely anxious.”
Despite the criminal charges against him, the small boat migrant is said to be considering appealing his application for asylum which was thrown out last month.
He was previously rejected after he applied for a UK visa in 2017.
Mr Elbohy also faces charges for the possession of cannabis.
He did not enter a please and was remanded in custody with the order to appear at Southwark Crown Court on November 26.
Prosecutor Simon Mansfield said: “The seriousness of the allegations [means] we do not believe there are any measures that can be taken which can satisfy us to grant bail.”
As Mr Elbohy was led away to the cells, he shouted: “I will not be able to sleep in prison. I will die. Put me in a hospital or anywhere else.”
I don’t remember the first time I heard the phrase “ethnocentric,” but I remember the context. I was in some history class and we were studying a primitive South American tribe. They lived essentially the exact same way their ancestors had thousands of years ago. Our teacher told us their civilization was equal to ours, and we should never think that any civilization was superior to any other. Doing so would be “ethnocentric,” which apparently was a belief that our society was superior to others.
The truth is, when we were first admonished about this, I remember thinking something wasn’t quite right about it, but as a kid in school, who was I to argue with the teacher? It was only years later that I would realize that teachers weren’t all-knowing and that that little piece of wisdom was anything but.
Image created using AI.
Of course, almost no one uses the phrase ethnocentric anymore. No, it’s been replaced by the ubiquitous and multifunctional moniker “racist.” Different word, but it means basically the same thing: Everything white or western is bad and anything else, whether color or culture, is good.
Whatever the name, the lesson was: Every society is equal.
But is that true? No. While common sense suggests it’s wrong, how does one really know? Who decides? Well, if we left it to academia and Western elites to decide, we’d all be wearing dashikis, praying towards Mecca five times a day, eating out of a communal plate with right hands, and then wiping our posteriors with our left. Not that the elites themselves would be doing any of that, but they would coerce the unwashed masses into following such diverse practices.
As for deciding, look around. Are there millions of people risking their lives every year to migrate illegally to Africa, South America, or South Asia? No. Where do the millions of people seeking to flee conflicts in Syria, Libya, or anywhere else in the Muslim world go? Do they go to any one of the 50-plus Muslim majority nations? Other than passing through Turkey on their way to Greece, the answer is largely no.
Where do those seeking to escape economic malaise throughout much of the southern hemisphere go? Mexico City or Timbuktu? Unlikely. Where do CCP or Hamas or banana republic leaders send their kids to be educated and live? Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Burkina Faso, or Vietnam? No, they send their kids to Paris, London, and New York.
But the history! For example, India has a history going back thousands of years. We’re told that British rule decimated the Indian GDP, taking it from 23% of the world’s GDP in the mid-18th century to less than 4% today. That’s obviously a story of Western civilization destroying a superior civilization, right? Not so much.
During that same period, Britain and the developed world grew GDP by 123 times. India didn’t lose its economic powerhouse status because Britain destroyed its economy; it lost its status because the West became an economic juggernaut, powered by the advances of the Industrial Revolution, which built on those of the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, all of which originated in the West.
So, why is it that for half a century, elites have been telling us that Westerners are not allowed to take pride in the advances of their civilizations or celebrate the forces that brought about unprecedented freedom and prosperity?
Because they are spoiled, entitled brats who are ashamed of the prosperity their forebearers created. P.J. O’Rourke perhaps put it best. “At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child—miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats.”
Like the children of so many successful entrepreneurs, those boomer elites (the fount of today’s liberalism) found it hard to live up to the achievements of their progenitors. In the century before 1970, Western civilization literally revolutionized the world. Automobiles. Telephony. Radio. Television. Movies. The structure of DNA. Flight. Heart transplants. Microchips. Nuclear power. The electric light bulb. And much more. Westerners even put a man on the moon and brought him back safely!
Since then? Not so much a revolution as changing the curtains. Sure, the PC, the Internet, the iPhone, Netflix, Amazon, and Facebook have affected our lives, but nothing revolutionary on the scale of many of those inventions from the previous century. No time travel. No teleportation. No cure for cancer. Not even roads without potholes!
Thus, America and the West have experienced a half-century of nepo leftists wanting to make their own mark by rebelling against the very ideas that provided the prosperity that sustained them in the first place. And the easiest way of doing that? Celebrating anything and everything that is not part of Western success.
A religion where women are second-class citizens, where rape victims are stoned to death for the crime of being raped, and where freedom of speech and religion are anathema? Absolutely! Nations where Communist dictators kill and imprison political opponents while delivering economic calamity to their citizens? More please. Countries where blood is the coin of the realm, and whoever is the least morally constrained is the tyrant in charge? Nobody’s perfect…but at least they don’t have billionaire capitalists killing the earth with their private jets.
And it’s not just inter-civilizational; it’s intra-civilizational, as well. Here in the United States, we’re told that things like punctuality, hard work, and proper English—things that have been keys to success for generations—are white supremacy, while in Denmark, advertisements are encouraging whites to have kids with non-whites. For half a century, the lesson has been: Western, European, and white are bad while anything and everything else is good.
That was wrong when they called it ethnocentrism, and it’s wrong today when they call it racism. After decades of listening to elites tell us that every civilization is greater than ours, Westerners are finally pushing back as they see their countries and their cultures shredded by hordes of third-world invaders from decidedly inferior cultures. Whether it’s the push for Sharia law, increased crime, or outsized welfare spending, from the United States to Hungary to Italy, patriots are recognizing that their way of life and their cultures are sufficiently elevated that they are worth fighting for.
Finally, citizens of the civilized world are beginning to say “We’re no longer going to let you destroy that which has taken so much blood and toil to build and has produced so much freedom and prosperity. Decades of a cancerous, elite imposed reverse colonization are enough!” We hear a collective “We like the countries our ancestors built, and we’ve decided we’d like to keep them, thank you.”
The only question is, is it too little too late? Only time will tell.
At the International Pro-Israel Summit held in Budapest, MKs Ohad Tal and Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism party spoke to Arutz Sheva – Israel National News about Hungary’s steadfast support of Israel amidst growing global criticism, particularly from within Europe.
“We came here to Hungary, to Budapest, to this incredible pro-Israel summit because Hungary may be the only country in Europe that stands firmly with Israel, especially over the past two years,” MK Tal said. “Throughout the war, we’ve seen so many countries, especially in Europe but also others like Australia and Canada, turn their backs on Israel and recognize a so-called Palestinian state. Hungary is a true friend and ally, standing with us and blocking many anti-Israel resolutions at the European Union.”
MK Tal emphasized the importance of strengthening ties with Hungary, expressing gratitude for the country’s role in standing against anti-Israel measures within the EU.
MK Rothman echoed these sentiments, stressing the need for Israel to more actively engage with its allies. “I think Israel should embrace its friends around the world. There are many we’ve ignored for years, and I think that’s beginning to change. We need to do much more. We must work with our friends and stop rewarding our enemies.”
Criticizing Israel’s traditional diplomatic approach, Rothman added, “Too often, Israeli foreign policy does the opposite-we cooperate with our enemies and punish our friends.”
Rothman said support for Israel had shifted in light of the war: “Countries we once considered allies turned their backs on us. But those who truly understand what Israel stands for-who understand we are confronting Islamic Jihad-have increased their support. They realize that without Israel, they would face the same threats in their own cities.”
He also criticized domestic voices he believes harm Israel’s international standing. “When Haaretz publishes a headline accusing Israel of genocide, it prevents us from accurately defining our enemies-like Hamas-as genocidal organizations,” Rothman said. “It also makes it harder to engage with international media, who say, ‘Even Israeli media claims this.’”
He condemned politicians such as Yair Golan: “For personal political reasons, he accuses Israel of killing innocent children. He is endangering the state of Israel and weakening our fight against Hamas and the threat of genocide.”
MK Tal addressed criticism of Hungary from the Israeli left. “I hear a lot of attacks from the Israeli left against countries like Hungary, calling them fake democracies and fascists. I came here especially to counter that. We must show our allies and friends in Europe that those voices do not represent the State of Israel.”
“The vast majority of Israelis appreciate the support we receive from our allies,” he continued. “We stand together with Hungary’s democracy against the forces of barbarism that threaten our societies.”
MK Rothman concluded by calling for stronger legal tools to combat jihadist threats. “We must develop legal and judicial mechanisms to fight genocide and define Hamas not only as a terrorist group but also as a genocidal organization,” he said. “Every aspect-from attacks on civilians to incitement-is part of the same genocidal campaign.”
Since the EU elections of June 2024, I have written about the emergence of Two Europes. On one side there is the old, official Europe, run by EU commissioners, judges, and bankers and their media supporters, centred on the elitist bubbles of Brussels and other European power centres.
On the other side, the real Europe where millions of people live, work and vote. And with the rise of national populist movements, the gap between the two Europes has been growing ever wider.
To see what this means in practice today, look at the recent presidential election in the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state where there is no powerful populist movement (yet), but there is nonetheless a growing chasm between the political class and a large part of the population.
The election was won by Catherine Connolly, the candidate supported by the left and Sinn Féin, in a reported “landslide” with a “record” 63% of the vote. She easily defeated the candidates from both old guard parties of Irish politics, the current coalition government partners Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (whose candidate withdrew late on but still appeared on the ballot).
Connolly has been hailed as a uniquely “anti-establishment” president. Sinn Féin, the political wing of the Irish republican movement and now the main opposition in the Republic of Ireland, declared the result “a stunning victory” for the Left.
That’s the official, headline version of the Irish presidential election. But behind those headlines lurks a rather different story.
There was another truly “stunning” result in this presidential election. It was that an unprecedented 13% of all those who turned out to vote spoilt their ballot papers—a ten-fold increase in the number of spoilt ballots compared to the last election.
This deluge of spoilt ballots was not due to a mass outbreak of clumsy fingers in the polling booth. It was a skilful act of mass political protest, following an organised online campaign. These Irish people were effectively voting “none of the above”—or perhaps, “Feck the lot of them.” As the shocked Irish Electoral Commission conceded with typical official understatement, “it is clear that some people chose to deliberately spoil their votes.”
The message from the people who made that deliberate choice was less understated. In the constituency of Dublin West, where at least 21% of votes cast were spoilt, the messages that angry voters chose to write on their ballot papers included “no democracy,” “EU puppets,” and “no from me,” as well as putting an “X” through all three candidates on the paper.
As reported in the Irish media, other creatives spoilt their ballot papers by writing in the names of alternative candidates who they would rather have voted for. Those names scribbled on ballot papers ranged from current Irish politicians to classic TV comedy character Father Ted, past IRA men Michael Collins and Bobby Sands, and assorted others from Dustin the Turkey and Donald Duck to Donald Trump.
The spoiling-heavy constituency of Dublin West, we might note, is a seat currently held by Sinn Féin. The contrast between the party’s joy at the election result and the dissatisfaction of many of its constituents reveals the widening gap between Ireland’s woke republican radicals and many of their voters, on everything from immigration to trans ideology.
Indeed, this was a striking pattern in the presidential election: the more working class the area, the higher the number of deliberately spoilt ballot papers. Sky News reported that in some places the spoilt pile reached higher than 50% of the votes cast, a scale of rejection which it admitted was “staggering.”
Perhaps the result should not really have staggered the Irish authorities, however. The signs were there beforehand. Popular discontent with the election mounted as the high bar for nominating presidential candidates meant several conservative “outsider” candidates could not even get their names on the ballot paper.
Just over a week before polling day, an Irish Times opinion poll found Connolly held a “commanding” lead. But by far the loudest finding in that poll was that 49% of voters said they “don’t feel represented by any of the candidates”. That is a remarkable sign of the widening gap between the Irish political elites—including the allegedly anti-establishment wing—and many normal Irish people.
This suggests that even many of those who did bother to vote for one of the candidates were no more enthusiastic about the miserable choice than those who did not.
Around the same time as the Irish election campaign ended, the capital Dublin was rocked by nights of serious unrest over the alleged sexual assault of a child by a migrant housed in a hotel. As elsewhere in Europe, the immigration crisis is the worst example of people being denied a political voice. Anybody who raises their concerns about Ireland’s disastrous open-door policy is condemned as racist by the Dublin elites.
Denied a democratic outlet through which to express their anger, increasing numbers of Irish people are spoiling for a fight: many by spoiling their ballot papers and some, if all else fails, by taking to the streets.
The Irish election is a stark example of a Europe-wide phenomenon. This is what the political elites across Europe now talk about as a decline in support for democracy or “democratic backsliding.” What they really mean by a crisis of democracy is that more voters are refusing to vote for establishment candidates, and many are voting for populist alternatives when offered the choice.
As Frank Furedi, chief executive of MCC Brussels, wrote recently,
In theory, the term democratic backsliding refers to the declining integrity of democratic values. In practice it means the estrangement of significant sections of the public from their political institutions. Once understood from this perspective it becomes evident that it is not democracy that people no longer trust but the people and the institutions that rule over society.
The populist wave is rising from Germany to the UK and is now even shaking up the historical stasis of Irish politics, albeit not yet in the form of a specific party. The response of Official Europe is to do all in its power to keep the Other Europe under control by isolating and criminalising the populist. This, as I have written here before, is a conflict between two elements at the heart of the meaning of democracy: demos, the people, and kratos, power or control.
Official Europe might not yet have lost control of the future. But the writing is on the wall as well as on the Irish ballot papers: “EU puppets,” “no democracy,” “no for me.” Europe’s silent majority is finding its voice.
Volkswagen Group, Germany’s biggest vehicle manufacturer, lost €1.07 billion between July and September, according to an earnings release.
The loss, revealed today, came despite turnover growing more than expected by 2.3 per cent to more than €80 billion.
The group – which includes brands such as VW, Porsche, Skoda, and Seat – primarily suffered from ongoing problems at luxury carmaker Porsche.
The Volkswagen affiliate had announced in September it was changing its medium-term strategy by cutting back on electrical vehicle (EV) development and instead sticking to internal combustion engines (ICE) for longer.
Porsche said the extraordinary expenditures associated with this change in strategy would amount to more than €3 billion.
Another item weighing on Volkswagen’s profit and loss statement are the US tariffs introduced under President Donald Trump, including the 15 per cent tariff on imports from the European Union effective from August 1.
Volkswagen sold 730,000 cars in the US in 2024. Of these, 200,000 were produced domestically while 240,000 vehicles came from European factories, primarily Porsche and Audi cars, and another 287,000 from sites in Mexico. The company is now facing a 27.5 per cent tariff on vehicles and car parts in that country.
Volkswagen CFO Arno Antlitz said the company was expecting the tariffs to remain in place permanently, making it necessary to cut back on costs. “Including the tariffs – but excluding one-off effects – we had operating profits of €10.9 billion in the first nine months of 2025 and a profit margin of 4.5 per cent.
“That is too little to invest enough into the future,” he said.
Antlitz added that the VW group would try to increase cross-brand economies of scale, for example producing its EV VW ID.Polo in the same Spanish factory as a similar model by brand Cupra.
Antlitz also indicated that staff cuts may be on the agenda. “For the current year, cash flow is zero. This means that despite all our efforts in the current year with all our exciting products, there is effectively nothing left in the coffers.
“I believe it is clear to all employees that we cannot continue like this,” he said.
German media had previously reported that Volkswagen may face a financing shortfall of €14 billion in its current budget.
The group’s sobering numbers echo wider problems for German carmakers.
Yesterday, competitor Mercedes Benz announced a 30 per cent profit reduction for the third quarter, also citing tariffs as a main negative factor. The company is now trying to cut tens of thousands of non-production employees.
The third major German carmaker, BMW, will publish its numbers for the third quarter on November 5.
