Various nationalist and EU-skeptical parties scored unprecedented gains in the recent elections for the European Parliament. The ones that are anxious not to be labeled “racists” have gravitated towards the ECR (“The European Conservatives and Reformists”) group in the EP, rather than trying to forge any alliance with Geert Wilders (Netherlands, PVV), Heinz-Christian Strache (Austria, FPÖ), or Marine Le Pen (France, FN). Some of the parties that are allergic to these “far-right extremists” include UKIP, the Danish People’s Party, and the Finns.
But what if these dedicated EU-skeptics are being suckered? Is the ECR really the right group for parties that oppose mass immigration and want to exit the EU?
Or is it a mug’s game?
Dedicated Counterjihad activists are keenly aware that Daniel Hannan, a well-known British MEP for the Conservative Party, is no friend to our movement.
Mr. Hannan reminds me of Grover Norquist, a prominent Republican Party insider who is married to a Muslim, mentors various Muslims in the party, and is often rumored to have converted to Islam himself. Mr. Norquist is solid on fiscal issues and taxation — I read his column for many years in The American Spectator — but is no help to anyone who wants to stop the Islamization of America.
Daniel Hannan is a similar case. He, too, is solid on fiscal matters, and his expository videos (some of which have been posted in this space) are entertaining and instructive to watch. But when it comes to Islam, he is no help at all — and sometimes an active hindrance to those who would halt the Islamization of Europe.
Mr. Hannan is a founding member of the Conservative Friends of Turkey Association. In a 2010 op-ed for The Telegraph, he averred that “My party has been Turcophile since Derby’s leadership” (Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, was the longest-serving leader of the Conservative Party and died in 1869). He went on to say:
Cameron’s reasons for backing Ankara’s bid for EU membership are solidly Tory: Turkey guarded Europe’s flank against the Bolshevists for three generations, and may one day be called on to do the same against the jihadis. In the circumstances, he believes, the Turks are being treated ungratefully by their allies.
He’s right. The EU’s treatment of Turkey will one day be seen as an epochal error.
Last year Mr. Hannan referred to the AKP — the fundamentalist Islamic party headed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan — as “democratic, Muslim, free-market and popular”.
In an interview in 2011, Mr. Hannan discussed the “alienation” of “disaffected boys” as the cause of radicalization among Muslims in British society. He added that it “is our fault as well as theirs” for not offering these unfortunate young men better alternatives.
In an op-ed last October, he praised the Quilliam Foundation and disparaged the English Defence League.
More recently, after Paul Weston was arrested on the steps of Westminster Guildhall for quoting Winston Churchill on the topic of Mohammedanism, Mr. Hannan defended Mr. Weston’s right to free speech, but disparaged his “loutishness”, and described his behavior as “narcissistic”.
The above, in a nutshell, is what we have come to expect from Daniel Hannan, MEP. I bring all this up because of an email I received this morning from a contact in Germany:
I read in EurActiv.com that the group known as the ECR, which the Danish People’s Party and the Finns Party (the party of the newly-elected MEP Jussi Halla-aho) have joined in the European Parliament, is going to be led by Syed Kamall. You should alert your readers that he is a devout Muslim.
If you google Syed Kamall, you will probably find links referring to the fact that he is a devout Muslim and defender of Islam.
The kingmaker and second man of this group is Daniel Hannan. Dan is the guy who persuaded the Danish People’s Party and the Finns to join the ECR group.
Dan used to be a friend, but we fell out when I began criticizing Islam. He is a great admirer of Islam. He once told me that he had seriously considered converting to Islam, which he considered a beautiful and deeply spiritual religion.
I already knew about Daniel Hannan’s opinions and positions, but I had never heard of Syed Kamall. So I took my contact’s advice, and spent several hours this afternoon plugging his name into Internet search engines.
In 2008 Daniel Hannan said, “My fellow Euro MP, Syed Kamall, is a good Muslim: he keeps the fast, tries to pray five times a day and does his best to bring his sons up with a full understanding of his faith. But he becomes impatient when people try to drag him into arguments about Palestine, Kashmir or Iraq.”
Mr. Kamall has made similar statements himself, saying that he is a “practising Muslim” and “I try to pray every day.”
There is no indication that he is devout, however — not as the word is normally understood. He does not publicly promote jihad or a world Caliphate. He wears no beard. He does not quote the Koran or the Hadith during campaign appearances, as far as I can determine. He does not force the females in his family to wear hijab.
Nevertheless, his publicly recorded opinions and actions are supportive of Islamic interests in Europe.
Like his fellow Tory Daniel Hannan, Syed Kamall is a Turcophile. When interviewed by Weekly Zaman, he said that he favored Turkey’s entry into the EU, and responded at length on Turkey’s status in the Middle East, saying that “it’s a wonderful model”:
Would you say Turkey is a good model for the Middle East?
Personally, I think it’s a wonderful model. I’m not saying it’s perfect, and also if you are an extreme secularist you do not like what’s happened in Turkey at the moment, but on the whole I think there are still concerns, but that’s still all part of development. There are still concerns over human rights, women’s rights — things like that — in parts of Turkey, but I don’t think many countries have solved those problems.
I think it would be a wonderful model, but we have to be very wary in the West of trying to seem to impose a model in these countries. They have to develop in their own way, and as much as Turkey can promote the model they’ve gone through — that there is a political Islam that is moderate, that is secular, that is tolerant, that doesn’t stop people worshipping their faith but that actually doesn’t push it down the throats of those that don’t worship their faith — if they can get that right, there is no compulsion Islam message across and is [a] very liberal interpretation of Islam — when I say that I don’t mean anti-religious, I mean that there is no inherent contradiction between being Muslim and being tolerant to other faiths — they could also be a very good economic model for the development. Turkey shows that religion could be a powerhouse, but I can’t say that all countries should follow that model because each country has to find its own model.
At one point Syed Kamall echoed Tim Stanley that “Islam is way more English than the EDL” (but later deleted the tweet).
According to Yvonne Ridley, he was at one time on the “Muslim 100 power list”. On the other hand, according to MPACUK, he is a “Zionist” who “condones Israel”. So it seems that, like the Quilliam Foundation, he draws the ire of sharia-minded Muslims in Britain.
Significantly, Mr. Kamall was a co-signer of a letter from the Runnymede Trust to The Times [pdf] calling on Britons to affirm the value of immigration, to celebrate Multiculturalism, “to reject prejudice and intolerance, and to shape a fair and inclusive future that we all want to share.”
Is this the kind of EP leader under which EU-skeptical parties such as Dansk Folkeparti and Perussuomalaiset want to serve?
Yes, he’s not a “devout” Muslim. But he loves Turkey, pushes for “diversity” and “inclusiveness”, and wants his constituents to affirm the value of immigration.
Is that really so much better than the hard-bitten nationalism of Marine Le Pen? Or Geert Wilders’ staunch opposition to sharia?
I’m not European, so I can’t give an informed answer to that question. However… if I were an immigration-critical Finn or a Danish patriot, I’d think twice about stretching out my feet under the same table as Syed Kamall, Daniel Hannan, and the other European Conservatives and Reformists.
Fact: European civilization was built up through centuries of resistance — sometimes desperate — against a relentless Islamic onslaught and reached its height during the time when Islam was (temporarily) subdued. Now that Islam is again on the rampage, European civilization is being visibly, rapidly degraded.
How anyone with the supposed intelligence and learning of Daniel Hannan can be oblivious to such blazingly obvious facts is a deep, deep mystery.
If Mr. Hannan believes Islam to be a “beautiful, spiritual religion,” can he point to one civilization built on Islam in which life is more beautiful and spiritual than the land of his birth? An Islamic nation to which he would readily relocate (and stay)?
Finally, was Mr. Hannan’s decision not to convert to Islam perhaps influenced by his discovery that the beautiful, spiritual religion of Islam would impose the death penalty on him if he changed his mind, or merely said something unflattering about ol’ Mo in an unguarded comment?
How can really smart people be so hopelessly dense?
If Mr. Hannan believes Islam to be a “beautiful, spiritual religion,” can he point to one civilization built on Islam in which life is more beautiful and spiritual than the land of his birth? An Islamic nation to which he would readily relocate (and stay)?
Precisely so. Which is why he wants to promote England’s fall into Islam’s clutches.
He’s not dense. He’s simply betting on the strong horse.
If Islam was a beautiful and spiritual force then every country run according to islamic principles would be a beautiful and spiritual place.
As the yearly reports issued by the USCIRF demonstrate very clearly, that is not the case.
It follows (by MT) that Islam is not a beautiful and spiritual force at all.
Quite the contrary, in fact.
Petro dollars? He doesn’t appear to be short of a few bob. How much are MEPs paid?
He won’t have to relocate–just wait a little while longer.
Islam is not so much on a rampage as that the West chooses to grovel at the feet of Muslims in exchange for costly petroleum.
One doesn’t need to be on any kind of rampage if all one has to do is simply show up in a boat, head to the welfare office, claim your council flat, and start breeding. Once such people would have been met with cold steel wielded by resolute men as necessity required. Now their sons and daughters meet immigrants with blankets and cookies. They can’t seem to grasp that slow-motion invasion is still invasion.
The groveling is honed to a razor edge when the full force of the state lines up behind the immigrants and broadcasts the most awful nonsense about the blessings of living cheek by jowl with primitives in thrall to a savage political system masquerading as a religion. It’s a shameful obeisance to third world people who have contributed nothing to the world except suffering and death, and certainly contribute little to the Western countries to which they flock.
Follow the money. Just follow the money…
Recently at Breitbart – 28 March 2014
Conservative Party Youth Wing Allies With Turkish Islamist Counterparts
http://bit.ly/1kRsSXL
Seems that Islamists try to infiltrate many entities. Not just those on the Left… In addition to the Republicans, they’ve got into Fox News and the US government. When Tommy Robinson was persuaded to leave the EDL, certain Muslims boasted of having “decapitated” the organisation…. and now, it looks like they’re cuddling up to the True Finns and Danish Peoples’ party… all just a coincidence? Or an attempt to make those parties warm to the Religion of Peace, and hence make anti-Islam opinions seem even more sidelined and “extreme”?
My guess is that the Islamists would even try to “turn” our core of counterjihadis if they could. But seeing as the few of us here are too “extreme” and hardened in our views to ever contemplate such a thing, they’ll have to make do with painting us as “Nazis”, “racists” and the rest of their usual labels. (although admittedly Islamists, or whoever else, did a fine job with LGF!)
LGF was simply a matter of a leftist who was terrified by the events of 9/11. As his ‘terror’ waned, he reverted to his leftist belief system and began undermining and betraying his new BFF as he plunged back into the left. He may have begun slinging ordure at the counterjihad but he soon moved on to everyone on the right. Which is when The Bigs deigned to notice his agitation.
So the only person of any standing still in his corner is Bruce Bawer…whose judgment is questionable.
Syed Kamall says:
“there is a political Islam that is moderate, that is secular, that is tolerant, that doesn’t stop people worshipping their faith…”
Really?
“And whoever seeks a religion other than Islâm, it will never be accepted of him”, Koran 3:85
“But if they turn back (from Islâm), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them…” Koran 4:89
“It is unbelief (kufr) to hold that the remnant cults now bearing the names of formerly valid religions, such as ‘Christianity’ or ‘Judaism’, are acceptable…”
Manual of Islamic Law, w4.1(2)
The Koran forms part of Islamic Law. One who denies any verse has to be killed, an act that can be performed without penalty by anyone “since it is killing someone who deserves to die” (Manual of Islamic Law 08.4).
The Manual is a free download at http://www.shafiifiqh.com/maktabah/relianceoftraveller.pdf
Solid on fiscal matters???
Turkey guarded Europe’s flank against the Bolshevists for three generations, ???
The solid fiscal matters that are the socialist entitlement for the few and corrupt crony capitalism for the many that plunged the European nations into bankruptcy.
Turkey guarding Europe’s flank is about as redundant as men who stare at goats in the context of a Counter-jihad strategy.
There is a large conservative constituency in the West that is ideologically aligned with islam, particularly in the UK.
Grover Norquist once said he wanted to make the federal government so small it could drowned in a bathtub. That’s the EXACT same sentiments of Al Qaeda.
Politics DOES make strange bedfellows…
Number one problem- Islam.
Number two problem- immigrant crime.
Number three problem- loss of nation.
The ethnic majority of any country should not by accident or design be deprived of its homeland.
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All of which could have been controlled through sane immigration policies.
Hannan talks a good fight but when the chips are down he will stab you in the back. He is a classic member of the Quisling Right. The same is true of his economic talk and matters concerning the eeuuuwwww. He talks it up but will always let everybody down to promote his own interests. You are correct not to trust him–at all.
In not rushing to ally with the Front National, Nigel Farage has his eyes on the UK Parliamentary Election in 2015. His recent European campaign was marred by unsubstantiated race smears from his political opponents. Why should he present them with ammunition which might prevent him from turning his European success into a significant Parliamentary presence? He knows that, unless he has the power and influence to bring it into effect, neither Cameron nor Milliband will ever call an in/out referendum. They have nothing but contempt for the electorate. The next election will be dirty enough without UKIP being labelled a fascist ally by the communist left and their media acolytes.
UKIP is only a tiny baby-step in the correct direction. Farage still welcomes the full blessings of enrichment and diversity that 3rd world immigration provides.
For the present, yes. The Muslim bloc vote can be a significant obstacle when it is used against you, which is why the three main UK parties are actively chasing it by continued appeasement of islam – look at Boris Johnson. In its infancy, UKIP and Farage did express a view that, if muslims are allowed into the UK they must behave accordingly and obey its laws. This approach was quietly
forgotten in the last couple of years. I think it will be resurrected if UKIP makes sufficient gains in the 2015 General Election to make the islamic bloc vote irrelevant.
thank you for the scoop on Hannan. I liked his speeches and assumed he was aware of the threat of Islam , good to know seems to go out of his way not to notice about the threat of Sharia but writes a book about inventing freedom .
Something of a puzzle, isn’t it!
I recently read Hannan’s book–he praises the Anglosphere and its remarkable institutions and culture of freedom but doesn’t appear to acknowledge Islam as an enemy of open societies.
Well, he’s a politician after all.
This Kamal guy is really, and I mean really funny. He talks about moderation in Islam while Erdogan, the Turkish PM emphasizes that there is no such animal: “Islam is Islam is Islam and that’s it” he said in 2007. Andrew McCarthy has a splendid analysis of the re-islamization of the secular Turkey in his book “Spring Fever”.
I wonder how he squares this with his support of Israel?
IMHO that’s easy to answer. Israel never said that is at war with Islam. Is only fighting Arabs and signs truce with Hezballah…
Re this info about Daniel Hannan: I am gutted.
I understand your disappointment. But giving up “admiration” of public figures is probably long overdue for all of us. Maybe once they’re dead long enough and it’s only their ideas we can discuss, maybe then it’s a healthy pastime. But as one 70s pop-psych put it, “when you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”. By which he meant that it was necessary to surrender our heroes.
IOW, never give a pol an inch. It speaks volumes about their narcissism that they’re even in that office. Especially as a member of the unaccountable EU parliament.
Wow, How can someone be so for liberty, limited government etc. and not get Islam. This is an eye opener for me. Thank you, thank you.
“But he becomes impatient when people try to drag him into arguments about Palestine, Kashmir or Iraq.”
What is there to discuss? Palestine belongs to Islam, Kashmir belongs to Islam, and Iraq belongs to whichever Islam can slaughter enough adherents of the other Islam.
Next people will be asking him who owns Andalusia or Serbia. Duh!
Fascinating stuff, Baron, but I baulked at this: “[Dan] once told me that he had seriously considered converting to Islam, which he considered a beautiful and deeply spiritual religion.”
He considered converting? I cannot easily believe this. Did your informant get this from the horse’s mouth?
I’m reporting what he told me in his email. I have no reason to believe he is reporting anything other than the truth, but I wasn’t present during the conversation he describes, so I can’t personally verify it. For what it’s worth, he is a man of integrity, and I believe him.
Jussi Halla-aho said that he is a bit disappointed that the Finns party chose this group. Some people have speculated that the party leader Timo Soini wants to get into the next government, and being in the same EU group with the British Conservative Party gives Soini a lot of credibility and influence.