Back at the end of September, Nigel Farage, the leader of UK’s Reform party, told GB News that deportations were “not my ambition.”
“For us, at the moment, it's a political impossibility,” Farage said, frankly. “I'm not going to get dragged down the route of mass deportations or anything like that. If I say I support mass deportations, that's all anybody will talk about for the next 20 years. So it's pointless even going there."
“It's a political impossibility to deport hundreds of thousands of people. We simply can't do it.”
Fast forward to last week, and Farage was singing a very different tune.
Farage was speaking to former Mumford and Sons banjo-player Winston Marshall. Marshall pressed him on what would happen to the more than one million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the UK.
Should they be given amnesty, as some have suggested?
No! Farage was emphatic. “You cannot give them amnesty. Yes, we must be deporting people who come illegally, especially those who commit crimes or who point blank refuse to integrate into our communities. Not an easy job. Long-term job. Will take a long time.”
If I’m not mistaken, that’s Nigel saying “yes” to mass deportations.
So what’s changed?
Two words: Donald Trump.
The election of Donald Trump has sent shockwaves far beyond America’s shores, and promises to bring new life to right-wing parties that are desperate for ideas, energy and, most of all, the courage to translate the wishes of their voters into reality.
In the case of the increasingly timid Farage and Reform, Trump’s landslide victory on an explicit platform of mass deportation—“the largest deportation operation in American history,” Trump has said repeatedly, with a target of 20 million people—is the clearest sign that a popular anti-immigration platform can go much, much further than just tightening border security and reducing the number of people who enter the country.
You can actually get rid of people who are already here and shouldn’t be. Millions of them. You can win an election saying you’ll do that.
What once seemed impossible is now firmly within the realms of possibility.
All across Europe, right-wing parties are making mass deportation a part of their platforms. It’s often called “remigration,” presumably to take away some of the sting and make it sound a bit nicer. The surging Alternative for Germany (AfD), who are on course to become the biggest party in Germany and are already the most popular party among 18-30 year olds, have promised to “remigrate” massive numbers of immigrants. The German establishment is so worried about the AfD, they’re on the cusp of banning them, but this is a move that will surely backfire, if indeed it happens. The German government is also rushing to give hundreds of thousands of migrants the vote before February’s election, in the hope that doing so will prevent the AfD from consolidating its stunning gains and winning even more power on a national level.
Trump’s example will show the way. If he’s successful—if he can organise mass deportations logistically and also weather the propaganda storm that will be unleashed on him by his political opponents and the mainstream media—then you can bet other right-wing parties will follow his lead and actually start doing it too.
At a meeting of the Patriots for Europe group in Paris last week, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán said that a new era of conservative leadership has arrived for Europe. This grouping is now the third strongest faction in the European Parliament, and includes representatives from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria, France, Spain and the Netherlands.
“The first important lesson from President Trump’s campaign and victory is the following. We must take bold positions and be able to speak about them loudly and clearly. And may I say that there is no need to shift to the centre because the centre has already shifted toward us,” Orbán said.
“This is the kind of brave leadership we need,” he added, referring to Trump’s promise to deport every single illegal immigrant in America. “Clear, decisive, and confident.”
The attitude of the EU Commission and its president Ursula von Der Leyen has already changed as a result of Trump’s win. The viperous president has dropped her constant attacks on Orbán and instead tenderly thanked “dear Viktor” for his hospitality at an informal EU event a few days ago.
Call it a vibe shift. Call it what you will. It’s palpable, and both sides can feel it.
Simply winning and setting an example will go a long way. But there are other things Trump can do to help patriots across the Western world.
Recently a video reemerged in which JD Vance suggested withdrawing US support for NATO if European countries continued their assaults on freedom of speech and the persecution of their own citizens. This is a perfect example of how the new Trump administration could protect fellow travellers without actually doing anything much at all. A mere threat could be enough to stop Europe’s increasingly power-mad left from going “full Stalin,” to use Elon Musk’s words. Of course, such threats work because Trump is the kind of man who just might carry them out.
Talk softly and carry a big stick: That’s what the great Theodore Roosevelt said to do. And who better for Trump to emulate than the Bull Moose himself, who was also shot on the campaign trail and survived? Like the Progressive era Roosevelt ushered in, this is a time of new hope for America—and for patriots around the world.
