The Weekly Forum - 22 May 2026

Immigration has been on the political agenda – even at the top of it – for decades. You only have to think of the lifelong careers of well-known anti-immigrant opposition politicians in Europe to realise this. Yet nothing is done about it.  In the Netherlands, for instance, asylum seekers continue to arrive at the rate of 2,000 or 3,000 every month – 1,000 last week alone - in spite of decades in which governing politicians have promised to reduce or even stop immigration. In an impressive statement in committee, FVD MP Tom Russcher recently recalled these terrible facts. He emphasised that no country can get a handle on this population transfer without leaving the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. The EU means open borders while the ECHR means judges who refuse to allow deportations. Only FVD identifies and goes to the root of the problem. The rest is just noise.

Watch Tom Russcher’s speech here

In other words, the supranational institutions which are supposed to protect us and make us prosper are, in fact, destroying us. Yet our leaders, who have been moulded by them and cannot think out of the box, hold on to them for dear life.  The same goes for Europe’s security architecture. The Americans under Trump have made clear their contempt for NATO and for the Europeans generally. European politicians respond with panic instead of doing what FVD does, which is to see this as an opportunity to exploit foreign policy options which are currently closed off. The Netherlands in particular could revive its old policy of neutrality, profiting from its hugely positive and unthreatening image in the world to carve out new relationships. Ralf Dekker MP laid all this out with admirable clarity in a recent speech to Parliament.

Read Ralf Dekker’s speech here

It’s a sort of Stockholm syndrome, really. Prisoners develop a dependency on those who hold them prisoner. The human mind confuses captivity with protection.  Certainly, it is well known that some prisoners, once released, long to be back inside. The outside world can be frightening; prison routine is reassuring. This is what is happening in Britain right now. Ten years after Brexit, and without any public pressure for it, Keir Starmer is talking about aligning the UK more closely with the EU. For the time being, faced with a by-election which might put a future new Prime Minister into the House of Commons, the issue has been hushed up. But people at the top of the Labour Party are clearly plotting it. FVD International’s director, John Laughland, was Ian Proud’s guest on his podcast, The Peacemonger, this week to discuss this and other issues.

Watch John Laughland’s interview here

Our guests on The Forum this week were Professor Edouard Husson, a specialist in German history, and Dr Tarik Cyril Amar, a German academic based in Turkey who specialises in the history of Russia and Ukraine. The subject: German rearmament. If you missed it, listen back.

Listen back to The Forum here