BRITS HAVE HAD ENOUGH: Furious locals confront police as migrant boats arrive in Portsmouth

Well, the right wing wave sweeping the world has landed in Germany. The Alternative for Germany party surged into first place in state elections on Sunday, putting a right wing party on the cusp of power at state level for the first time since World War Two. Now, at the centre of the party's rise is leader Alice Wheatle, who has pledged in her first 100 days to close the borders, eliminate social benefits for migrants and carry out Germany's largest deportations. And look, we shouldn't be shocked by this. We have seen it sweeping through other parts of Europe, as well as South America. We've spoken about this on the show before over in the UK with reform, Nigel Farage, and even here in Australia with One Nation, led by Pauline Hanson. It is clear that voters are saying no to mass migration, no to this renewables energy facade with no plan for the future to keep the lights on. But most importantly, and I think this is critical, voters want to take their countries back. They are done with feeling like foreigners in their own homes. And it is leaders like German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who should be worried. Not expect this to happen in this manner. Of course, we will have to accept the result. These are the rules of our democracy. But with the day of yesterday, not only things have changed in Saxony-Anhalt, but all over Germany, the result is going to have an impact on the international scale. Joining me now is editor-at-large of the Wall Street Journal, Gerard Baker. Gerard, a pleasure to have you on the program. Thank you so much for joining me. You know, I was thinking the EU bureaucrats must be sitting in Brussels right now, absolutely watching on in horror. They wouldn't know what to do with themselves. But what does this mean for Europe, do you think? Well, thanks, Tanika. Look, I think you had it right there in terms of explaining what's happened in Germany and putting it in the global context of this popular revolt against the establishment, if you like. I mean, the reaction, you heard it there from Chancellor Merz, the reaction across Europe, both from governments and from the sort of mainstream media, is one of, you know, panicked horror, right? Oh, my God, the Nazis are back. The fascists are taking over. Germany is falling back into its bad old ways. It's the same all over the continent, all these neo-Nazis who, you know, are racists and bigots and want to, you know, essentially go back to a kind of white supremacist world. And we've got to do everything to stop them. And I think in that reaction, Tanika, you have exactly the problem encapsulated in terms of the way in which the establishment have run these countries for so long. They regard anything that objects, any political organization, any people that object to the way in which they have been running their countries and indeed the European Union for so long, i.e. with open borders, denouncing anybody who opposes the idea of any sort of, who opposes open immigration in that way, wants immigration restrictions, who opposes their woke, frankly, their woke ideology and their extremely progressive ideology. They denounce those people as kind of neo-Nazis fascists. And therefore you get people voting for, yes, extreme, if you want to call them that, extreme right wing parties like the AFD, because the main establishment parties are deliberately ignoring the concerns that those people have and demonizing those people for even expressing those concerns, but how dare you say we've had too much immigration in this country? How dare you say, you know, maybe actually we don't want net zero and energy costs that are four times what they are in the United States. Maybe we don't want to be told that, you know, we are terrible white supremacists and we need to hand over, you know, all of our sort of, we have to, we have to transfer our status to new immigrants and to people coming in from the rest of the world. Maybe they're not wrong to say that there is such a thing as a difference between a man and a woman and to reject this radical progressive ideology that's been dominating for so long. So this is why the AFD, just as, as you said, the reform party in the UK, Donald Trump, to some extent here in the United States, what you're seeing in France is going to be elections in France next year with the National Rally Party. These are parties, you don't have to like everything about what they say and some of them, especially the AFD, do have some pretty murky pasts, but they are articulating the concerns of people of ordinary voters and the rest of the political establishment is trying to exclude them and to ostracize them and it won't work. And the more they push them away, the more they deny the problem, the more they say that anybody who objects to the problem is a fascist, the more those people are actually going to vote for parties like the AFD. That's it, exactly. And the more that they say, oh, don't talk about mass migration because it's racist or how dare you talk about the calibre of the individual coming into the country or being allowed. It actually plays into these right-wing parties' hands because this is what they're, the options that they're providing for voters. When the rest of us are looking on in horror, say, for instance, what happened over in Spain a couple of weeks ago, over in Ceuta, when you got 70,000 illegal migrants coming into that small, small little enclave. No, we don't want a repeat of that around the world. And so, look, I'm not surprised, as you said, it is hardly surprising to see this happening in countries where voters are going, enough is enough, we need to take back our country. Now, I know that you are originally from the UK, Gerard, so I wanted to ask you about this because hundreds of protesters, they've descended on Portsmouth as a small boat containing asylum seekers docked on the south coast of England. So you can see in this vision, there were a lot of clashes with police, about 500 demonstrators joined a protest in the area on Sunday night, some dressed in black, similar to those who joined an anti-illegal migrant protest, which blocked the port of Dover, but then clashed with police after what was a mega dinghy carrying 140 migrants reached the UK from Normandy, and it's believed to be the longest ever channel crossing by people smugglers. Now, Gerard, we only saw this mega dinghy, the first mega dinghy, this was only a couple of weeks ago, now they're getting more creative, we've seen a second. But what does it say, do you think, when you've got ordinary Brits, everyday Brits, taking matters into their own hands or feeling like they have to take a stance because law enforcement aren't doing it for them? Well, because exactly as you describe it, Danika, the government, successive governments, fair to say, Britain has yet another prime minister, as you know, just took over less than two months ago, Andy Burnham, but he took over from a previous Labour prime minister, but the previous Conservative governments all did the same thing, which is that they didn't really make any serious effort to stop these boats coming across the English Channel full of migrants, many of them, you know, some of them legitimate economic migrants, refugees, if you like, economic refugees, the vast majority of them, people just looking for a better life in England. And by the way, many of them from cultures and backgrounds that are pretty alien, shall we say, to what we might once have called sort of British traditional culture. So governments have done nothing about it. It's exactly as you say, these boats, you know, they used to be called small boats. Well, you know, that's because, you know, on average, they were hundreds of them every, thousands of them every year with 10 or 12 people on. They've now graduated, if you like, to much larger boats, which are still somehow able to get through. You would think a boat carrying 120, 150 migrants would actually be reasonably easy to identify spot and to turn back. But, you know, the British government, obviously, these boats can't be, they can't be, you know, they can't be sunk. So once they're somewhere across the channel, they, the British, the Coast Guard and the British authorities let them in. And then once they're in the country, for all kinds of reasons, partly because Britain still is a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, which basically forbids Britain from being able to deport those people immediately. Once they're in, they're in. And it's very, very hard for them to go away. And many of them have been responsible for, put it, not just things like putting great burden on on the health service or education, many of them not speaking, most of them not speaking in English at all. But they have been responsible also for significant numbers of crimes. But most importantly of all, Danica, you know, these are people who don't have a right to be in the country. I mean, if a country can't control its own borders and determine who comes into that country, but is actually just in the end overwhelmed by people who can happen to get across the channel or get across their border, as was the case here in the United States with Mexico, then a country no longer really has national sovereignty. So yeah, it's not surprising you're seeing people take the matters into their own hands. They're furious about this. They're furious about the fact that these people are coming in, you know, in such great numbers. And they're furious about the fact that successive governments are doing nothing about it. And, you know, for all the promises that have been made, that continues to be the case. They aren't getting to grips with this. And, you know, the number of immigrants, both legal and illegal into the United Kingdom over the last 10 years, has been the highest level we've ever seen in the UK. And that is changing the culture, changing the nature of Britain in ways that nobody voted for. Nobody voted for this, for this transformation in Britain. And it's unsurprising that people are then rising up and, you know, literally going and protesting in places like Portsmouth and Dover and elsewhere along the ports of the English Channel. Well, they've snapped, haven't they? Because in the end, you've got migrants being put up in hotels, living quite comfortable lives while the UK is at a cost of living crisis, as we all are around the world. And there are many Brits who cannot put dinner on the table right now. And they are furious. So no, I'm not surprised either. I totally, totally agree with you. Let's talk about the US strategy now. I was reading that there was a surge in ICE arrests, but they're sweeping up immigrants with no criminal record, including many who were already known to the government. So the new figures out show that officers broke records with arrests. They topped about 50,000 in July and August. But the data was undercut by a long running claim by the Trump administration that it is targeting the worst of the worst by removing those with criminal records. And yet, Gerard, in fact, 55% had no interaction with law enforcement whatsoever. Now, there have been some Republicans that have raised some concerns about what this means. And I guess obviously heading into midterms and midterms are coming up soon. But how big of an issue is this in America? Well, look, two years ago, it was a huge issue. And it was probably the main reason that Donald Trump was elected president again two years ago. Don't forget, Danica, under the Biden administration, which more or less had the kind of policy we've been talking about in the UK, a kind of an open borders policy. Once you've got across the southern border from Mexico into the United States, you were never, ever going to be forced to leave. Essentially, very, very small numbers of people were forced to leave until the very end, actually, of the Biden administration. By some estimates, 10, 12, maybe 15 million people entered the United States illegally, possibly even more under the Biden administration. And there were already millions more who'd arrived before that. So you have a huge number of people here who are here in the United States illegally producing all the same kind of phenomena that we've talked, we just talked about with regard to Britain. Now, many of them are working, many of them are working and producing goods or services and doing a valuable work in the economy. But they are also, you know, they are a drain on resources, too. And they are, you know, they do some of them, some of them do get welfare supports, particularly in some cities. But again, the more important point is they don't have a right to be here, but they are here. So people voted for Donald Trump two years ago to deal with this. And it has to be said he has made a tremendous job of dealing with it. He's closed the border. There are no, basically, illegal crossings have gone from millions a year to zero because he's basically both enforced the border and, of course, made it clear to anybody who comes here that they will be sent straight back. So that has deterred people from coming here. Then you've had now over two years, significant progress has been made there. But there are still millions and millions and millions of illegal immigrants here. So I think the Trump administration, its eagerness to continue to get those illegal immigrant numbers down is deporting people is as we've all seen the pictures of ice showing up all over the country and places where they suspect illegal immigrants to be. Now, as you say, initially, the administration said it was going to focus on those who were committed crimes. There were huge numbers, by some estimates, over a million illegal immigrants who committed certain types of crimes, some of them violent crimes, some of them actually, you know, in prison for violent crimes, some of them crimes to do with smaller crimes, petty theft or other things like that. And they did focus a lot on those. It's important to remember, though, and I know I understand that people don't like some of the tactics of ice and sometimes, you know, it does leave a little bit of a nasty taste in the mouth. But even those people who are here, you know, who haven't committed a violent crime, who haven't committed any crime in the course of their being here, they are still committing a crime by being here. They've entered the country illegally. They have no right to be here. Every day they are here, they are actually breaking the law because they they are they're they're in a they've either they've exceeded their visa, their visa duration, or they are here, they've they've crossed the border illegally or whatever. So so it's so it's wrong, I think, to sort of say, oh, the Trump administration is sort of just randomly rounding up everybody. Those people have committed crimes by being here, too. And I don't think it's unreasonable at all for the US to say for any country to say, look, there's a legal process to come into this country. It's complicated. It's expensive and simple. But we want you if you're good and we think you have a valid role to play here, go through that process and get here. If you come here bypassing that process, cheating, breaking the law, then you don't belong here and we will find you and we will send you back. I think that's you know, that is how immigration enforcement actually is supposed to work. So, yeah, sometimes some of these tactics may seem a little a little aggressive, a little harsh. And sometimes also people get caught up in the process who have no place in the process who are legal residents or here on a visa or whatever. And that is very unfortunate. And the administration, I think, could do a better job of ensuring that doesn't happen. But on the broad question of whether or not the administration should be enforcing the law, I don't think I think most Americans don't really have a problem with that. No. And in the end, Donald Trump was elected on this mandate. He had and he's made good on his promise. I mean, the statistics speak for themselves. He has certainly exceeded all expectations when it comes to ICE. And it is just the left to do throw themselves in front of ICE officers. Well, good luck. They're not going to stop. You're not going to make any difference at all. And even the woke celebrities are out there singing for ICE. Please, you know, in the end, I do agree with everything that you have said, that we want good people to come into this country, but they have to come legally. And that is the big deal. I mean, can I just say as well, that the woke celebrities and others, you know, their relationship with illegal immigrants is, you know, they mow their lawns or they clean their enormous mansions and things like that, which is, of course, fine. And it's good. And again, I'm not denying those people do a lot of hard work, but they're not the ones who are affected by large communities of illegal immigrants who come into a particular area and maybe and don't speak the language that children go to the school and they place additional burdens on the school. They have to go to hospitals for treatment that to get treatment that, you know, again, places burdens on hospitals. Those those woke celebrities with their enormous mansions that need cleaning and their enormous grounds that need you need garden work that they don't have to worry about those downsides of illegal immigration. All they see is, you know, is the benefit, which is that they're getting cheap labor. And by the way, labor, which, you know, if an American were ever ever to do it, wouldn't do it because, you know, they because they because they're priced out, essentially, an illegal migrant will do it for will do obviously work at a very, very low wage rate, whereas, you know, that's that's one of the reasons that these employers and these, you know, the sort of the establishment and the elite like having them here. Yeah, they're keeping them in business. But yeah, happy to complain about the process to get there. Yeah, that's just utterly bizarre. Now, let's talk about Hassan Piker. This is a guy who's desperately trying to rewrite the communist history. We know how communism has gone in the past and the far left think, oh, let's try and regurgitate the past and bring it back. Now, he is very, very clearly in with members of the Democrat Party, yet he has this one message for them. My job is to not make you look good. This is what he said. Is there anything you think the Democrats should learn, haven't learned from the so-called magnet movement and how they've been able to amass political power? I say it all the time, be bold, be bold, be brave. I think I mean, I disagree with them near everything Donald Trump says. Having said that, however, he is a bouldering force and it is undeniable that he was able to break the backs of the Republican establishment. I mean, that's probably the most sense he's ever made. But look, this far left streamer, he has boosted socialist candidates. He's running behind AOC for 2028. Good luck with that. But he said that Democrat Party officials have not reached out to coordinate a strategy for the midterms. It's still early days, Gerard. I wouldn't put it past them to reach out, though we have seen some Democrats come out and they are worried about his influence. This is a man who is clearly very anti-America, openly celebrated 9-11. The anniversary is coming up and he is a force. What threat does this pose? Yeah, Democrat, Democratic leaders are really torn about this because on the one hand, they're horrified. They know that someone like Hassan Paikin, exactly as you say, Danica, with his views, you know, he said America deserve 9-11. He's praised Mao Zedong. I mean, I can assure you that whatever people may think about Donald Trump, who may not be very popular at the moment in America, I can assure you that the number of people who think America deserve 9-11 or have a high opinion of Mao Zedong could be counted on the fingers of, you know, maybe two hands in this country. So he is potentially absolutely toxic. I mean, not potentially, he is absolutely, absolutely toxic for the Democratic Party with those kind of sayings, those kind of views in a general election. The problem, and this is the dilemma and why the leadership finds him so difficult to deal with, is that exactly that kind of far left momentum is what's really happening and what's driving a lot of the base of the Democratic Party right now. The Democratic voters who come out and vote in primaries, remember the American system, you know, we have a primary system where the parties choose their candidates with their own voters first before submitting those voters to the general election. The people who come out and vote in Democratic primaries are pretty energised by, they don't necessarily believe some of the, all the things that Hassan Piker believes, but they do like, so, you know, socialism, according to opinion polls, you know, third of Democrats have a favourable impression of socialism. And those are the people who come out, those are the ones who are really animated to vote right now. And people like Hassan Piker is important in kind of energising that vote. They, he had a, he's very close to the candidate who, the Democratic candidate who won the primary in Michigan, Abdullel Saeed, you know, and he's part of that whole DSA movement, AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, you know, who have, who are making all the running in the party at the moment, because, again, the party base is very unhappy with the leadership, and the party base is very unhappy with Donald Trump. And as you've kind of heard there, you know, he wants to sort of, he wants to sort of meet fire with fire, that Donald Trump was successful in the Republican Party by being radical. He wants the Democrats to be radical. So they are in a, they are trapped, the Democratic leadership. On the one hand, they know this is disastrous in a general election. They know that if people like, people associated with Hassan Piker's views in a general election, which is coming up, obviously, in the midterms here in November, if people like that are on the ballot, they're going to lose. People are not going to vote for those Democrats. At the same time, they need the support of people who are motivated by Hassan Piker, because they are the ones who are coming out to vote, who are raising money, who have all of the energy and all of the momentum in the Democratic Party. So unsurprisingly, the Democrats are once again not doing a very good job of handling their own members and their own voters. No, well, clearly the quality of the caliber of individual within the Democrat Party there as well. It's just shocking. You mentioned AOC, and you're right, they are being backed by Hassan Piker. But another potential runner, Gerard, for 2028 might actually be Hunter Biden, of course, the son of the former US president. He may consider a presidential run, and this is quite extraordinary. He's told a podcast, quote, I haven't made up my mind yet. Well, geez. We talk about the caliber and the quality of the individual, Gerard, within the Democrat Party. I don't know about you, how you feel about this, but the thought of Hunter Biden 2028 sends shivers up my spine at the same level as AOC or Kamala Harris or a Gavin Newsom. But what do you make of this possible development? Well, I don't know. You know, a crack smoking, you know, guy with a long record of highly dubious business deals and corruption whose father, who has the name of the last president who was so unpopular, probably one of the most unpopular presidents in American history, could be a winning formula. Look, I have to think he's he's sort of trolling here. Biden has decided, I think Hunter Biden, I should say that he's decided that, you know, he's kind of got nothing to you know, it's a great, you know, line from a Bob Dylan song. Right. Was it when you ain't got nothing? You've got nothing to lose. I mean, by Hunter Biden has been, you know, stripped of everything in the last few years, his, you know, business deals that he was getting when his father was president, his dignity and his reputation, because everything that's happened to him and all of the stories we've heard about his personal life and his family life and just what a complete mess he is. So he's got nothing to lose. So he's why not? You know, why not? Why not sort of, you know, throw yourself through, you know, make yourself into a bit of a, you know, into a bit of a public figure and say some sort of, you know, pretty provocative things. I think the chances of Hunter Biden, I'm I'm I'm a I'm an American citizen, Danica. I wasn't born here. So I can't be president United States constitutionally. I would say even my chances of being president United States are better than Hunter Biden's. And I legally can't do it. So so I think we can rest assured that this is a bit of I mean, look, it's attention seeking as well. And the more you know, if you get out there and say, I mean, he's he's a he's a well-known figure. He's a polarizing figure. You know, he can go out there on podcasts with Tucker Carlson and other people and make a bit of a name for himself. And yes. Oh, yeah. You know what? I might run for president, too. And everybody says, wow, Hunter Biden's going to run for president. How exciting. It's not going to happen. And if it does, he's not going to win. No, well, he's definitely not going to win. And you're right. He's been doing all these podcast rounds. He was he's been on all sorts lately, talking all sorts of absolute nonsense. But I tell you what the pool, Gerard, I think it's very, very slim when you maybe have the likes of Hunter Biden, AOC, Gavin Newsom, for goodness sake, another rerun of Kamala. Oh, please. We're not ready. We are not ready for that. Now, I want to talk to you about Mamdani. The New York City mayor has given a ceremonial pen from a 9-11 remembrance ceremony to a top aide who once represented a convicted al Qaeda member whose brother in law was actually hijacked the plane that struck the Pentagon. This is how it played out. So he handed that pen over after signing executive orders ahead of, of course, the 25th anniversary of September 11 this week. It's going to be a huge week. Was he right to hand over that pen? Well, you know, it was a pretty remarkable moment. And as you say, we're 25th anniversary of 9-11 here this week. I'm in New York. It's going to be a very solemn occasion. Everybody who's old enough, of course, remembers that day, you know, with great with continuing grief. And it's obviously it's imbued with enormous sensitivity for people. And so to do this, so, you know, Mamdani says what he you know, in doing this, you know, he's trying to sort of bring people together. And, you know, he's gone out of his way to sort of say to express, you know, his because of the concerns that people have about him, some of his own background, some of the things he said about Palestinians, for example, because of the fact that he's Muslim, too. There are people who are kind of somewhat nervous about his views. He's gone out of his way to say, of course, he's not an extremist. Of course, he, you know, is horrified by terrorism and everything else. But he's also tried at the same time to, you know, to be supposedly inclusive and to include people maybe who are a bit of a will be a bit surprising. This just strikes me as being, you know, incredibly insensitive. This man, you know, as you say, who represented as a lawyer who represented al-Qaeda, who has family members who are involved in terrorist attack. You know, it's just again, whatever the intention was, it's just bound to increase the suspicion that a lot of New Yorkers have, a lot of Americans have that, you know, that this man has a has a view about has a has an attitude towards terrorism, towards terrorists, towards those who would, you know, pursue a particular sort of ideological radicalism and extremism against America. He has a view about those people that is not in the mainstream of American views, not in the mainstream, frankly, of Western views. And I think, you know, this is the kind of thing that just reinforces those suspicions. Well, it just looks shocking as well. I mean, everything he's done and he's said to date, then you add this on top, you just think what on earth are you doing? Clearly, he's there for his own warped ideology. But look, it is going to be a huge week over in New York, and it's 25 years. And you're right, we all remember where we were when that awful, awful terror attack occurred. Gerard Baker, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show. We look forward to having you on more frequently. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. My pleasure entirely. Thank you.