IN an excellent broadcast for GB News on January 15, Neil Oliver reminded us to what extent we have been let down by all those individuals and institutions who purport to govern and defend our society. ‘Are there any leaders left,’ he asked, ‘worthy of the trust of decent people?’
Instead, we have been lied to and deceived and abused for years by those who should know better, and behave more professionally – and indeed ‘honourably’, as required by Erskine May, the bible of parliamentary procedure.
Not that Oliver would ever get the chance to call them out in the House. Within the Westminster system, certain words and phrases aren’t allowed. And the most unacceptable of all is the insinuation that any fellow member is ‘dishonourable’. So to call that member a liar is just not on. As Private Eye had it at the time of Profumo: ‘To lie in the nude is terribly rude; but to lie in the House is obscene.’
For some wily performers, it was almost a point of honour to get away with insulting their opponents in the House without the use of ‘unparliamentary language’. So, when Disraeli was instructed to withdraw his allegation that ‘half the Cabinet were knaves’, he consented and replied that ‘half the Cabinet were not knaves’.
The same doesn’t seem to apply in the chamber of the Dutch parliament, as newly elected member Gideon van Meijeren, 33, made clear when he recently made his first official appearance there. It is well worth watching his performance, because it has rightly been hailed as a truly great moment when a bold young man speaks truth to power.
With cool, even forensic, precision, he leads smug and sneering Prime Minister Mark Rutte into a bear trap, and catches him out as a liar not once, but twice! In just two minutes the Prime Minister is completely humiliated.
Van Meijeren studied law then worked as an IT specialist with the Royal Netherlands Army. He subsequently became legal assistant with the newly formed Forum for Democracy (FvD) party, a political movement which has been described as national conservative, Right-wing populist and Eurosceptic, founded and led by Thierry Baudet. Van Meijeren went on to be party spokesman on justice, security and immigration, as well as agriculture, ecology and the interior. At the 2021 election, the party campaigned specifically against the Covid-19 measures imposed by the Dutch government and won eight seats.
On its official platform, the FvD states its focus as protecting Dutch sovereignty, identity, and cultural and intellectual property. It wants stricter immigration and integration policies, calling for the protection of Judeo-Christian values. It is also opposed to the integration of the European Union, which it claims will lead to eventual Eurofederalism, and supports a referendum on Dutch membership of the EU.
In the UK, van Meijeren and his party would probably be written off as hate-filled extremists, given their position on the Covid pandemic measures, climate catastrophe and most of all on immigration. To some, his party’s philosophy appears uncompromisingly bigoted, illiberal and racist. To others, he represents the last audacious stand against the powerful forces determined to undermine our western culture, traditions, independence and sovereignty.
How desperately we need young political blood of this calibre and courage, to speak out and take on the totalitarian repression now engulfing our society, everywhere in the West. He is well named, and hopefully can live up to the heroic leadership of his Biblical namesake. According to the Book of Judges, Gideon led his troop of 300 ‘valiant’ Israelites against the idolatrous Midianite army, and despite a vast disadvantage in numbers, vanquished them and smashed their false idols.
And just like the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, Gideon has become symbolic of the military success of a small elite force against overwhelming numerical odds, as in ‘the strength of Samson and the sword of Gideon’. The ‘sword of Gideon’ was also invoked in defence of the Old Swiss Confederacy against the Franco-Ottoman Alliance in the 16th century, while the ‘Gideon Force’ was a small British-led special force in the East African Campaign during World War II. It will take just such an effort from the emerging resistance to take on the massive wealth and influence of the threatening globalist World Economic Forum.
As Andrea Widber concludes in her blog on ‘American Thinker’:
‘If we are to emerge from this attempt by the world’s totalitarians (an amalgam of billionaires, millionaires and leftists) to weaponise Covid and wokeness, to bring about the end of the democratic republics which have held sway for more than 200 years, in order to reinstate the totalitarianism that had been the norm for most of humankind, the only way to do it is to push back. Refuse to be silenced, ridicule these self-styled “elite”, speak the truth whenever and wherever you can, and just say No.’
Keep it up, Gideon!
