Dutch journalist Eva Blanchard joins Jemele to discuss her ban from traveling to the UK, and why she thinks it's a good thing she's not allowed to travel there. Plus, a new Amazon film based on the life of First Lady Melania Trump.
00:00:49.640So I just want, look, I, I just want to read you back, back to you, the letter that you received from the British government to confirm that you actually received this.
00:01:23.840I mean, I was, I was going through my emails yesterday and I saw this subject line saying that they changed something to my ETA application.
00:02:15.100You, you described Starmer, who's the prime minister of the country, the elected official, um, as an evil, despicable man for allowing the ongoing rape and killing of British girls by a migrant rape gang.
00:02:30.960You're making a political point, an entirely defensible political point.
00:02:33.920And you believe that because you said that, you are now banned from the country.
00:02:40.680I really don't see any other reason as to why they otherwise would have done this right now.
00:02:45.380As I said, I, you know, I applied for this electronic travel authorization back in September, uh, because I went and spoke at the, um, Unite the Kingdom rally organized by Tommy Robinson.
00:02:55.940And I, I spoke about re-migration and the need for that.
00:02:58.660Like, and, you know, now because of Brexit, Europeans have to apply for an ETA as when we go to America, we have to apply for an ESTA, right?
00:03:07.340And this was approved back in September within minutes.
00:03:32.560Uh, just three days before they informed me of that decision.
00:03:36.320So, I mean, it's really hard not to connect the dots there.
00:03:38.840And it's also very much in line with his track record.
00:03:42.500And I suppose it proves my point, you know, that the UK is on a path to become a very unfree country where dissident voices are criticized.
00:04:38.160I have no right to appeal, that's what it stated in the email, uh, for the crime, quote-unquote, of giving my opinion.
00:04:46.620And so that, that is bad, you know, that is not, that's not a normal way, uh, for things to happen in so-called free societies.
00:04:55.760So, you know, no matter what you think my opinions are, if they're right, wrong, radical, not radical,
00:05:04.200should it be a ground for a government to say to a woman with no criminal record whatsoever,
00:05:10.620who wants to visit a country for, you know, just a couple of days, once a year maybe, tops,
00:05:17.060to say, no, you're not allowed, but we are going to allow thousands of illegal immigrants to cross the channel every day
00:05:26.200and enter the UK, and nobody's asking them anything, you know, they're not even, they're not asking their passports,
00:05:31.960so let alone whether they're asking if they're conducive to the public good.
00:05:35.600I mean, that is, that is an incredibly dystopian thing to read, since when is being conducive to the public good,
00:05:43.620a requirement to enter a country, and also who decides that, and why do I have no right to appeal?
00:05:50.420You know, those are serious things in countries that claim to uphold the rule of law, that claim to be democracies.
00:05:58.560And I guess we already knew, you know, that those were, let's say, illusions in our countries at this point,
00:06:08.280but to have it, you know, happen to you in such a personal manner, like, yeah, I now realize that I cannot go and visit many of my friends.
00:06:18.060I can't go to the next rally, which is planned for May.
00:06:21.600I cannot set foot in a country that I otherwise love, you know, I don't love the establishment, but I love the people,
00:06:27.820and I would have loved to go there again.
00:06:30.680And, of course, the UK arrests far more people every year for criticizing the British government
00:06:36.000than Putin has arrested for criticizing him, or the Saudis have arrested for criticizing MBS.
00:06:43.140I mean, it's not just repressive, it's far more repressive than countries we are told are authoritarian or totalitarian.
00:08:29.760So, you know, there is clearly an increasing totalitarian wind blowing through this continent.
00:08:38.320And, well, apart from this travel ban, I've also personally fallen victim to it just last year, receiving a notification from Apple saying that my phone is under mercenary spyware attack.
00:08:50.940So, you know, you see, there is a trend here.
00:08:53.680Like, we have governments, we don't know exactly which one, or the EU, freezing assets of citizens, looking at me and you probably as we speak through this phone right now.
00:09:05.200Like, again, that is not what is supposed to happen in democratic societies, especially not when those people doing it are the ones who constantly trumpet that.
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00:22:53.100You know, I think we need to have all eyes on Germany.
00:22:56.560I think what is going to happen there with the elections, whether AFD is going to end up
00:23:02.220becoming the biggest party, that is going to make a huge difference in terms of our future.
00:23:07.900When we're talking revolution or uproar, you know, I can't even really talk about revolution because before I know it, you would have a police officer standing in front of your door saying that you are inciting that.
00:23:19.060So, you know, I'm not, for the record.
00:23:22.880I really don't know whether that is, whether we're there yet.
00:23:27.860I think that that is part of the problem is that there are still large, large parts of the population in Europe that is just not aware, especially if they're not on X, if they're not following alternative media.
00:23:41.960You know, I don't mean to say that Fox News is a very truth-telling right-wing news channel, but we don't even have anything like that.
00:23:51.680You know, you're not even close to that in, let's say, the Netherlands where I'm from.
00:23:55.560The mainstream media is just left-wing.
00:23:59.540So if that is what you're consuming all day, every day, you know, you don't see a problem in this.
00:24:05.340You don't see that people are being thrown in jail in the UK for expressing their opinions.
00:24:09.860Like, those types of news stories just don't reach a large part of the population.
00:24:15.240So I don't know if we're close to that yet.
00:24:18.520I do think that there is a big sentiment that is growing that this cannot go on the way that it has.
00:24:26.700Like, the European Union especially has taken too much power, has granted itself too much power.
00:24:33.160And I do feel that they're going to be cracks, let's say, in that foundation in the next couple of years.