Europe Finally Grows a Spine. But is It Too Late?

The real test to see if Europe has woken up will be whether its leaders are willing to act to wrest control back over their nations.

Europe has been in free fall for the past few decades. Years of unfettered third-world immigration has turned the cradle of Western civilization into a dumpster. And, much like America cross the Atlantic, it has sold it’s core industries for parts to hostile Chinese interests.

Yet the Old World appears to be waking up from it’s globalist hangover, and is taking steps towards returning to its glory days.

Governments across the continent have slowly begun to acknowledge that mass Muslim migration has caused severe issues and attempting to ameliorate the problem.

In Germany, 286 migrants and refugees were rejected at the border last week due to “no valid visa, fake documents or entry suspension.” German Chancellor Freidrich Merz justified his decision to crackdown on migrants arguing that migrants should apply for refugee status in the first EU country they arrive in as opposed to Germany.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Kier Starmer of England announced that migrants will have “earn the right” in the country in a serious of new reforms including basic competency in English. Starmer claimed that “public services were stretched, housing costs soared and employers swapped skills investment for cheap overseas labor” as a result of the glut of migrants from the third-world.

On top of plans to stymie the flow of migrants to Europe’s shores, efforts to reclaim industry from Chinese hands is potentially earthshattering. EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas warned last week that Europe’s ports must “examine foreign presence more carefully.”

He’s right to worry. Chinese companies hold stakes in more than 30 essential ports across the bloc. It’s a CCP Sword of Damocles over the economic arteries of the continent.

While one might be ready to pop some champagne and celebrate the return of Europe, it’s worth noting these changes might not be particularly genuine. Both Starmer and Merz are facing down insurgent populist parties, Reform UK in Britain and AfD in Germany, that have centered the immigration crisis in their policy. Voters have continued to reward these parties with electoral wins, putting the establishment parties on notice.

Starmer has promised to scrap visas for foreign social workers; a major priority of Brexiteers and their Reform UK progeny. Student visas are supposedly getting cut as are skilled worker visas, though not by much And there’s that unabashedly nationalistic English language requirement.

Sounds great on paper, but is any of it actually going to happen?

Starmer’s Labour Party is virulently pro-immigration The party concocted a scheme last year to use taxpayer funds to pay off landlords to rent homes to migrants. And when anti-migrant sentiment boiled over into full blown rioting in Southport last year, Starmer took the worst tact possible and seemed to deny there was any reason at all these people might be so angry and chalked it up to racism.

Compare that to Reform’s platform. Party leader Nigel Farage has proposed a net zero migrant policy of “one in, one out.” Reform chairman Zia Yusuf pledged to use “judicial reviews, injunctions, and planning laws” to prevent Westminster from forcibly relocating migrants already in the country into jurisdictions controlled by the party. These two proposals are unabashedly nationalistic and have zero tolerance for any migrants at all. Reform prefers to break the flow of migrants off entirely rather than just turn it down a little bit.

In Germany too there’s a sense that these actions are nothing more than kabuki theater disguised as bold steps to curb mass migration without actually doing anything.

286 people is a drop in the proverbial ocean of migrants entering Germany as just last year, the country saw 235,925 asylum applications. Though official record keeping for the number of migrants who make their way across the border is shoddy at best, letting even a fraction of that number into Germany is an eye-watering stat.

It also doesn’t make voters think the establishment is actually interested in solving the problem when instead of inviting the AfD into a coalition government they accuse them of being an extremist party and ban them from running for office.

The Trump administration has shown to effectively reduce illegal immigration by cracking down and enforcing existing law. Americans were in the same boat as the Europeans with mass migration until Trump took action and it suddenly stopped.

Action is the only thing that will actually tip the scales towards reclaiming national sovereignty. And it’s the other reason why Europe monitors are cautious.

Back to the ports, it doesn’t appear as if Europe is willing to buy them to keep them in the hands of European companies. The continent seems unable to get a deal made to have American companies buy them either. So, they just remain in Chinese hands.

The Old World may be sobering up, but the hangover is far from cured. Gestures toward reform mean little without the spine to see them through, and so far, Europe’s ruling class appears more concerned with placating voters than confronting the full scale of the problem.

The real test to see if Europe has woken up will be whether its leaders are willing to act to wrest control back over their nations. Populists will keep rising to preserve what’s left of European civilization. The establishment can either act to help or it can get in their way.

Europe can be great again, but it needs to act now.