O VOO DO CORVO ....... O Voo do Corvo pretende informar e contextualizar . Assim acompanhará diáriamente diversos temas e acontecimentos, de forma variada e abrangente nas áreas da Opinião e Noticiário. Nacional e Internacional. O critério Editorial é pluralista e multifacetado embora existam dois “partis/ pris”: A Defesa do Património e do Ambiente. António Sérgio Rosa de Carvalho.
segunda-feira, 8 de dezembro de 2025
Kremlin hails Trump’s national security strategy as aligned with Russia’s vision
Moscow
welcomes White House document critical of the EU as talks to end the Ukraine
war enter a key phase
Shaun
Walker in Kyiv
Sun 7 Dec
2025 17.27 CET
The
Kremlin has heaped praise on Donald Trump’s latest national security strategy,
calling it an encouraging change of policy that largely aligns with Russian
thinking.
The
remarks follow the publication of a White House document on Friday that
criticises the EU and says Europe is at risk of “civilisational erasure”, while
making clear the US is keen to establish better relations with Russia.
“The
adjustments that we see correspond in many ways to our vision,” the Kremlin
spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on Sunday. He welcomed signals that the Trump
administration was “in favour of dialogue and building good relations”. He
warned, however, that the supposed US “deep state” could try to sabotage
Trump’s vision.
It came
as the White House’s efforts to push through a peace deal in Ukraine enter a
key phase. US officials claim they are in the final stage of reaching an
agreement, but there is little sign that either Ukraine or Russia is willing to
sign the framework deal drawn up by Trump’s negotiating team.
The
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will visit Downing Street on Monday
for a four-way meeting with with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, the
French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz.
Zelenskyy
has previously called on European allies for support at times when the White
House has tried to push Ukraine towards agreeing to give up territory. A key
issue for Kyiv is what security guarantees it would receive if it does agree to
renounce control of some territory.
Zelenskyy
has said he had a “substantive phone call” with US officials on Saturday
evening after they finished three days of talks with a Ukrainian delegation in
Florida. Those meetings followed a visit to Moscow by Trump’s envoys, Steve
Witkoff and Jared Kushner, earlier in the week. A source told Axios the call
had lasted two hours and was “difficult”.
“Ukraine
is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely
achieve peace,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. He said the two sides had
discussed “key points that could ensure an end to the bloodshed and eliminate
the threat of a new Russian full-scale invasion”.
It is not
clear that either the US or Europe are willing to offer the kind of security
guarantees that would genuinely deter Russia from invading again. Nor is it
likely that Vladimir Putin would agree to a deal that involved any western
troops stationed in Ukraine.
US
officials have claimed to be close to a sustainable deal on numerous occasions
since Trump began his second term in office, only for the claims to be exposed
as wishful thinking.
Trump’s
outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said at a defence forum on Saturday that
the administration’s efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 metres”. He
said there were two outstanding issues: territory and the fate of the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Kellogg
is seen as among the US officials most sympathetic to Kyiv’s position, but is
due to leave his role in January and was present at the Florida talks. Many
others in Trump’s orbit, including Witkoff, have been much more open to
adopting Russian positions. Trump’s son, Donald Jr, said at a forum in Doha on
Sunday that Zelenskyy was deliberately continuing the conflict for fear of
losing power if it ended. He said the US would not be “the idiot with the
chequebook” any longer.
Analysts
in Kyiv say the situation is not yet so bad that Ukraine would be forced to
sign any deal whatsoever simply to prevent a continuation of the war, but they
say a difficult and potentially bleak winter lies ahead as Russia continues to
target energy infrastructure, disrupting power and heating supplies for
millions of Ukrainians.
Exhaustion
is setting in as Ukraine enters the fourth winter of full-scale war, and
Zelenskyy has been weakened by a corruption scandal that has touched numerous
associates and led to the resignation of his powerful chief of staff, Andriy
Yermak.
One
person was killed during a drone attack in the northern Chernihiv region late
on Saturday, according to local officials, and a combined attack of drones and
missiles targeted energy infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk. It
left much of the city without power and water on Sunday. It was the second
consecutive night of attacks targeting energy, after more than 600 drones and
50 missiles were used on Friday night.
Trump’s new doctrine confirms it. Ready or not, Europe is on its own
Trump’s
new doctrine confirms it. Ready or not, Europe is on its own
Georg
Riekeles and Varg Folkman
We can
move from defensive crouch to position of strength but only if we use the
economic cards we have against US coercion
Mon 8 Dec
2025 06.00 CET
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/08/trump-doctrine-europe-us-coercion-economic
Europe is
on a trajectory towards nothing less than “civilisational erasure”, the Trump
administration claims in its extraordinary new National Security Strategy, a
document that blames European integration and “activities of the European Union
that undermine political liberty and sovereignty” for some of the continent’s
deepest problems.
Everybody
should have seen it coming after Washington’s humiliating 28-point plan for
Ukraine. JD Vance’s shocking Munich speech in February, in which he suggested
that Europe’s democracies were not worth defending was an early red flag. But
the new words still land as a shock. The security document is the clearest
signal yet of how brutally and transactionally Washington wants to engage with
the continent. It marks another phase in Trump’s attempt to reshape Europe in
his ideological image while at the same time abandoning it militarily. US
policy, the paper says, should enable Europe to “take primary responsibility
for its own defence”.
Withdrawing
US troops from Europe has been a particularly adamant demand of the Maga right.
Figures such as Steve Bannon openly argue for “hemispheric defence” – defending
the Americas, not Europe. On his War Room podcast, Bannon said plainly that:
“We’re a Pacific nation … the pivot, the strategic heartland of America, is
actually the Pacific.”
One of
the clearest articulations of US strategic retrenchment has come from a key
figure in Trump-era defence thinking: Elbridge Colby, the principal adviser on
defence and foreign policy at the Pentagon. In a 2023 policy paper, Getting
Strategic Deprioritization Right, Colby and his co-authors laid out the logic
behind reducing US commitments in Europe and concentrating resources elsewhere.
The
starting premise is clear. As one contributor puts it, “the United States does
not have, and does not plan to develop, the ability to fight and win major wars
in Europe and Asia simultaneously”. China, they argue, is the decisive theatre,
not Europe, and US attention and assets must shift accordingly.
Washington
has signalled some version of this pivot for more than a decade. Yet European
governments have found the idea that the US might actually deprioritise the
continent’s security remarkably abstruse. The war in Ukraine has intensified
this tension: Europe’s thinking is that a US withdrawal or an imposed, unequal
peace would produce chaos in Ukraine and instability across Europe.
For Colby
this is not in itself a sufficient argument against the US leaving Europe. As
he writes: “Instability or even chaos alone is not enough … to judge a
deprioritisation effort a failure.” What matters, in his view, is whether the
US finds ways to shield itself from the ensuing chaos.
The new
US security strategy confirms that Washington is increasingly focused on its
“Western Hemisphere”. The administration plans to deprioritise issues and
missions abroad – including, to some extent, China – to concentrate on domestic
security and its immediate neighbourhood. The US naval buildup in the
Caribbean, the largest in more than 30 years, underscores this shift.
There are
reasons to believe that the US will not abandon Europe completely. Protecting
roughly $4tn in US investments on the continent remains a key interest. Yet the
direction is unmistakable – Washington is stepping back. The urgent question
for Europe is, are we ready for the consequences?
Because
it is clear that as Washington draws back militarily, it will pull even harder
on its other levers: financial power, diplomatic pressure, export controls,
trade measures and secondary sanctions. These instruments will increasingly be
used to steer Europe in the political direction the US wants. Lenient
enforcement, or the scrapping of digital and green rules altogether will be
demanded of the EU – as US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick did last month.
All this is happening as the security umbrella above Europe becomes ever
thinner. The result is a dangerous asymmetry: less protection and more
pressure.
Europe
risks becoming collateral damage in a prolonged US-China confrontation while no
longer enjoying the iron-clad guarantees that once cushioned those shocks. That
is a brutal, lose-lose position.
If Europe
wants to move from a defensive crouch to a posture of strategic agency, it must
sustain its surge in defence investment and make it crystal clear that attempts
at coercion from Washington or Beijing will be met with forceful
countermeasures. Only then can Europe avoid being squeezed between a retreating
patron and a mistrustful rival.
Bowing
down to US pressure does not work, as shown by Ursula von der Leyen’s
calamitous, lopsided trade deal in the summer. This EU humiliation was supposed
to secure US security buy-in and continued support for Ukraine, and yet the
opposite is happening. The US’s impulse to disengage from Europe is more
powerful than anything an uneven trade concession can offer them.
Europe
must not repeat that mistake. The next time Washington turns the screws, the EU
should be ready to push back, starting with disowning the trade deal and
triggering its powerful “anti-coercion instrument” at the first sign of
pressure. Only a firm response will register in Washington.
If the US
is to deprioritise Europe’s security, it has to come at a cost: its influence
in the region should follow. Shorn of its historic security guarantees, US
interference and coercion create an untenable situation for the continent.
Georg
Riekeles is associate director and Varg Folkman a policy analyst at the
European Policy Centre
domingo, 7 de dezembro de 2025
Trump says Zelenskyy ‘isn’t ready’ to accept US peace deal ahead of UK meeting with European leaders
Trump
says Zelenskyy ‘isn’t ready’ to accept US peace deal ahead of UK meeting with
European leaders
Ukraine’s
president set to meet the leaders of the UK, France and Germany in London on
Monday
Guardian
staff and agencies
Mon 8 Dec
2025 07.54 CET
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/08/ukraine-peace-deal-trump-zelenskyy-not-ready
Donald
Trump has said Volodymyr Zelenskyy “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored
peace proposal aimed at ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, at the end
of three days of talks between Washington and Kyiv in Florida.
“I’m a
little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal,
that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” Trump
claimed as he spoke with reporters on Sunday night.
Days of
negotiations between US and Ukrainian officials ended Saturday without an
apparent breakthrough, with Zelenskyy calling the discussions “constructive,
although not easy.”
His
comments come as Zelenskyy was set to meet with UK prime minister Keir Starmer
and the leaders of France and Germany in London on Monday, with discussions set
to focus on the continuing talks between the US and Ukraine.
Starmer
has repeatedly stressed that Ukraine must determine its own future, and said a
European peacekeeping force would play a “vital role” in guaranteeing the
country’s security.
Off the
back of the Trump-backed Gaza ceasefire, the US has been working to push
through a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. US officials claim they are in
the final stage of reaching an agreement, but there is little sign that either
Ukraine or Russia is willing to sign the framework deal drawn up by Trump’s
negotiating team.
In his
comments on Sunday, Trump said “Russia is, I believe, fine with [the deal], but
I’m not sure that Zelenskyy’s fine with it. His people love it. But he isn’t
ready.”
Russian
President Vladimir Putin hasn’t publicly expressed approval for the White House
plan and last week said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable. US
envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin at the Kremlin last week but
failed to achieve an obvious break through.
The US
plan has been through several drafts since it first emerged in November, with
criticism it was too soft on Russia. Despite ongoing efforts from Trump and his
team to push through a deal, progress in the peace talks has been slow, with
disputes over security guarantees for Kyiv and the status of Russian-occupied
territory still unresolved.
“The
American representatives know the basic Ukrainian positions,” Zelenskyy said in
his nightly video address on Sunday.
Trump has
had a hot-and-cold relationship with Zelenskyy since reentering the White
House, and has repeatedly urged the Ukrainians to cede land to Russia to bring
an end to a conflict he says has cost far too many lives.
Zelenskyy
said on Saturday he had a “substantive phone call” with the American officials
engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had
been given an update over the phone by US and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine
is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely
achieve peace,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Trump’s
criticism of Zelenskyy came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump
administration’s new national security strategy. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov
said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration’s core
foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
The
document released Friday by the White House said the US wants to improve its
relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global
pariah. The document was also highly critical of European countries, and said
that the continent was at risk of “civilisational erasure”.
Trump’s
outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said at a defence forum on Saturday that
the administration’s efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 metres”. He
said there were two outstanding issues: territory and the fate of the
Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Kellogg
is seen as among the US officials most sympathetic to Kyiv’s position, but is
due to leave his role in January and was present at the Florida talks. Many
others in Trump’s orbit, including Witkoff, have been much more open to
adopting Russian positions. Trump’s son, Donald Jr, said at a forum in Doha on
Sunday that Zelenskyy was deliberately continuing the conflict for fear of
losing power if it ended. He said the US would not be “the idiot with the
chequebook” any longer.
With the
Associated Press and Agence France-Presse
Is British politics immune to US-style rightwing Christianity? We’re about to find out
Is
British politics immune to US-style rightwing Christianity? We’re about to find
out
Lamorna
Ash
Nigel
Farage and Tommy Robinson are increasingly espousing Christian ‘values’, and a
wealthy US legal group is becoming influential – this could have dire
consequences
Tue 25
Nov 2025 07.00 CET
Earlier
this year, not long after Tommy Robinson embraced evangelical Christianity
while in prison, the then Conservative MP Danny Kruger spoke in parliament
about the need for a restoration of Britain through the “recovery of a
Christian politics”. Less than two months later, Kruger joined Reform, and
shortly after that, James Orr, a vociferously conservative theologian who has
been described as JD Vance’s “English philosopher king”, was appointed as one
of Reform’s senior advisers. The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, now frequently
invokes the need for a return to “Judeo-Christian” values.
The
British right is increasingly invoking the Christian tradition: the question is
what it hopes to gain from doing so.
Until
recently, there were no obvious British analogues to political figures on the
US right such as Vance, the Catholic-convert for whom religion plays a
foundational political role. With Orr and Kruger, both of whom converted to
conservative evangelical Christianity as adults and attend church regularly, we
have some contenders. Kruger has said he is in agreement with Vance that to
solve the “plight of the west” there needs to be a “substantial revival” of
“governance and culture”; he believes this can be achieved through a return to
Christianity.
Those
further to the right prefer their Christianity more pugilistic and
watered-down. Robinson has clearly recognised the political value of the
Christian faith: there was an abundance of Christian symbolism at the “unite
the kingdom” far-right march that he organised in London this September.
Pastors on stage gave speeches and led worship songs, aping the style of the
evangelical mass politics of the US Christian right.
Robinson’s
newfound faith mirrors an important development that is taking place among
European far-right groups, which are shifting emphasis in their political
messaging from ethnicity to religion. (Rikki Doolan, a British evangelical
pastor who was the witness to Robinson’s conversion at HMP Woodhill, has
suggested that Robinson first grasped the political value that Christianity
could have for his movement while attending far-right rallies in Poland.) In
its most nationalist guise, this new racism views Christianity as synonymous
with whiteness (it matters not that Christianity originated in the Middle
East). Other religions, but especially Islam, can be repurposed as existential
threats, making religion into a zero-sum game: you are either for Christianity,
or you are working to destroy it.
Viewed
through this lens, Robinson can remake his anti-Islam politics into a defence
of Christianity. Kruger, meanwhile, can argue that Islam is moving “into the
space from which Christianity has been ejected”, offering a religious gloss to
more generalised fears about immigration diluting an imagined ideal of
Britishness. Much of this thinking involves simplifying both Christianity and
Islam, two enormously complex, heterodox religions. In order to pit entire
civilisations against one another, the influential scholar Edward Said wrote,
one is required to refashion civilisations into what they are not: “sealed-off
entities that have been purged of the myriad currents and countercurrents that
animate human history”. The homogenous form of Christianity that Robinson
subscribes to is a reaction to what he perceives Islam to be – representative
of all that is evil, while Christianity represents all that which is good.
Powerful
backers and strategists on the US Christian right increasingly see Britain as
fertile ground for its movement. Since 2020, the US legal advocacy group
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending in Britain,
and increased the size of its UK-based team fourfold. ADF is known for
providing legal counsel on high-profile culture war cases in the US. It was an
architect of the overturning of Roe v Wade, regularly represents clients who
oppose gay and transgender rights – and is now exporting its methods to the UK.
In recent
years, a number of conservative Christians in the UK have been taken to court
for illegally praying in abortion clinic “buffer zones”, which protect those
visiting or working at abortion clinics from harassment. On multiple occasions,
these Christians have been offered legal support by ADF’s UK branch. This is
part of its “long-term strategy to shift public opinion around abortion”, the
New York Times reported. By calling such cases “free speech issues” – an
incendiary topic in Britain’s so-called culture wars – the ADF thinks it can
push religious arguments against abortion on to the national stage.
This
might seem like a pointless exercise: according to recent surveys, the vast
majority of British people believe abortions should be legal. But, public
opinion is never static. Farage has started calling the UK’s 24-week abortion
limit “utterly ludicrous”. This summer a survey found that less than half of
men aged 16-34 believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared
to 82% of men aged 55-77 – a generational vulnerability that could be
exploited. The issue has always been a particularly useful cause for the right:
in the US in the 1970s, the New Right movement – combining conservative
hardliners and conservative Catholics – realised abortion could be tied to
various perceived social ills, such as women’s liberation and the civil rights
movement. Their target was not only to limit abortions, but to use abortion as
a means of unifying disparate camps on the right and legitimising other
socially conservative policies.
ADF UK is
doing more than just providing British Christians with legal counsel. Its
lobbying has secured Farage a seat at the high table on several occasions:
thanks to its interventions, in September he was able to give a nearly
three-hour public appearance before the House judiciary committee in Washington
DC describing the “awful authoritarian” situation for free speech in the UK.
ADF also trains student groups in Britain, hosting seminars on topics such as
“the right to freedom of speech on campus”. Its members make appearances on
broadcast media and write pieces for the rightwing press.
This
striking project to empower conservative Christianity in Britain should serve
as a reminder of the fragility of Britain’s largely secular politics. It is
also a reminder that anti-trans, anti-queer and Islamophobic positions do not
spring from nowhere. Public consensus can be manipulated by discreet networks
with distinct agendas and multimillion dollar budgets.
It’s
impossible to say which political figures currently embracing Christianity are
doing so in earnest: at root, faith is a deeply private experience, generating
a wide variety of conclusions about the world and our moral duties to one
another. In October, Neville Watson, the only black branch chair of Reform UK,
defected to the Christian People’s Alliance, a small independent party. Shocked
by the strong presence of Islamophobia at the “unite the kingdom” rally, he
declared that those present were advancing “an ideology that is not Christian”.
Watson was brought up a socially conservative evangelical Christian: “I’m
coming from a very strong, Christian, love thy neighbour sort of perspective,”
he said at the time. This is the first indication of a struggle for the meaning
of Christianity among the hard-right. It could have significant implications
for the movement’s future.
C of E to challenge Tommy Robinson’s ‘put Christ back into Christmas’ message
C of E to
challenge Tommy Robinson’s ‘put Christ back into Christmas’ message
Church
leaders respond to far-right appropriation of Christian symbols with ‘Outsiders
welcome’ message
Harriet
Sherwood
Sun 7 Dec
2025 10.31 CET
The
Church of England is to launch a poster campaign aimed at challenging the
anti-migrant message of Tommy Robinson, whose “Unite the Kingdom” movement has
urged its supporters to join a carols event next weekend to “put the Christ
back into Christmas”.
The
posters, which will go on display at bus stops, say “Christ has always been in
Christmas” and “Outsiders welcome”. They will also be available for local
churches to download and display over the festive period.
The C of
E’s decision to challenge Robinson’s extreme rightwing stance comes amid
growing unease among church leaders about the rise of Christian nationalism and
the appropriation of Christian symbols to bolster the views of his supporters.
At a
march organised by Unite the Kingdom in September there was a significant
presence of Christian symbols, including wooden crosses and flags bearing
Christian slogans, as well as chants of “Christ is king” and calls to defend
“God, faith, family, homeland”.
Last
week, Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, announced next
weekend’s Christmas carol event at an undisclosed outdoor venue in central
London. It would mark the beginning of “a new Christian revival in the UK – a
moment to reclaim and celebrate our heritage, culture and Christian identity”.
Some
Christian activists are planning a counter-event to protest at the far-right
views of those organising the carol service.
The C of
E posters are part of a wider response to Robinson and Unite the Kingdom from a
number of churches. The Joint Public Issues Team, a partnership between the
Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Methodist church and the United Reformed
church is offering a “rapid response resource” for local churches trying to
“navigate the complexities” of Christian nationalism and the “co-option of
Christian language and symbols – including Christmas – for a nationalist
agenda”.
The Rev
Arun Arora, bishop of Kirkstall and co-lead bishop on racial justice for the C
of E, said: “We must confront and resist the capture of Christian language and
symbols by populist forces seeking to exploit the faith for their own political
ends.”
He said
that Robinson’s conversion to Christianity in prison was welcome but did not
give him “the right to subvert the faith so that it serves his purposes rather
than the other way round”.
A church
that failed to act in response would be diminished, Arora added. “Whether in
the warnings of the prophets or the teaching of Jesus, there is an unambiguous
call to ensure justice for the weakest and most vulnerable.
“As we
approach Christmas and recall the Holy Family’s own flight as refugees, we
reaffirm our commitment to stand alongside others in working for an asylum
system that is fair, compassionate, and rooted in the dignity of being human.”
After
September’s Unite the Kingdom march, Christian leaders published an open letter
saying that “any co-opting or corrupting of the Christian faith to exclude
others is unacceptable”. Among the signatories were seven C of E bishops and
senior leaders in the Methodist, Baptist and Pentecostal churches, the Church
of Scotland, the Salvation Army and the Catholic social action network Caritas.
The Great Replacement
.jpeg)
The Great Replacement
The Great
Replacement (French: grand remplacement), also known as replacement theory or
great replacement theory, is a white nationalist[4] far-right conspiracy theory espoused by French author Renaud
Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of
"replacist" elites, the ethnic French and white European populations
at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white
peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration,
demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Since then,
similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the
United States. Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims of a conspiracy
of "replacist" elites as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic
statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview. According to the Encyclopædia
Britannica, the Great Replacement "has been widely ridiculed for its
blatant absurdity."
While
similar themes have characterized various far-right theories since the late
19th century, the particular term was popularized by Camus in his 2011 book Le
Grand Remplacement. The book associates the presence of Muslims in France with
danger and destruction of French culture and civilization. Camus and other
conspiracy theorists attribute recent demographic changes in Europe to
intentional policies advanced by global and liberal elites (the
"replacists") from within the Government of France, the European
Union, or the United Nations; they describe it as a "genocide by
substitution".
The
conspiracy theory found support in Europe, and has also grown popular among
anti-migrant and white nationalist movements from other parts of the West; many
of their adherents maintain that "immigrants [are] flocking to
predominantly white countries for the precise purpose of rendering the white
population a minority within their own land or even causing the extinction of
the native population". It aligns with (and is a part of) the larger white
genocide conspiracy theory[b] except in the substitution of antisemitic canards
with Islamophobia.This substitution, along with a use of simple catch-all
slogans, has been cited as one of the reasons for its broader appeal in a
pan-European context, although the concept remains rooted in antisemitism in
many white nationalist movements, especially (but not exclusively) in the
United States.
Although
Camus has publicly condemned white nationalist violence, scholars have argued
that calls to violence are implicit in his depiction of non-white migrants as
an existential threat to white populations. Several far-right terrorists,
including the perpetrators of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings, the 2019
El Paso shooting, the 2022 Buffalo shooting and the 2023 Jacksonville shooting,
have made reference to the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory.
American conservative media personalities, including Tucker Carlson and Laura
Ingraham, have espoused ideas of a replacement. Some Republican politicians
have endorsed the theory in order to appeal to far-right members of the
Republican Party and as a way of signalling their loyalty to Donald Trump.
Background
Renaud Camus
developed his conspiracy theory in two books published in 2010 and 2011, in the
context of an increase in anti-immigrant rhetoric in public discourse during
the previous decade. Europe also experienced an escalation in Islamic terrorist
attacks during the 2000s–2010s, and a migrant crisis in the years
2015–2016, which
exacerbated tensions and prepared public opinion for the reception of Camus's
conspiracy theory. As the latter depicts a population replacement said to occur
in a short time lapse of one or two generations, the migrant crisis was
particularly conducive to the spread of Camus's ideas while the terrorist
attacks accelerated the construction of immigrants as an existential threat
among those who shared such a worldview.
Camus's
theme of a future demise of European culture and civilization also parallels a
"cultural pessimistic" and anti-Islam trend among European
intellectuals of the period, illustrated in several best-selling and
straightforwardly titled books released during the 2010s: Thilo Sarrazin's
Germany Abolishes Itself (2010), Éric Zemmour's The French Suicide (2014) or
Michel Houellebecq's Submission (2015).
Concept of
Renaud Camus
The
"Great Replacement" conspiracy theory was developed by French author
Renaud Camus, initially in a 2010 book titled L'Abécédaire de l'in-nocence
("Abecedarium of no-harm"),[c] and the following year in an eponymous
book, Le Grand Remplacement (introduction au remplacisme global).[d] Camus has
claimed that the name Grand Remplacement "came to [him], almost by chance,
perhaps in a more or less unconscious reference to the Grand Dérangement of the
Acadians in the 18th century. As an epigraph to the later book, Camus chose
Bertolt Brecht's quip from the satirical poem Die Lösung that the easiest thing
to do for a government which had lost the confidence of its people would be to
choose new people.
According to
Camus, the "Great Replacement" has been nourished by
"industrialisation", "despiritualisation" and
"deculturation"; the materialistic society and globalism
having created a "replaceable human, without any national, ethnic, or
cultural specificity", what he labels "global
replacism". Camus claims that "the great replacement does not
need a definition," as the term is not, in his views, a "concept"
but rather a "phenomenon".
In Camus's
theory, the indigenous French people ("the replaced") is described
as being demographically replaced by non-white populations ("the replacing
[peoples]"—mainly coming from Africa or the Middle East—in a process
of "peopling immigration" encouraged by a "replacist
power".
Camus
frequently uses terms and concepts related to the period of Nazi-occupied
France (1940–1945). He for instance labels "colonizers" or
"Occupiers"[h] people of non-European descent who reside in Europe,
and dismisses what he calls the "replacist elites" as
"collaborationist". In 2017 Camus founded an organization named the
National Council of European Resistance, in a self-evident reference to the
World War II National Council of the Resistance (1943–1945). This analogy to
the French Resistance against Nazism has been described as an implicit call to
hatred, direct action or even violence against what Camus labels the
"Occupiers; i.e. the immigrants". Camus has also compared the
Great Replacement and the so-called "genocide by substitution" of the
European peoples to the Holocaust.
Claimed
influences
Camus cites
two influential figures in the epilogue of his 2011 book The Great Replacement:
British politician Enoch Powell's apocalyptic vision of future race
relations—expressed in his 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech—and French
author Jean Raspail's depiction of the collapse of the West from an
overwhelming "tidal wave" of Third World immigration, featured in his
1973 novel The Camp of the Saints.
Camus also
declared to The Spectator magazine in 2016 that a key to understanding the
"Great Replacement" can be found in his 2002 book Du Sens. In the
latter he wrote that the words "France" and "French" equal
a natural and physical reality rather than a legal one, in a cratylism similar
to Charles Maurras's distinction between the "legal" and the
"real country".[i]During the same interview, Camus mentioned that he
began to imagine his conspiracy theory back in 1996, during the redaction of a
guidebook on the department of Hérault, in the South of France: "I
suddenly realized that in very old villages [...] the population had totally
changed too [...] this is when I began to write like that."
Similar themes
Despite its
own singularities and concepts, the "Great Replacement" is
encompassed in a larger and older "white genocide" conspiracy theory,
popularized in the US by neo-Nazi David Lane in his 1995 White Genocide
Manifesto, where he asserted that governments in Western countries were
intending to turn white people into "extinct species". Scholars
generally agree that, although he did not father the theme, Camus indeed coined
the term "Great Replacement" as a slogan and concept, and eventually
led it to its fame in the 2010s.
The idea of
"replacement" under the guidance of a hostile elite can be further
traced back to pre-WWII antisemitic conspiracy theories which posited the
existence of a Jewish plot to destroy Europe through miscegenation, especially
in Édouard Drumont's antisemitic bestseller La France juive (1886). Commenting
on this resemblance, historian Nicolas Lebourg and political scientist
Jean-Yves Camus suggest that Renaud Camus's contribution was to replace the
antisemitic elements with a clash of civilizations between Muslims and
Europeans. Also in the late 19th century, imperialist politicians invoked
the Péril jaune (Yellow Peril) in their negative comparisons of France's low
birth-rate and the high birth-rates of Asian countries. From that claim arose
an artificial, cultural fear that immigrant-worker Asians soon would
"flood" France. This danger supposedly could be successfully
countered only by increased fecundity of French women. Then, France would
possess enough soldiers to thwart the eventual flood of immigrants from Asia. Maurice Barrès's nationalist
writings of that period have also been noted in the ideological genealogy of
the "Great Replacement", Barrès contending both in 1889 and in 1900
that a replacement of the native population under the combined effect of
immigration and a decline in the birth rate was happening in France.
Scholars
also highlight a modern similarity to European neo-fascist and neo-Nazi
thinkers from the immediate post-war, especially Maurice Bardèche, René Binet
and Gaston-Armand Amaudruz, and to concepts advanced from the 1960s onward by
the French Nouvelle Droite.The associated and more recent conspiracy theory of
"Eurabia", published by British author Bat Ye'or in her 2005
eponymous book, is often cited as a probable inspiration for Camus's
"Great Replacement". Eurabia theory likewise involves globalist
entities, that are led by both French and Arab powers, conspiring to Islamize
Europe, with Muslims submerging the continent through immigration and higher
birth rates. The conspiracy theory also depicts immigrants as invaders or as a
fifth column, invited to the continent by a corrupt political elite.
Analysis
Demographic
statistics
While the
ethnic demography of France has shifted as a result of post-WWII immigration,
scholars have generally dismissed the claims of a "great replacement"
as being rooted in an exaggeration of immigration statistics and unscientific,
racially prejudiced views. Geographer Landis MacKellar criticized Camus's
thesis for assuming "that third- and fourth- generation 'immigrants' are
somehow not French."Researchers have variously estimated the Muslim
population of France at between 8.8% and 12.5% in 2017, and less than 1% in
2001,making a "replacement" unlikely according to MacKellar.
Racial
connotations
In the words
of scholar Andrew Fergus Wilson, whereas the islamophobic Great Replacement
theory can be distinguished from the parallel antisemitic white genocide
conspiracy theory, "they share the same terms of reference and both are
ideologically aligned with the so-called '14 words' of David Lane ["We
must secure the existence of our people and a future for white
children"]." In 2021, the Anti-Defamation League wrote that
"since many white supremacists, particularly those in the United States,
blame Jews for non-white immigration to the U.S.", the Great Replacement
theory has been increasingly associated with antisemitism and conflated with
the white genocide conspiracy theory. Scholar Kathleen Belew has argued that
the Great Replacement theory "allows an opportunism in selecting
enemies", but "also follows the central motivating logic, which is to
protect the thing on the inside [i.e. the preservation and birth rate of the
white race], regardless of the enemy on the outside."
According to
Australian historian A. Dirk Moses, the great replacement theory is a form of
psychological projection in which Europeans—who enacted settler-colonial
projects entailing the elimination and replacement of native populations by
settler societies—fear the reverse may happen to them.
In German
discourse, Austrian political scientist Rainer Bauböck questioned the
conspiracy theorists' use of the terms "population replacement" or
"exchange" (Bevölkerungsaustausch). Using Ruth Wodak's analysis that
the slogan needs to be viewed in its historical context, Bauböck has concluded
that the conspiracy theory is a reemergence of the Nazi ideology of Umvolkung
("ethnicity inversion").
Popularity
Camus's
tract for his 2014 "day of anger" demonstration against the
"great replacement": "No to the change of people and of
civilization, no to antisemitism"
The
simplicity and use of catch-all slogans in Camus's formulations—"you have
one people, and in the space of a generation you have a different people"—as
well as his removal of antisemitism from the original neo-Nazi "white
genocide" conspiracy theory, have been cited as conducive to the
popularity of the "Great Replacement" in Europe.
In a survey
led by Ifop in December 2018, 25% of the French subscribed to the conspiracy
theory; as well as 46% of the responders who defined themselves as "Gilets
Jaunes" (Yellow Vest protesters).In another survey led by Harris
Interactive in October 2021, 61% of the French believed that the "Great
Replacement" will happen in France; 67% of the respondents were worried
about it.
The theory
has also become influential in far-right and white nationalist circles outside
of France. The conspiracy theory has been cited by Canadian far-right political
activist Lauren Southern in a YouTube video of the same name released in July
2017.Southern's video had attracted in 2020 more than 686,000 views and is credited with helping to
popularize the conspiracy theory. Counter-jihad Norwegian blogger Fjordman has
also participated in spreading the theory. It has also been promoted by the
German edition of The Epoch Times, a far-right Falun Gong-associated newspaper.
Prominent
right-wing extremist websites such as Gates of Vienna, Politically Incorrect,
and Fdesouche [fr] have provided a platform for bloggers to diffuse and
popularize the theory of the "Great Replacement". Among its main promoters are also a
wide-ranging network of loosely connected white nationalist movements,
especially the Identitarian movement in Europe, and other groups like PEGIDA in
Germany.
Political
influence
Europe
France
Much of the
European spread of the Great Replacement (French: Grand Remplacement)
conspiracy theory rhetoric is due to its prevalence in French national
discourse and media. Nationalist right-wing groups in France have asserted that
there is an ongoing "Islamo-substitution" of the indigenous French
population, associating the presence of Muslims in France with potential danger
and destruction of French culture and civilization.
In 2011,
Marine Le Pen evoked the theory, claiming that France's "adversaries"
were waging a moral and economic war on the country, apparently "to
deliver it to submersion by an organized replacement of our population".
In 2013, historian Dominique Venner's suicide in Notre-Dame de Paris, in which
he left a note outlining the "crime of the replacement of our people"
is reported to have inspired the far-right Iliade Institute's main ideological
tenet of the Great Replacement.[85] Referring to the conspiracy theory, Marine
Le Pen publicly praised Venner, claiming that his "last gesture, eminently
political, was to try to awaken the French people".
In 2015,
Guillaume Faye gave a speech at the Swedish Army Museum in Stockholm, in which
he claimed there were three societal things being used against Europeans to
carry out a supposed Great Replacement: abortion, homosexuality and
immigration. He asserted that Muslims were replacing white people by using
birthrates as a demographic weapon.
In June
2017, a BuzzFeed News investigation revealed three National Front candidates
subscribing to the conspiracy theory ahead of the legislative elections. These included Senator Stéphane Ravier's personal assistant, who claimed the
Great Replacement had already started in France. Publishing an image of
blonde girl next to the caption "Say no to white genocide", Ravier's
aide politically charged the concept further, writing "the National Front
or the invasion".
By September
2018, in a meeting at Fréjus, Marine Le Pen closely echoed Great Replacement
rhetoric. Speaking of France, she declared that "never in the history of
mankind, have we seen a society that organizes an irreversible submersion"
that would eventually cause French society to "disappear by dilution or
substitution, its culture and way of life". Following the Christchurch
mosque shootings, Le Pen falsely denied knowledge of the theory.
Former
National Assembly delegate Marion Maréchal, who is a junior member of the
political Le Pen family, is also a proponent of the theory. In March 2019, in a
trip to the U.S., Maréchal evoked the theory, stating "I don't want France
to become a land of Islam". Insisting that the Great Replacement was
"not absurd", she declared the "indigenous French" people,
apparently in danger of being a minority by 2040, now wanted their
"country back".
National
Rally's serving president Marine Le Pen, who is the aunt of Maréchal, has been
heavily influenced by the Great Replacement. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
has described the conspiracy theory creator Renaud Camus as Le Pen's
"whisperer". In May 2019, National Rally spokesman Jordan
Bardella was reported to use the conspiracy theory during a televised debate
with Nathalie Loiseau, after he argued that France must "turn off the
tap" from the demographic bomb of African immigration into the country.
In June
2019, journalist and author Éric Zemmour pushed the concept in comparison to
the Kosovo War, claiming "In 1900, there were 90% Serbs and 10% Muslims in
Kosovo, in 1990 there were 90% Muslims and 10% Serbs, then there was war and
the independence of Kosovo". Zemmour, author of The French Suicide, has
repeatedly described "the progressive replacement, over a few decades, of
the historic population of our country by immigrants, the vast majority of them
non-European".[97] Later that month, Marion Maréchal joined Zemmour in
invoking the Great Replacement in relation to the Balkan region, stating
"I do not want my France to become Kosovo" and declared that the
changing demographics of France "threatens us" ("nous
menace") and that this was increasingly clear.[96] Zemmour ran for
president in 2022 and continued to extensively promote the theory during his
campaign.[98] He finished in fourth place in the first round of the election,
taking 7,07% of the vote.
Austria
Identitäre Bewegung Österreich (IBÖ), the Austrian branch of the Identitarian movement, promotes this theory, citing a "great exchange"[j] or replacement of the population that supposedly needs to be reversed. In April 2019, Heinz-Christian Strache campaigning for his FPÖ party ahead of the 2019 European Parliament election endorsed the conspiracy theory. Claiming that "population replacement" in Austria was a real threat, he stated that "We don't want to become a minority in our own country". Compatriot Martin Sellner, who also supports the theory, celebrated Strache's political use of the Great Replacement.
Belgium
In September
2018, Schild & Vrienden [nl], an extremist Flemish youth organization, were
reported to be endorsing the conspiracy theory. The group, claiming that native
populations of Europe were being replaced by migrants; they proposed an end to
all immigration, forced deportation of non-whites, and the founding of
ethnostates.The following month, VRT detailed how the organization was
discussing the Great Replacement on secretive chat channels, and using the
conspiracy theory to promote Flemish ethnic identity.
In March
2019, Flemish nationalist Dries Van Langenhove of the Vlaams Belang party
repeatedly stated that the Flemish people were "being replaced" in
Belgium, posting claims on social media which endorsed the Great Replacement
theory.
Denmark
Use of the
Great Replacement (Danish: Store Udskiftning) conspiracy theory has become
common in right-wing Danish political rhetoric. In April 2019, Rasmus Paludan,
leader of the Hard Line party, which is widely associated with the Great
Replacement,[109] claimed that by the year 2040 ethnic Danish people would be
approaching to be a minority in Denmark, having been outnumbered by Muslims and
their descendants. During a debate for the 2019 European Parliament elections,
Paludan used the concept to justify a proposal to ban Muslim immigration and
deport all Islamic residents from the country, in what Le Monde described as
Paludan "preaching the 'great replacement theory'".
In June
2019, Pia Kjærsgaard (Danish People's Party) invoked the conspiracy theory
while serving as Speaker of the Danish Parliament. After the alleged
encouragement of Muslim communities to "vote red", for the Social
Democrats; Kjærsgaard asked "What will happen? A replacement of the Danish
people?".
Finland
Far-right
Finns Party representatives and ministers have used the word "great
replacement" (Finnish: Väestönvaihto) in their writings.Finns Party
Speaker of the Parliament Jussi Halla-Aho and the party leader Riikka Purra
have also promoted the theory. Halla-aho stated that it is ”dishonest to say
that the great replacement is not going on, that it would not be rapid, and
that it would not continue just as long as it is allowed to continue.” Riikka
Purra wrote ”In any case, I use the term great replacement myself, because that
is what this is, as long as this is being actively perpetrated”, Purra wrote.
"As long as immigration policy is active and promotes immigration, the
Finnish population will be exchanged for another".In October 2023 four men
were convicted of offences committed with terrorist intent. According to the
prosecutor, the defendants were motivated by the idea of a conspiracy of the
government and Jewish people to replace the native population. Police said the
potential targets of the attack were political decision-makers.
Germany
Ex-SPD
politician Thilo Sarrazin is reported to be one of the most influential
promoters of the Great Replacement, having published several books on the
subject, some of which, such as Germany Abolishes Itself, are in high
circulation. Sarrazin has proposed that there are too many immigrants in
Germany, and that they supposedly have lower IQs than Germans. Regarding the
demographics of Germany, he has claimed that in a century ethnic Germans will
drop in number to 25 million, in 200 years to eight million and in 300 years:
three million.
In May 2016,
Alternative for Germany (German: Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) deputy
leader Beatrix von Storch used a language reminiscent of the theory when she
claimed that plans for a mass exchange of populations ("Massenaustausch
der Bevölkerung") had long been made.
In April
2017, a few months before he assumed the leadership of the AfD, Alexander
Gauland released a press statement regarding the issue of family reunification
for refugees, in which he claimed that "Population exchange in Germany is
running at full speed". In October 2018, following Beatrix von
Storch's lead, Bundestag member Petr Bystron said the Global Compact for
Migration was part of the conspiracy to bring about systemic population change
in Germany.
In March
2019, Vice Germany reported how AfD MP Harald Laatsch [de] attempted to justify
and assign blame for the Christchurch mosque shootings, in relation to his
"The Great Exchange"[j] theory, by asserting that the shooter's
actions were driven by "overpopulation" from immigrants and
"climate protection" against them. Laatsch also claimed that the
climate movement, who he labelled "climate panic propagators", had a
"shared responsibility" for the massacre, and singled out child
activist Greta Thunberg.
Similarly,
right-wing publicist Martin Lichtmesz [de] denied that either Anders Behring
Breivik's 2011 manifesto, which referred to the Eurabia variant of the
"white genocide" narrative, or Brenton Tarrant's 2019 The Great
Replacement manifesto, had any connection to the theory. Claiming that it was,
in fact, not a conspiracy theory at all, Lichtmesz said both Breivik and
Tarrant were reacting to a real phenomenon; a "historically unique
experiment" of a "Great Exchange"[j] of people.
Hungary
Prime
Minister Viktor Orbán and his political party Fidesz in Hungary have been
associated with the conspiracy theory over the course of several years. The
Sydney Morning Herald detailed Orbán's belief in and promotion of the Great
Replacement as being central to the modern right-wing politics of Europe. In
December 2018, he claimed the "Christian identity of Europe" needed
saving, and labelled refugees traveling to Europe as "Muslim
invaders". In a speech, Orbán asserted: "If in the future Europe is
to be populated by people other than Europeans, and we accept this as a fact
and see it as natural, then we will effectively be consenting to population
replacement: to a process in which the European population is replaced".
He has also
stated: "In all of Europe there are fewer and fewer children, and the
answer of the West is migration," concluding that "We Hungarians have
a different way of thinking. Instead of just numbers, we want Hungarian
children." ThinkProgress described the comments as pushing a version of
the theory. In April 2019, Radio New Zealand published insight that Orban's
plans to cut taxes for large Hungarian families could be linked with fears of
the Great Replacement.
Ireland
A 2019 Lidl
advertisement that featured a white Irish woman, her Afro-Brazilian partner and
their mixed race son was targeted by former journalist Gemma O'Doherty as part
of an attempt at a "Great Replacement". After facing online
harassment the family decided to leave Ireland.[123][124][125] The "Great
Replacement" has also been used in Ireland in opposition to direct
provision centres, used to house asylum seekers.
Writing in
2020, Richard Downes said that "Rather than seeing the increase in
non-Irish people living and making their lives here as being a normal part of a
modern European country, some of the new nationalists see it as a conspiracy to
overwhelm Ireland with foreigners. For many of them the conspirators include
the Irish government, NGOs, the EU and the UN. They believe that these
organisations want to replace Irish people with brown and black people from
abroad."
The term
"great replacement" was also used when the RTÉ News featured the
three first babies born in 2020, born to Polish, Black and Indian mothers;
journalist Fergus Finlay saying "I don't care about the vulgar abuse, but
I really do believe that these hatemongers should be prosecuted when they
incite others to hatred and violence against people whose only crime is their
skin colour or religion. I find it hard to understand why the State hasn't
acted already against these cruel ideologues who think they can say whatever
they like under the banner of free speech. They may be small in number now, and
on the surface they may just seem bonkers, but we've been here before.
Political movements have been built on hatred of the other, and we know the
damage they have caused."
Garda
Commissioner (national chief of police) Drew Harris spoke about far right
groups in 2020, saying that "Irish groups [believing] in the great
replacement theory" had plans "to disrupt key State institutions and
infrastructure. This included Dublin Port, high profile shopping areas such as
Grafton Street in Dublin, Dáil Éireann and Government departments."
Some
participants in the 2022–2023 Irish anti-immigration protests such as Hermann
Kelly and Derek Blighe support a Great Replacement theory, as well as referring
to the influx of immigrants as an "invasion" and a
"plantation".
The current
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has endorsed the Great Replacement
ideology. Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini of Italy (2018–2019) has
repeatedly adopted the theme of the Great Replacement. In May 2016, two years
before his election to office, he claimed "ethnic replacement is
underway" in Italy in an interview with Sky TG24. Accusing nameless,
well-funded organizations for importing workers that he named "farm
slaves", he stated that there was a "lucrative attempt at
genocide" of Italians.
In April
2023, the Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forests Francesco
Lollobrigida remarked to a trade union conference that "Italians are
having fewer children, so we're replacing them with someone else. [We say] yes
to helping births, no to ethnic replacement. That's not the way forward".
Netherlands
In April
2015, writing on the publishing website GeenStijl, scholar of Islam Hans Jansen
used Great Replacement rhetoric, suggesting that it was an
"undisputed" fact that among the European Union's governing elite
there was a common consensus that Europeans were "no good and can be
better replaced". In May 2015, Martin Bosma, a Dutch parliament
Representative for the Party for Freedom (PVV), released his book Minority in
their own land [nl]. Invoking the conspiracy theory, Bosma wrote about a
growing 'a new population' of immigrants which lent itself to an apparently
'post-racial Multicultural State of Salvation'.
In March
2017, Thierry Baudet, leader of the right wing Forum for Democracy (FvD) party,
promoted the theory after he claimed that the country's so-called elite were
deliberately "homeopathically diluting" the Dutch population, in a
speech about "national self-hatred". He said there was a plot to
racially mix the ethnic Dutch with "all the people of the world", so
that there would "never be a Dutchman again".
In January
2018, PVV Representative Martin Bosma endorsed the Great Replacement theory,
and one of its key propagators, after meeting with Renaud Camus at a PVV
demonstration in Rotterdam and tweeting his support. Filip Dewinter, a leading
member of the Flemish secessionist Vlaams Belang party, who had traveled to the
Netherlands on the day of the protest to meet with Camus, named him as a
"visionary man" to the media.
Party for
Freedom politician Geert Wilders of the Netherlands supports the notion of a
Great Replacement occurring in Europe.In October 2018, Wilders invoked the
conspiracy theory, claiming the Netherlands was "being replaced with mass
immigration from non-western Islamic countries" and Rotterdam being
"the port of Eurabia". He claimed 77 million, mainly Islamic
immigrants would attempt to enter Europe over the course of half a century, and
that white Europeans would cease to exist unless they were stopped. In
2019, The New York Times reported how Camus's demographic-based alarmist
theories help fuel Wilders and his Party for Freedom's nativist campaigning.
In September
2018, Dutch author Paul Scheffer analyzed the Great Replacement and its
political developments, suggesting that Forum for Democracy and Party for
Freedom were forming policy regarding the demography of the Netherlands through
the lens of the conspiracy theory.
Spain
The
far-right party Vox has been described as circulating the theory for its
discourse about low natality rates in Spaniards compared to migrants. According
to journalist Antonio Maestre of El Diario, such an ideology is shared between
Vox and some extreme strains of Catalan nationalism who fear replacement by
Spanish-speakers.
United
Kingdom
According to
November 2018 research from the University of Cambridge, 31% of Brexit voters
believe in the conspiracy theory compared to 6% of British people who oppose
Brexit.[
In July
2019, left-wing English musician and activist Billy Bragg released a public
statement which accused fellow singer-songwriter Morrissey of endorsing the
theory. Bragg suggested "that Morrissey is helping to spread this
idea—which inspired the Christchurch mosque murderer—is beyond doubt".
Prior to the
2024 United Kingdom general election, videos of non-white people in London with
captions such as "This is not Iran" spread on social media. Hope not
Hate researcher Patrik Hermansson described the videos as prime examples of dog
whistles due to using language and imagery that direct viewers to the
conspiracy theory without explicitly referencing it. He said, "[The
videos] are dangerous because they often avoid moderation and appear acceptable
by seeming neutral in how they present reality".
Turkey
Leader of
the Victory Party Ümit Özdağ uses a Turkish version of the theory. He
previously argued that Turkey will be a "Migrantland" (Göçmenistan)
unless Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu wins the 2023 Turkish presidential election.