domingo, 6 de setembro de 2026

Are the Dover protests a new kind of pressure protests ?

 


Are the Dover protests a new kind of pressure protests ?

The Dover port protests represent a highly coordinated tactical shift in hard-right pressure campaigns rather than an entirely new category of protest. While direct-action economic blockades have traditionally been utilized by environmental and fuel-price groups, these demonstrations stand out due to their distinct operational methods, severe pressure tactics, and unique organizational format.

Operational Characteristics of the Protests

  • Flash Mob Infrastructure: The group utilized digital coordination to bypass initial police intelligence. Protesters gathered stealthily at a remote staging location before launching a surprise blockade on major infrastructure.
  • Uniform Anonymity: Participants adopted a unified aesthetic, dressing entirely in black and wearing balaclavas. This uniform approach aims to hide individual identities from facial recognition while maximizing intimidation.
  • Absence of Traditional Signage: Unlike traditional demonstrations, the crowd did not display banners, placards, or distinct physical branding. They relied strictly on synchronized chanting and immediate physical presence to deliver their message.

Strategic Points of Pressure

  • Economic Chokepoints: The demonstration strategically targeted the Port of Dover, the UK's busiest international ferry terminal. By stopping traffic, they immediately forced a multi-mile gridlock on major transit routes like the A20.
  • Testing Legal and Policing Boundaries: The group specifically timed the event to challenge local law enforcement frameworks. The strategy deliberately forced police to navigate the limits of the new Crime and Policing Act 2026, which governs masked assemblies.
  • Societal Intimidation: Moving away from standard street rallies, the tactics relied on aggressive physical presence to intimidate local residents, shift workers, and stranded commuters.

Organizers and Origins

Public updates point to a newly active hard-right group named Patriot Platform as the coordinator behind the disruption. Founded in mid-2026 by Danny Thomas (frequently referred to online as "Danny Tommo"), the faction maintains close operational links to high-profile far-right figures like Tommy Robinson. Organizers explicitly labeled the disruption as a strategic "warning," demonstrating how these groups are shifting from standard public rallies toward high-impact economic disruptions.

 

What we know about the Dover protests

'Petrifying To Be Confronted By Men Dressed Like That' | Shabnam Chaudri

 

A State in Germany Could Soon Have Far-Right Leaders. Here’s What to Know.

 




A State in Germany Could Soon Have Far-Right Leaders. Here’s What to Know.

 

Elections in Saxony-Anhalt, in the country’s east, could result in an outright majority for the Alternative for Germany party.

 

Jim Tankersley

By Jim Tankersley

Reporting from Berlin

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/world/europe/germany-election-afd-saxony-anhalt.html

Sept. 6, 2026, 12:01 a.m. ET

 

The state of Saxony-Anhalt, in eastern Germany, is holding elections on Sunday that could produce the first far-right state government in the country since the end of the Nazi era.

 

Polls suggest that the Alternative for Germany, a far-right party known by its German initials AfD, will comfortably finish first. The party has appealed to voters with promises to revitalize a sagging economy, deport immigrants and sideline mainstream parties that have long governed the state.

 

The crucial question is whether the AfD’s share of the vote will be enough to allow the party to govern without the help of rival parties, which say they will refuse to join any coalition with the far right.

 

The result will reverberate through the national Parliament in Berlin, where the AfD is the largest opposition group to the governing coalition of center-right and center-left parties. The outcome could also offer lessons about the strength of populist movements around the world.

 

Polls close at 6 p.m. in Germany (noon Eastern). Here’s what to know.

 

What is Saxony-Anhalt?

The state, a relatively small area in the former East Germany, to the west of Berlin, has about 2.1 million residents. Saxony-Anhalt has struggled since German reunification in 1990. The state lost more of its population than any other, and the unemployment rate is well above the national average, at roughly 8 percent. The current leader is Sven Schulze of the center-right Christian Democrats, the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

 

What is the AfD?

The Alternative for Germany is a far-right populist party that formed in 2013. It was initially focused on opposing Germany’s adoption of the euro, the European single currency. The party has since ridden a wave of anger at immigration from the Middle East and exploited anxiety over economic stagnation to top national polls in Germany.

 

The AfD remains a pariah among Germany’s political establishment, however. No other major rival will work with the party to form a government at either state or national level. German intelligence has designated the AfD a “suspected extremist” group.

 

Some of the party’s leaders have played down the Holocaust and adopted Nazi slogans. Others have strong ties to Russia. The party has also said that Islam is incompatible with the German Constitution and has vowed mass deportations of immigrants — leading opponents to accuse the party of treating Germans from migrant backgrounds as second-class citizens.

 

Why is the AfD leading this race?

Foremost, a frustrated electorate is looking to shake up Germany’s political system.

 

The party’s supporters, particularly in eastern states like Saxony-Anhalt, call the AfD their best chance to break centrist parties’ hold on political power in postwar Germany. The AfD has courted voters in Saxony-Anhalt with policies including paring back social assistance for immigrants and increasing financial support for native-born German families with a father and a mother.

 

The party has deployed a savvy social media campaign and has a relatively young and photogenic candidate for governor, Ulrich Siegmund, who is a TikTok star.

 

What would an AfD state government mean for Germany?

Symbolically, a majority victory for the party in Saxony-Anhalt would be an earthquake for a postwar political system that was intended to foster moderation and compromise, and to prevent parties deemed extreme from returning to power. Such a result could jeopardize the standing of Mr. Merz, who would have to fend off critics in his own coalition blaming him for the loss. A big win might also help to normalize the AfD, spurring some mainstream lawmakers to feel more comfortable about forming coalitions with the party.

 

Practically, an AfD administration would set off an immediate fight about whether federal and other state intelligence services continue to share sensitive information with the Saxony-Anhalt government, as is now common practice. Germany’s defense minister has said he would seek to stop the practice, saying the AfD is too close to Russia.

 

What’s likely to happen?

The simplest scenario would be an outright AfD victory with the party winning enough seats to govern alone. It would not necessarily need 50 percent of the vote because some parties are likely to collect some votes, but too few to win seats. Polls suggest that a win with an outright majority for the AfD is possible, but perhaps not the most probable outcome.

 

If the AfD falls short, other parties will try to band together to form a government. That won’t be easy. The Christian Democrats are likely to finish second and take the lead in negotiations, but some of their members refuse to work with the far-left Die Linke, which appears set to finish third, because they consider that party to be extremist, too.

 

If those parties can’t work out their differences, the AfD might get a chance to peel off rebel members of those parties and perhaps govern after all.

 

When will we know?

Vote counting should proceed quickly after the polls close. It might be clear in a few hours whether the AfD has the necessary votes to form a government alone. If not, the other parties may take weeks to negotiate the formation of an alternative coalition government.

 

Christopher F. Schuetze and Tatiana Firsova contributed reporting.

 

Jim Tankersley is the Berlin bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

The Ex-Salesman Bringing the Far Right to the Cusp of Power in Germany

 


The Ex-Salesman Bringing the Far Right to the Cusp of Power in Germany

Ulrich Siegmund, 35, once sold air fresheners. Now his far-right party is the favorite to win a state election in eastern Germany on Sunday.

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Ulrich Siegmund, who wears a blue shirt and has slicked-back hair, stands in the middle of a crowd of reporters beneath a blue-and-white tent.

Ulrich Siegmund, center, is the lead candidate for the far-right party Alternative for Germany in a state election in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday. The party is projected to finish first.Credit...Annegret Hilse/Reuters

Christopher F. Schuetze

By Christopher F. Schuetze

Reporting from Tangermünde and Magdeburg, Germany

Sept. 6, 2026, 12:01 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/06/world/europe/afd-germany-election-ulrich-siegmund.html

 

During the coronavirus pandemic, a little-known German state lawmaker with an upbeat patter and a telegenic smile started railing on TikTok against pandemic regulations. Complaining about masks, vaccinations and other government requirements that he deemed “crazy,” the lawmaker attracted millions of viewers with his videos by using an affable tone to deliver an anti-establishment message.

Now, that lawmaker, Ulrich Siegmund, has harnessed his online popularity to come closer to power than any other far-right politician in Germany since the Nazi era ended in 1945.

Mr. Siegmund, 35, a former air freshener salesman, is the lead candidate for the Alternative for Germany party in Saxony-Anhalt, a state in eastern Germany where the party is projected to finish first in a statewide election on Sunday.

If the party, known by its German initials, AfD, wins an outright majority, Mr. Siegmund will become the first far-right politician to govern a German state since the re-establishment of the country’s democracy nearly eight decades ago. That would be a convulsive moment for Germany’s postwar political system, which was designed in the aftermath of World War II to prevent politicians deemed extremist from ever taking office.

To the political establishment in Berlin, Mr. Siegmund’s party is an outcast. The domestic intelligence agency has labeled it as “suspected extremist,” an accusation it rejects as politically motivated. The party has said that Islam is incompatible with the German Constitution and has vowed mass deportations of immigrants. Several of its leaders are close to Russia, and some have made dog whistle comments about the Nazi era, including by minimizing the Holocaust and repeating Nazi slogans.

Mr. Siegmund himself has said, in a podcast interview with Politico, that he could not “presume to judge” if the Holocaust was humanity’s worst-ever crime, “because I can’t possibly come to terms with the entirety of human history.” He also declined to condemn supporters who chanted his surname, Siegmund, in the style of the Nazi salute, “Sieg Heil.”

Still, Mr. Siegmund has won over voters in Saxony-Anhalt, experts say, through his ability to present the party’s hard-line policies in a more approachable and optimistic tone than many of his AfD colleagues, without distancing himself from extremists. In addition to deporting immigrants, the party has proposed cutting funding for public broadcasters, banning gay pride flags in schools and teaching more Russian, as well as tax breaks for large families and free child care.

“I can provide motivation, create a sense of optimism and get things moving forward again,” Mr. Siegmund said in an interview with The New York Times this year. (He declined more recent interview requests.)

That affability has made him more acceptable to voters beyond his hard-right base, said Prof. Steffen Mau, a prominent sociologist at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Several people wearing white T-shirts stand outside with their backs to the camera. The shirts have campaign slogans in German, and one features a magazine cover calling Mr. Siegmund “the most dangerous man in Germany.”

A supporter of Mr. Siegmund wearing a T-shirt with the magazine cover that called him Germany’s “most dangerous man.”Credit...Matthias Schrader/Associated Press

Many mainstream politicians, who have said Mr. Siegmund and the AfD are dangerous, also call his proposals unrealistic. “Whenever the topic turns to substance, when people actually ask how you intend to move our country forward economically, you’re nowhere to be found,” Sven Schulze, the incumbent governor of Saxony-Anhalt, said to Mr. Siegmund during a televised debate last month.

An August cover story in Germany’s premier newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, called him “the most dangerous man in Germany,” partly because his sunny disposition makes his party’s hard-line goals more palatable to some voters. Mr. Siegmund’s followers took it as a badge of honor and, during campaign stops, asked him to sign copies of the edition.

Mr. Siegmund is “so approachable and charming,” said Wolfram Adler, 67, a retired train driver who attended one of those rallies.

From Air Fresheners to Politics

Born in 1990, weeks after the reunification of East and West Germany, Mr. Siegmund was raised in the picturesque medieval town of Tangermünde, in eastern Germany.

Growing up in the east, he came of age amid increasing resentment about how reunification played out for his home region. The east’s economy, employment rates and population ebbed after 1990, leading many East Germans to feel excluded in the new Germany. It was a sense of grievance on which the AfD would later capitalize, particularly in Saxony-Anhalt where the unemployment rate of roughly 8 percent is well above the national average.

In his 20s, Mr. Siegmund worked as an account manager at a health care provider before starting his own business in Berlin selling room deodorizers.

He joined the Christian Democratic Union, a mainstream conservative party that currently leads the national coalition government.

But he soon grew tired of the party’s rigid leadership structures, he has said in past interviews with the news media, and joined the AfD in 2014. He was drawn to the AfD, he said, because the party stood against what he perceived as the highhanded policies of the national government in Berlin.

The AfD was founded in opposition to Germany’s adoption of the euro. After it shifted to an anti-immigrant message, Mr. Siegmund ran on the party’s slate for the statehouse in 2016. He won a seat as the party netted 24 percent of the state vote, profiting from growing concerns about Germany’s decision to welcome roughly a million refugees during the European migrant crisis. He also served on his local council alongside his father and brother.

He rose to national fame in 2021 with his personable videos about pandemic restrictions, helping to project both the party and himself as the voice of voters who felt disenfranchised by mainstream parties.

Now, Mr. Siegmund has more than 850,000 followers on TikTok, an astronomical number for any German politician, giving him a platform that helped to amplify his stump speeches on the campaign trail this summer.

Image

A large crowd stands outside, with some people clapping and others holding up phones. A blue banner with “AfD” is in the background.

AfD supporters listening to Mr. Siegmund at a rally ahead of the election in Saxony-Anhalt. He uses TikTok to amplify his stump speeches, often filming scenes from events on his phone.Credit...Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

When speaking to sizable crowds, he has often filmed the scene on his phone, turning the camera toward the crowds to show viewers how big they were.

“When you see all of Siegmund’s campaign appearances, it becomes perfectly clear: They’re not primarily intended for the live audience, they’re primarily for the internet,” said Paula Diehl, a professor who studies populist leaders at Kiel University.

His preppy shirts and his trademark tuft of graying hair have made him instantly recognizable in Tangermünde, his hometown of 10,000 residents. During the Times interview this year, passers-by repeatedly greeted him, wished him luck or smiled.

Throughout the conversation, he combined a measured, even tolerant tone with a hard-line, exclusionary message.

He said that he did not blame immigrants for coming to Germany — before, seconds later, vowing to make their lives in his state “very uncomfortable.”

Combining Nostalgia With Optimism

The backgrounds of his campaign team also highlight his contradictions. The production company behind Mr. Siegmund’s genial campaign videos is led by a far-right activist with the Identitarians, a movement that German intelligence has accused of extremism. Mr. Siegmund’s spokesman was once part of a banned extremist group inspired by the Hitler Youth.

Mr. Siegmund did not reply to requests for comment about these links. In interviews with other outlets, he dismissed their relevance.

Mr. Siegmund, said Professor Diehl, “pretends to engage in an inclusive discourse and then immediately shatters it.”

Part of his strategy has been to tap into nostalgia for East Germany among some residents, even though he was born after it collapsed. Though many remember Communism as a dictatorship, some recall it as a time of full employment and stability.

One campaign event featured a comedian who sang the East German national anthem — an act so contentious, because it appeared to validate an authoritarian regime, that even some AfD politicians distanced themselves from it.

Image

Mr. Siegmund, wearing a white helmet, rides a light-blue motorcycle. Other people on motorcycles are behind him, and a large crowd of people stands nearby.

Mr. Siegmund riding his Simson, a motorcycle that has long been associated with life in East Germany. Part of his campaign strategy has been to tap into the nostalgia among some residents for the time before reunification.Credit...Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

At some events, Mr. Siegmund rode through the countryside on a Simson, an anemic two-stroke East German motorcycle that has long been associated with life during Communism. His machine was painted baby blue to match the AfD’s colors.

At other times, he has sought to look forward instead of back. Tapping into widespread disenchantment with high unemployment and living costs, he has painted a picture of a better, if ill-defined, future under AfD leadership.

“Things are going downhill everywhere, and that’s a bad and demotivating place to start,” he said in the Times interview. “I want things to start moving uphill,” he said.

Critics say he is simply selling false hope, pointing to his past life as a salesman.

“I discovered my strength in sales early on,” Mr. Siegmund told a business magazine in 2014. “I love to sell.”

Christopher F. Schuetze is a reporter for The Times based in Berlin, covering politics, society and culture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

 

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and France's National Rally (RN) president Jordan Bardella signed a symbolic migration agreement at the Reform UK annual party conference in Birmingham.

 


Farage-Bardella show of unity tries to paper over immigration sticking points

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and France's National Rally (RN) president Jordan Bardella signed a symbolic migration agreement at the Reform UK annual party conference in Birmingham.

While the leaders framed the event as a grand display of populist kinship, political analysts point out that the cross-Channel alliance masks fundamental, conflicting national interests regarding how to handle illegal immigration.

The Core Agreement

The two leaders signed a Memorandum of Understanding on stage, which they dubbed a "new entente cordiale." The primary points of the pact include:

  • The Return Policy: A future RN-led French government would "ordinarily accept" migrants intercepted by the British Royal Navy after departing French shores.
  • Repatriation: France would then take responsibility for deporting these individuals back to their home countries.
  • Dismantling Networks: Joint cooperation to dismantle human smuggling networks operating along the English Channel.

The Sticking Points

Despite the show of unity, political commentators from outlets like POLITICO Europe underscore significant friction points that make a true, workable immigration policy highly unlikely:

Friction Area

British Perspective (Reform UK)

French Perspective (National Rally)

Migrant Retention

Wants France to act as a permanent buffer and accept returned migrants.

Has no domestic incentive to keep migrants on French soil who wish to leave for the UK.

Jurisdiction

Proposes using the Royal Navy to actively push back or tow boats back to French ports.

Opposes British sovereignty violations in French waters and resists taking back thousands of migrants.

The "Pass the Buck" Dilemma

Aims to completely close the UK border to irregular Channel arrivals.

Prioritizes clearing migrant camps out of France, meaning migrants leaving for the UK solves a French domestic issue.

Current Political Context

The agreement is entirely conditional on both leaders gaining executive power in their respective countries:

  • France: Jordan Bardella's National Rally is currently leading in domestic opinion polls ahead of the French presidential election. He pledged that a National Rally government would honor this arrangement.
  • United Kingdom: Nigel Farage continues to use the small boats crisis to build momentum for Reform UK, pitching himself as a future prime ministerial candidate.

Critics, particularly in France, have dismissed the pact as a public relations stunt, arguing that no French leader—regardless of political alignment—would willingly agree to turn northern France into a permanent holding ground for migrants rejected by the United Kingdom

 

Farage-Bardella show of unity tries to paper over immigration sticking points

 



Farage-Bardella show of unity tries to paper over immigration sticking points

 

The populist duo appeared together at Reform UK’s conference Friday.

 

September 4, 2026 6:51 pm CET

By Clea Caulcutt

https://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-jordan-bardella-show-of-unity-immigration-sticking-points/

 

BIRMINGHAM, England — France’s Jordan Bardella and Britain’s Nigel Farage on Friday staged a grand display of anti-immigration, populist kinship in their first joint appearance Reform UK’s annual conference on Friday.

 

But their plan to end migrant crossings in the English Channel, which was formalized with their signatures on an oversized memorandum of understanding, did not definitively settle the thorniest issue when it comes to any migration agreement: Whether France will take back migrants who are captured trying to enter United Kingdom after leaving French shores on so-called small boats.

 

Farage in August announced that if he wins power, he would use the Royal Navy to launch the “largest military operation in the English Channel since World War II” to intercept so-called small boats and return migrants to French shores, triggering an uproar in France.

 

The document Farage and Bardella signed is only binding if the two parties come to power, and it says France will “will ordinarily accept” migrants intercepted in the Channel — potentially leaving wiggle room for Paris to reject them in some cases. Farage called the line “legalese” at a press conference alongside Bardella.

 

“As Australia proved in 2012, once you provide no incentive to pay a trafficker money to be taken across a stretch of water, in very very short order, the business model will be broken,” Farage said.

 

But Farage was not asked about the fact that the phrase does not even appear in the French version of the agreement. A National Rally official, granted anonymity to discuss the agreement’s finer points, said the French translation is the “final” version of the agreement.

 

The memorandum in both languages says the French will be responsible for deporting migrants to their countries of origin, and that the costs of policing operations will be assessed later. It adds that that France will do “its upmost” to stop departures.

 

“If France gains control of its borders there will be no departures [from French shores],” Bardella said in a speech at the conference. “If we end up doing pushbacks, it would be a failure of our government, it would mean that we have let dozens of thousands of people enter France illegally,” he added.

 

And the National Rally has long vowed to submit its immigration plans to a referendum in France, which is a lengthy and uncertain process that could get derailed even Bardella’s mentor, Marine Le Pen, wins the presidential election next year. Polls have consistently showed she is the front-runner.

 

Still, Farage, whose marquee event was overshadowed by illegal party funding allegations that emerged Thursday, likened the pact to “a genuine new Entente Cordiale.”

 

In a 20-minute address delivered in English, Bardella pledged to work hand in hand with a Reform government if Le Pen wins to stop flows of illegal migration into the United Kingdom. Bardella also indicated that the returns across the Channel would be unlikely to be implemented because France would stop all illegal immigration if they came to power.

 

“Our government will do everything in its power to ensure that France is no longer the gateway for illegal migration into the United Kingdom,” Bardella said.