The New Statesman

The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it's not China, it's not any other external actor.

And what I worry about is the threat from within.

Last Friday, Valentine's Day, shock echoed around the Munich Security Conference.

The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United

States of America. The U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance took to the stage and railed against his country's European

allies, accusing them of not listening to voters on issues of migration and free speech.

What no democracy, American, German, or European will survive is telling millions of voters

that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas

for relief are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters.

There's no room for firewalls.

That speech raised serious questions about how the transatlantic alliance will be transformed.

Questions too about how the UK and Europe will need to change their attitudes to defence.

We'll speak about those at length in our politics podcast tomorrow.

But that last word, firewall, that means something where J.D. Vance was standing.

In Germany, there has long been an agreed firewall against the far right,

that centrist parties won't collaborate with them to prevent far right

groups from getting into power. And yet, Germany's election is this weekend. The far right

populist alternative for Deutschland or AFD are polling at around 20%. As you can read in the new

statesman this week,

the German firewall has already suffered significant cracks.

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