When I was first scheduled to speak at this year’s National Conservatism conference (NatCon) in Brussels, I expected it to be a routine speaking engagement. After all, it is a mainstream conservative gathering that has hosted an event in Brussels before, as well as similar conferences in London, Washington DC, Rome, and Miami. Speakers typically include leading political figures from mainstream parties, civil society leaders, authors, political philosophers, historians, and clergy.
As I soon discovered, there was nothing routine about this event. Not least because I was turning up to the conference’s third venue after the first and second venues cancelled their bookings at short notice. Despite facing significant pressure and even direct threats against him, the owner of the third venue heroically refused to bow down. And that’s when the real drama began.
Around Tuesday lunchtime, police besieged the venue and tried to shut down the event on the orders of the municipal mayor of Brussels. In a remarkable four-page decree worth reading in full, the mayor justified his actions in part because some speakers were ‘reputed to be traditionalists’, and because of the possibility that ‘ethically conservative’ views (which he described as ‘hostility to legalised abortion, same-sex unions, etc.’) and a ‘Eurosceptic attitude’ would be espoused at the conference.
The hours that followed were surreal. For reasons not entirely clear, the police decided to allow the event to continue, but people could not enter. Those who were already on the inside could leave but not return, and those on the outside stood in the rain trying to make sense of it all. This led to the bizarre spectacle of Miriam Cates MP being smuggled into the event via a secret side door to deliver her keynote address on the highly controversial topic of ‘Save the Children’.
As global media began reporting on the scene, the actions of the mayor and police escalated into what can be described as an international diplomatic incident – a spokesman for Rishi Sunak criticised the attempted censorship, in addition to a former UK Home Secretary, the Hungarian Prime Minister, the Italian Prime Minister, and an American Senator who reportedly drafted a letter to the Belgian ambassador to the US. In Belgium, the Prime Minister called the day’s events ‘unacceptable’ and ‘unconstitutional’ and the Interior Minister added that ‘freedom of expression is a cornerstone of our democratic society.’
While such solidarity was welcome, it could not overturn the mayor’s decree.
With the conference in jeopardy, the legal organisation I lead, ADF International, was asked to provide legal support to the conference organisers to oppose this blatant attempt to censor views with which the mayor disagreed. Since I was not allowed to join my colleague and Belgian lawyer, Jean-Paul Van de Walle, inside the venue, the legal action was in part coordinated in its early stages through a wall of police.
Thanks to the efforts of Van de Walle and our network of local lawyers, Wouter Vaassen and Tristan Carolus, we were able to launch a succession of legal challenges amidst the chaos. The first two challenges were unsuccessful and things were not looking good for day two of NatCon. But miraculously, the Conseil d’État, the highest court in Belgium relating to issues of public administration, agreed to hear our third challenge in an emergency session at 10 p.m. on Tuesday night.
We gathered at ADF International’s Brussels office late into the evening, made the final preparations for oral arguments, and headed into court in the dead of night.
After what appeared to be a very good hearing, we waited for the legal judgment. Dramatically, with just hours to go until the doors were due to open for day two of NatCon, we received the decision.
In a critical victory for freedom of speech and assembly, the judge ruled in our favour, suspending the decree of the mayor, and enabling the conference to go ahead without police interference. Instead, my first meeting after arriving at the venue was a friendly sit-down with police leaders to discuss security arrangements for the day –the very same police that had blocked my entry less than 24 hours earlier. Rarely in my legal career have I witnessed so starkly the importance of the rule of law and a well-functioning judiciary.
It is reassuring that the Belgian legal system held strong against a tidal wave of pressure and upheld the basic freedoms of speech and assembly, and great credit must be given to a court system prepared to hear a case at 10 p.m. and issue a lengthy written decision in the middle of the night.
But it is shocking that a massive legal effort was needed to allow this peaceful conference to go ahead and serious questions still need to be answered. Why did the first two venues cancel their bookings and what pressure was placed on them? What accountability will there be for a mayor prepared to deploy riot police as his own personal thought police? What is stopping a similar set of circ*mstances from unfolding the next time an event takes place that the cancel-culture mob does not like?
This whole debacle has significantly tarnished the image of Brussels, which purports to be the political heart of Europe, in a year of elections for the European Parliament and in many countries on the continent.
In these upcoming elections, the people have the final say. Europe’s leaders would do well to demonstrate their regard for the freedom of their citizens, especially now that the world is on notice that fundamental freedoms are not as safe as many may have assumed.
