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US Suspends EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak After COVID-19 Evidence Uncovered By House Committee

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This is long overdue. Everyone paying attention knows about the evil Anthony Fauci, but Daszak was at the center of the Covid outbreak and the coverup.  At this point there can be little doubt that the Covid disaster was caused by gain-of-function research and that it resulted in massive profits for drug companies for an often-harmful vaccine that was completely unnecessary for healthy adults and children while inflicting a calamity for children’s education and for small businesses while enriching huge corporations. Not to mention enabling election fraud on a massive scale, with the GOP asleep. This time around they were aware of the danger.

From ZeroHedge: US Suspends EcoHealth Alliance, Peter Daszak After COVID-19 Evidence Uncovered By House Committee

EcoHealth Alliance, the nonprofit that Dr. Anthony Fauci used to offshore risky gain-of-function research 6 months before the Obama administration banned it, has finally been cut off by the US Government – along with its former president, Peter Daszak, for a period of five years following scrutiny over its work in Wuhan, China ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Peter Daszak toasts with Wuhan Institute of Virology ‘bat lady’ Shi Zhengli

The decision by the Department of Health and Human Services was based on findings by the House Oversight Committee, which announced on Friday that EcoHealth and Daszak had been disbarred.

“Justice for the American people was served today,” said Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in a statement. “Bad actor EcoHealth Alliance and its corrupt former President, Dr. Peter Daszak, were formally debarred by HHS for using taxpayer funds to facilitate dangerous gain-of-function research in China. Today’s decision is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide.”

EcoHealth funding had been suspended in May by HHS, which recommended a permanent ban on funding the nonprofit.

“Given that a lab-related incident involving gain-of-function research is the most likely origin of COVID-19, EcoHealth and its former President should never again receive a single cent from the U.S. taxpayer,” Comer continued.

As journalist Paul Thacker noted in June, the NIH lied about EcoHealth’s gain-of-function research, feeding lies to reporters, while lying to Congress. Meanwhile, former NIAID director Dr. Anthony Fauci ‘prompted’ the fabrication of a paper by a cadre of scientists aimed at disproving the Covid-19 lab-leak theory.

According to US Right to Know, emails obtained in 2020 revealed that a statement in The Lancet authored by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” was organized by employees of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit group that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The emails obtained via public records requests show that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak drafted the Lancet statement, and that he intended it to “not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person” but rather to be seen as “simply a letter from leading scientists”.

To review;

The US was doing risky gain-of-function research on US soil until 2014, when the Obama administration banned it. Four months before the ban, Dr. Fauci offshored it to Wuhan, China through New York nonprofit, EcoHealth Alliance.

After Sars-CoV-2 broke out down the street from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Fauci engaged in a massive campaign to deny the possibility of a lab-leak from the lab he funded, and instead pin the blame on a yet-to-be discovered zoonotic intermediary species.

And if you’d like to dig even deeper, this is perhaps the best, most comprehensive summary of the “proximal origin” timeline.

Further reading:

From Mondoweiss: Gaza ceasefire reveals Israel’s fragility, and the transformative power of resistance

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An Arab intellectual meditates on the ceasefire deal. A gift for Trump, while for Biden “They leave as faithful sons of a political legacy that demands unyielding allegiance to Israel, a history that exacted their loyalty even as it unraveled them. They are tragic liberals…” Israel: “Despite claims of strategic success—a weakened Hezbollah, a diminished Iran, and a battered Hamas—Israel has not secured the total victory it seeks. Hezbollah remains a capable force, Iran’s regional influence endures, and Hamas persists as a reminder of the limits of Israel’s military campaigns, while Yemen proved its capacity to disrupt global shipping. The mainstream media amplifies claims of strategic triumph, yet the reality is far more sobering: the once-mythologized Israeli military now appears both brutal and highly ineffective, its aura of invincibility shattered on the global stage.”

Gaza ceasefire reveals Israel’s fragility, and the transformative power of resistance

In the wake of a ceasefire, many will try to force the discourse into a binary of victory and defeat. But as the dust settles, a true picture emerges: one of the fragility of the Israeli colony, and the transformative power of resistance.
By   
Palestinians react to news of a ceasefire agreement with Israel, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, 15 January 2025. According to US and Hamas officials, Israel and Hamas agreed on a hostage deal and ceasefire, to be implemented in the coming days. (Photo by Omar Ashtawy apaimages)Palestinians Palestinians react to news of a ceasefire agreement with Israel, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, 15 January 2025. According to US and Hamas officials, Israel and Hamas agreed on a hostage deal and ceasefire, to be implemented in the coming days. (Photo by Omar Ashtawy apaimages)

The Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a pivotal announcement on Wednesday evening, confirmed that Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) have finalized a deal designed to halt Israel’s genocidal and destructive war in the Gaza Strip for at least 42 days. This accord is essentially a reworking of the previously proposed ceasefire arrangement in May by the Biden administration, when Hamas declared its acceptance of the ceasefire agreement, while Israel reneged on it and continued with the war. It turned out Israel wanted time to both bring out more destruction in Gaza, more death, and use its mix of cards to subdue Hezbollah in Lebanon. Within this context, Qatar emerges once again as one of the biggest winners in this agreement, solidifying its role as a critical node in the architecture of regional diplomacy. The small Gulf state has mastered the art of maneuvering between adversaries, leveraging its relationships with seemingly irreconcilable actors to mediate where others falter. In doing so, Doha reaffirms its place as the capital of dealmaking, able to turn to Trump with a simple pitch: if deals are your game, this is where they happen.

For Donald Trump, the agreement is less a diplomatic breakthrough than a carefully wrapped narrative gift. It hands him a clean storyline of triumph—the return of Israeli captives, the cessation of conflict—crafted perfectly to match his populist brand of politics. It slots seamlessly into the mythology of his presidency: the consummate dealmaker, the leader who succeeds where others fail, the disruptor who shakes the foundations of entrenched stalemates and deadly status quos.

As for Joe Biden and his foreign policy team, however, the agreement serves as a grim epilogue to their tenure—a fading shadow at the helm of power, lingering but powerless. They leave as faithful sons of a political legacy that demands unyielding allegiance to Israel, a history that exacted their loyalty even as it unraveled them. They are tragic liberals, not merely complicit but tragically compelled, witnesses and participants in a machinery of destruction that predates their time and will outlive it. Their defense, when it comes, will rest not on agency but on necessity, as though they were bound by forces beyond their control. And yet, there was a choice. They chose monstrosity and they leave office knowing full well that it could have been otherwise.

Israel’s fractured narrative

In Israel, the agreement marks the unraveling of one narrative and the tentative construction of another—a precarious attempt to shift from the fantasy of total victory to the pragmatism of sufficient victory. Israel now confronts the limits of its aspirations, compelled to take solace in its geopolitical accomplishments. These include its intelligence apparatus’s success in infiltrating the Lebanese resistance and its capacity to wield immense destructive power in Gaza and Lebanon. However, these celebrated achievements remain overshadowed by unresolved contradictions. Beneath the triumphalist rhetoric lies a fundamental question: what, in tangible terms, has Israel achieved?

Despite claims of strategic success—a weakened Hezbollah, a diminished Iran, and a battered Hamas—Israel has not secured the total victory it seeks. Hezbollah remains a capable force, Iran’s regional influence endures, and Hamas persists as a reminder of the limits of Israel’s military campaigns, while Yemen proved its capacity to disrupt global shipping. The mainstream media amplifies claims of strategic triumph, yet the reality is far more sobering: the once-mythologized Israeli military now appears both brutal and highly ineffective, its aura of invincibility shattered on the global stage.

This reckoning extends beyond the battlefield. The military’s failures—its inability to anticipate threats, or deliver decisive outcomes—will slowly ripple through Israeli society, exposing long-simmering tensions. Delays in finalizing a ceasefire, prioritization of settlement expansion over recovering prisoners for many rightwing forces, and the Haredim’s refusal to enlist have deepened internal fractures. These tensions are further compounded by attempts to redraw the state’s legal framework and the economic and social fallout of the war. For a state that ties its survival to military dominance, these cracks reveal the limits of unity after the war. As Israeli society will now have to reckon both with its crimes, its successes, and its new image in the world.

Israel’s most exceptional achievement lies not in securing victory but in showcasing unrelenting devastation—a capacity to destroy on an immense scale. This persistence in destruction, rather than achieving security, underscores the lengths to which Israel is willing—and permitted—to go. In this paradox lies its most profound failure: the collapse of its ethical narrative and the erosion of its moral legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

The ceasefire further exposes a growing distrust in the promise of safety along Israel’s militarized frontiers, both in the North and South. The illusion of an impenetrable fortress is eroding, as borders remain volatile and adversaries endure. Israelis living on the frontier are forced to confront the unsettling truth that the mechanisms designed to ensure their security are no longer sufficient, their efficacy undermined by the enduring realities of resistance and occupation.

Unable to extinguish the Palestinians or their political claims, and unwilling to engage in a grammar of recognition, Israel has condemned itself to perpetual war. This condition, far from reflecting strength, highlights Israel’s acute dependency on its imperial patron, whose unwavering support has become more essential than ever to its continued supremacy fused with racialized discourse in the region. The addiction to war leaves Israel navigating a path that offers neither resolution nor reconciliation—only the persistence of its contradictions and its role in defining the frontiers of monstrosity in the twenty-first century. Israel comes out of this war with a changed strategic environment, some of these changes will play for its benefit, and will enable it to buy time. But it also comes having lost much morally, politically and indeed in its own social and political infighting.

[Continues]

Horus on Substack: “A classic essay from 2012 by Brenton Sanderson…”

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Classic indeed!
Horus

A classic essay from 2012 by Brenton Sanderson on how Australia was re-defined by politicians and academics in order to justify the mass importation of strangers from all over the world, which they are currently doing at the fastest rate in history, obviously with the aim of reducing white Australians to a hated minority, as is occurring in nearly every white country. These things do not just happen. They are driven by particular anti-white activists who can be overthrown and prosecuted as traitors.

theoccidentalobserver.net

The War on White Australia: A Case Study in the Culture of Critique, Part 1 of 5 – The Occidental Observer

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Disappointing interview of Mel Gibson by Joe Rogan

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Around 26:40 they start discussing the resistance to Gibson’s Passion of the Christ movie, attributing what was an assault by Jewish Hollywood as just due to Hollywood secularism.

Some other material on Gibson from the TOO archives:

“What’s Up with Mel Gibson”

Mel Gibson has announced that he will be involved in a movie about the revolt led by Judah Maccabee against the Greeks in 160 BC—the basis for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Patrick Goldstein in the LATimes (“Mel’s miracle: doing right by Maccabee” 9/10/11; apparently not available online) says that “Gibson is back in good standing in Hollywood, at least at Warner Bros., arguably the industry’s leading studio.” (On the other hand, Jim Caviezel says that his career has been damaged because he played Jesus in Gibson’s Passion which was widely detested by Jewish activists.)

Jewish activist organizations have expressed their displeasure with Gibson’s current venture. Abe Foxman called it a “travesty,” and the Simon Wiesenthal’s Marvin Hier said, among other things, that it would be like having “a White supremacist  trying to play Martin Luther King Jr. [!] It’s simply an insult to the Jews.” No surprise there.

Goldstein thinks it’s just fine for Gibson to be involved, noting the parallels of the Maccabee story with Gibson’s signature movie role in Braveheart: An embattled warrior fighting for his people. He expects that Gibson will produce a properly heroic depiction because he “must surely realize that a film from him that in any way undercuts the heroism of Maccabee would be a career killer of the highest order. But it would be almost as bad if he were doing the film as an act of penance for his sins, since dutiful acts of penance rarely lend themselves to great artistry.”

If Gibson is doing this as penance, it would represent groveling taken to a new low.

Jeffrey Goldberg seems a bit skeptical. He calls Gibson “Hollywood’s leading anti-Semite” but also notes his long fascination with the Maccabee story. Goldberg clearly doesn’t buy Gibson’s excuse for his anti-Jewish rant when he was arrested for DUI:

He answered me directly: “I was loaded, and some stupid shit can come out of your mouth when you’re loaded.”

But from what dark corner of his soul did this terrible accusation—that Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world—emanate? He said, “That day they were marching into Lebanon. It was one of those things. It was on the news.”

The “they” in question is the Israel Defense Forces. I found this answer to be proof, of course, of Gibson’s anti-Semitic tendencies. Most drunk people, when stopped by the police, don’t launch into tirades against Jews. He was obviously preoccupied with the putative sins of Jewish people. …

I’d have to agree with Goldberg in the sense that his rant probably does indicate a problem with Jews released by the alcohol. An unbuttoned Abe Foxman arrested for DUI would probably rant about Hitler, Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan as causing all the world’s problems.

Gibson’s negative views of Jews likely stem from his traditional Catholic theology [also apparent in the Rogan interview], much apparent in his Passion (and the reason Gibson was forced to endure a deluge of hostility from Jews for making it).  The fact is that the idea that Jews are responsible for wars is part of the ancient loyalty theme of anti-Semitism (see here, p. 60 ff)—that Jews have interests as Jews that are not always the same as those of the country they happen to live in, so they have at times pushed for wars that haven’t necessarily been in the national interest. There is a great deal more than a grain of truth to it. For example, Charles Lindbergh’s accusation that the Jews were an important group pushing for US entry into WWII was quite correct, and you are just not paying attention if you are unaware that Jewish neoconservatives with close ties to the U.S. government, the media, and the organized Jewish community—not to mention close family ties and close personal relationships to the political and military elites that run Israel—were the main force responsible for getting the US to invade Iraq. The image of Israel as a peaceful but beleaguered power in the Middle East conjured up by Goldberg’s mention of the Israeli Defense Force is the stuff of Zionist propaganda and self-delusion. And now the same forces are preparing the US for a war with Iran.

…

I think some us had a vague hope that Gibson was a closeted White patriot and that he could be a White savior—someone with enough money and popularity to really make a difference. We thought that he really identified as William Wallace battling for his people and that he would perhaps try to be a leader in the battle against White dispossession. I have been involved in several conversations with strongly identified Whites where Gibson was mentioned this way.

But making a movie about a Jewish hero doesn’t seem consistent with that.

And his interview with Rogan confirms that in spades. BTW, the Maccabees movies was shelved  because it was deemed too “controversial,” because of Gibson’s putative role in it. The “move comes after Jewish groups were outraged to learn that Gibson would produce and direct.”

*   *   *

One Rachel Abramowitz says the following:

I saw him in 2004 during the media meltdown of “The Passion of the Christ.” Huddled in a swank hotel room, Gibson had aged considerably and appeared harried and even paranoid, which is a strange quality for a gazillionaire mega-star. “I’ve been subjected to religious persecution, persecution as an artist, persecution as an American, persecution as a man,” he told me, which was a little hard to take, given that he didn’t have a concentration camp number on his wrist or hadn’t just spent five years in a labor camp in Siberia.

Still, he was remarkably warm and seemed genuinely surprised when I told him how much “The Passion of the Christ” upset me. As a Jew, it made me feel like I had a target on my back. “I’m sorry if it’s caused you to feel that way, because you’re a friend of mine and I love you,” he said sincerely. “It completely tears my heart out when I see you like that.”

So Abramowitz finds Gibson a “nightmare on two legs” because he made a movie of his version of the crucifixion — a version that is fits squarely with the Gospel account and mainstream historical Christianity. The persecution Gibson endured for this “crime” can’t even be termed ‘persecution’; since that word is reserved for victims of real suffering such as the Holocaust survivors. And it doesn’t help to say that you are sorry that you caused such pain. What matters is that you offended Jewish sensibilities.

This Hollywood Reporter piece notes superagent Ari Emanuel’s change of heart on Gibson:

Emanuel’s essay referenced a 2006 piece he wrote for HuffPost in which he said entertainment companies should stop working with Mel Gibson after the antisemitic remarks he made that year during an arrest for drunk driving. In his new op-ed, Emanuel explained that he has since recommended Gibson for roles following the actor’s public apology and “commitment to understanding the consequences of his actions,” and that he would be open to helping West do the same.

There’s also a discussion of Gibson’s father with no mention of his politics. Here’s from James Edwards’ recent summary of his years interviewing interesting people, including Hutton Gibson:

Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton, made several appearances before his passing. Hollywood media attacked him furiously for it, but he never backed down. AFP readers might remember that Hutton Gibson was also a friend of Willis Carto and spoke at some gatherings that Willis organized.

From the NYTimes obituary:

In 2003, as Mel Gibson was directing “The Passion of the Christ,” his film about the crucifixion, Hutton Gibson gave an interview to The New York Times laced with comments about conspiracy theories. The planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, had been remote-controlled, he claimed (without saying by whom). The number of Jews killed in the Holocaust was wildly inflated, he went on.

“Go and ask an undertaker or the guy who operates the crematorium what it takes to get rid of a dead body,” Mr. Gibson said. “It takes one liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six million?”

In a radio interview a week before the February 2004 release of “The Passion,” Mr. Gibson went further, saying of the Holocaust, “It’s all — maybe not all fiction — but most of it is.” The comments added to an already simmering controversy that the film was anti-Semitic; the chairmen of two major studios told The Times that they wouldn’t work with Mel Gibson in the future.

Interviewed by Diane Sawyer of ABC News, the actor was asked to repudiate his father’s statements. He stopped short of doing so, saying: “He’s my father. Gotta leave it alone, Diane. Gotta leave it alone.”

Candace Owens interviews Phil Tourney on the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty

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Candace Owens is getting completely based on Jewish issues. Great interview which once again shows the power of the Israel Lobby over the U.S. government and mainstream media. I doubt that Tucker Carlson would be bold enough to do some honest journalism on this.

Hegseth Grilled by Feminist Fantasists

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Hegseth Grilled by Feminist Fantasists

Dems Go To War For Women in Combat, But Not Swimming

Wouldn’t you know it? Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s grilling by the Senate Armed Services Committee about his opposition to women in combat would have to come the very week that Los Angeles’ all-female leadership team was performing so masterfully at subduing wildfires. The way things are going, the fires should be out by Memorial Day.

Between the gals who just let about a third of L.A. go up in smoke and Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, the 5-foot-tall “combat veteran,” Hegseth had his work cut out for him. (Adding to his difficulty, women didn’t want Pete to solve this problem for them, they just wanted him to listen.)

As Ernst could have explained to Hegseth, it’s one thing to acknowledge the blinding fact that females don’t stand a chance against males in tennis, soccer, running, throwing, swimming, discus throwing, pole vaulting, etc. But that has NOTHING to do with women’s abilities when it comes to trivial things like policing, fire-fighting and waging war. (To prove it, Ernst wears Army fatigue high heels!)

More than 100 women athletes — including Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest tennis players of all time — submitted a brief to the Supreme Court last year that cited study after study after study establishing beyond cavil that human males have significantly more muscle mass, strength, spacial awareness and protection from stress fractures compared to women. (Among other things.)

E.g.:

— “On average women have 50% to 60% of men’s upper arm muscle … 65% to 75% of men’s thigh muscle … 50% to 60% of men’s upper limb strength and 60% to 80% of men’s leg strength,” the brief noted.

— “The athletic advantages conferred by men’s larger and stronger bones includes ‘greater leverage for muscular limb power exerted in jumping, throwing, or other explosive power activities’ and greater male protection from stress fractures.”

— “[O]n average men are 7% to 8% taller with longer, denser, and stronger bones.”

— “There is a clear sex difference in both muscle mass and strength even adjusting for sex differences in height and weight.”

— “The gender gap has not evolved since 1983.”

If that doesn’t convince them, we’re forcing the court to watch a video of the FC Dallas under-15 boys squad beating the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in 2017.

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This is to say nothing of the mental and psychological differences between the sexes, detailed in Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate.” Illustrating the male propensity for violence, Pinker cites the case of a surgeon and anesthesiologist who came to blows in the operating room, while the patient lay on the table waiting for her gall bladder to be removed.

But you must erase all of that from your memory when the subject is parachuting into enemy territory to clear terrorist cells; engaging in hand-to-hand combat with a 300-pound psycho in a public housing crack den; or lugging 75 pounds of gear to a raging fire, then carrying a full-grown man out of a burning building.

Reality must not be allowed to intrude on feminist fantasies about girl cops, girl firemen and girl soldiers.

“Stonewall” Ernst, for example, is a combat veteran for bravely driving trucks back and forth from Kuwait to Iraq for three or four months, during the 2003 hostilities, without ever having to parallel park. She never encountered resistance, much less an enemy combatant, except one day when some Iraqi boys laid down on the road in front of her vehicle. Thanks to Ernst’s quick reflexes and steely resolve, she vanquished the rapscallions by proceeding to drive slowly, forcing the guys to roll out of her way.

Based on Ernst’s combat medal for that feat of derring-do, I’m submitting the names of the male park rangers who crashed through a climate activist protest at Burning Man last year for the following awards: Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star and Purple Heart. Also military pensions, early boarding on all commercial flights and a lifetime of people saying, “Thank you for your service.”

Someone said — I can’t find the quote and neither can Grok — that the final aim of the totalitarian is to force people to humiliate themselves by affirming as true what they know to be false.

Anyone passingly familiar with Lia Thomas, Imane Khelif, Riley Gaines, Martina Navratilova or dozens of other athletes, but who nonetheless claims to support women in the military, on police forces or in fire departments, has been fully subjugated. He’s lying and knows he’s lying.

If this lunacy prevails, Pete may have to invoke the nuclear option and announce that he’s a lesbian.

COPYRIGHT 2025 ANN COULTER

The Telegraph: The great firewall keeping out the hard-Right collapses across Europe

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The great firewall keeping out the hard-Right collapses across Europe

Victory for Austria’s hard-Right marks a paradigm shift for the continent as traditional coalitions between moderate parties crumble

Establishment parties in Austria have failed to strike a pact to keep Herbert Kickl's hard-Right faction from power

Establishment parties in Austria have failed to strike a pact to keep Herbert Kickl’s hard-Right faction from power

James Rothwell Europe Editor. Meike Eijsberg Data journalist

12 January 2025 10:05am GMT

The next chancellor of Austria could be Europe’s most Right-wing leader after establishment parties failed to strike a pact to keep a populist pro-Putin faction out of power.

The victory for Herbert Kickl’s Eurosceptic and anti-migrant Freedom Party of Austria (FPO) marks a paradigm shift on the continent as traditional coalition building between moderate parties falters.

The centre-Right People’s Party (OVP) and other establishment groups in Austria initially refused to hold coalition talks with the FPO after federal elections in September 2024.

But their attempt to form a “firewall” – or “cordon sanitaire” – against the far-Right failed after negotiations among themselves to form the next government collapsed.

Now, talks between the far-Right FPO and conservative OVP are on, sparking protests across the country that saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets in anger last week.

The cordon sanitaire, which is formed by pacts between traditional parties to keep extremists from government, has a long history in Europe.

But as more and more hard-Right parties rise to prominence, such firewalls have come under increasing pressure.

Jeremy Cliffe, the editorial director and senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said: “Austria was once an outlier, now it looks more like a forerunner of wider trends across the continent.

“The so-called firewall is breaking down across Europe, albeit at different speeds. The growth of the radical Right vote combined with the fragmentation of the rest of the political spectrum is making it ever-harder to form majorities against it.

“The European radical Right is here to stay for the foreseeable future,” he added.

The average vote share of far-Right parties in 35 European democracies hit a record high of 14.1 per cent in 2024, according to Telegraph analysis of Parlgov data.

The rise coincides with a decline in support for the Left, slumping to a record low of 40.6 per cent.

Prof Frank Furedi, the executive director of MCC Brussels, a conservative think tank, predicted that 2025 would be the year that the “monopoly of power” would be challenged and that the days of the cordon sanitaire were numbered.

“I think that the cordon sanitaire is fast unravelling…You cannot put increasingly popular Right-wing parties under a political quarantine,” he told the Telegraph.

“The old mainstream parties no longer possess the authority to ignore the support enjoyed by populist parties and certainly the millions of citizens who have opted to support these movements are not going to allow their voices to be ignored,” he said.

In 2002, voters in France joined forces to support centre-Right Jacques Chirac and exclude far-Right Jean-Marie Le Pen

In 2002, voters in France joined forces to support centre-Right Jacques Chirac and exclude far-Right Jean-Marie Le Pen Credit: Claude Paris /Ap

In France, a broad constellation of Left-wing parties joined forces to form the Popular Front after being convinced that riots in 1934 were an attempt at a fascist takeover.

This tradition has continued. Voters of all political persuasions joined forces in 2002 to support the centre-Right Jacques Chirac against the far-Right Jean-Marie Le Pen in the second round run-off for the presidential elections. Mr Chirac won 82.21 per cent of the vote share over Mr Le Pen, whose death this week at the age of 90 was greeted with street parties in Paris.

Last summer, Leftist factions formed the New Popular Front to prevent Marine Le Pen, who has brought her father’s Holocaust-denying party back into mainstream French politics, from seizing power in snap parliamentary elections called by Emmanuel Macron.

After the July vote, Mr Macron named Michel Barnier as the prime minister of a Right-leaning minority government. It promised to crack down on illegal migration to placate Ms Le Pen’s National Rally but collapsed after three months, when she withdrew her tacit support.

In nearby Belgium, the far-Right Vlaams Belang, which has long been blocked by a cordon sanitaire, came second in elections held in July. Lengthy coalition negotiations have still not resulted in a new government.

“Macron’s inability to form a stable government in France, Spain’s fragile minority coalition, now the collapse of Austria’s ‘grand coalition’ talks – it all points to the growing difficulty of forming viable governments while excluding the radical Right,” Mr Cliffe said.

Elsewhere, establishment parties in The Netherlands and Sweden have found ways to involve far-Right pirates in government, while maintaining an appearance of exclusion.

Michel Barnier's Right-leaning minority government in France collapsed after just three months

Michel Barnier’s Right-leaning minority government in France collapsed after just three months Credit: Ludovic Marin/Shutterstock

The Sweden Democrats are propping up a conservative coalition of less controversial Right-wing parties but they are not officially part of the government. However, their influence is clear in the once liberal Scandinavian country’s crackdown on illegal migration.

Mark Rutte was the longest serving prime minister in Dutch history before his government collapsed in 2023. During his nearly 14 years in office, Mr Rutte had always made plain that his pro-business VVD alliance would never enter a coalition with Geert Wilders, the veteran anti-Islam firebrand.

Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, Mr Rutte’s successor, vowed to drive down migrant numbers but did not rule out a pact with Mr Wilders and his PVV party, which won a landslide victory.

After extensive negotiations, a coalition deal was struck whereby Mr Wilders would not officially be part of the Dutch cabinet but one of his party members would take on the job of minister for migration. It was not long before Mr Wilders claimed credit for The Netherlands’ “strictest ever” asylum policy.

The Austrian OVP has suggested it could enter into a coalition with the FPO in a deal that would exclude Mr Kickl.

Firewall is ‘losing effectiveness’

The centre of pro-EU parties held in the European Parliament after bloc-wide elections in July also saw a surge in support for Right-wing alliances.

A cordon sanitaire intends to shut out hard Eurosceptic nationalist unions from influential posts but before the elections, the centre-Right adopted many of the policies they championed, such as a backlash against Brussels’ Net Zero regulations.

According to Prof Furedi, the cordon sanitaire is losing “effectiveness” because of the emergence of soft and hard Eurosceptic parliamentary groups.

“As mainstream parties seek to win back voters they are often adopting elements of its political offer, narrowing the gap and making cooperation less of a leap,” agreed Mr Cliffe.

Belgium's far-Right Vlaams Belang came second in elections held in July 2024

Belgium’s far-Right Vlaams Belang came second in elections held in July 2024 Credit: Shutterstock

“In some countries we will see growing arguments for letting radical Right parties burst their own bubble by assuming power and all the challenges it brings. It’s a risky strategy.”

For Andrew Duff, a senior policy fellow at the European Policy Centre think tank in Brussels, the risk of contagion from extremist parties is very real.

“Cordon sanitaires were meant to stop the spread of infectious diseases. When they stopped working, other interventions were needed. Nowadays, in Europe the far-Right must be tackled head on by constant argument and persuasion,” he said.

The former Liberal Democrat MEP told the Telegraph that establishment parties should not be tempted to try and defang the far-Right by giving it entry to government.

“Why condemn states to even worse governments than they have already? Centrists should be less intimidated than they seem to have become.” Mr Duff added.

German firewall remains most robust

The situation in Austria has raised concerns in Germany after the recent state-level electoral successes of Alternative For Germany (AFD), which is classified by Berlin intelligence as “a suspected Right-wing extremist group”.

The AFD is polling in second place behind the centre-Right CDU and ahead of Olaf Scholz’s socialist faction before Germany’s general election in February.

Mainstream parties refused absolutely to cooperate with the AfD at a national level in a “Brandmauer” – or firewall – over a legacy of the country’s experience of the Nazi regime.

The cordon sanitaire remains most robust in Germany for obvious historical reasons. “Coalitions including the AfD at federal or state level are still unthinkable,” Mr Cliffe confirmed.

“But there have been instances of case-by-case cooperation at the local government level in the eastern states where the party is strongest. I would not be surprised if those became more frequent in the coming years.”

Herbert Kickl's FPO party was founded in the 1950s under a previous Nazi lawmaker

Herbert Kickl’s FPO party was founded in the 1950s under a previous Nazi lawmaker Credit: Helmut Fohringer/Getty Images

Once a cordon sanitaire is broken, it is very difficult to rebuild, as events in Vienna have shown. The ring fence in Austria keeping the FPO from national government was first broken in 2000 but this will be the first time that the party is the senior partner in a coalition.

Mr Kickl now expects to become the FPO’s first chancellor since the party was founded in the 1950s under a leader who had been a senior SS officer and Nazi lawmaker.

The group has a “friendship pact” with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party and when Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, addressed the Austrian parliament in March 2024, FPO MPs walked out in protest.

“Honest government must be preceded by honest negotiations,” Mr Kickl said when Austria’s president tasked him with beginning coalition talks after the centrist firewall failed.

“No little games, no tricks, no sabotage.”

The talks continue.