Right-wing politicians score points on Brussels attack

Belgian, British, Dutch, French, and Italian eurosceptics have blamed Tuesday’s (22 March) attacks in Brussels on EU policy. Republican candidates in the US and a Russian spokeswoman also made inflammatory comments.

Ukip, the British party campaigning for the UK to leave the EU in a referendum in June, published a press release just one hour after the fatal bomb blast in Maelbeek metro station.

Mike Hookem i, its defence spokesman and an MEP, blamed the attacks on EU free movement and on Germany’s decision to welcome refugees.

“That is why I’m once again calling for an immediate suspension of the Schengen [free travel] agreement, the re-establishment of border controls and an end to the EU’s open door migration policies,” he said.

Nigel Farage i, the Ukip leader, was widely criticised for posting messages on Twitter that seemed to be referencing the Brexit debate.

“I'm very upset by events in Brussels today and even more depressed for the future,” he said while the attacks were still going on.

He later retweeted a post by Allison Pearson, a Telegraph columnist, who described Brussels as “the jihadist capital of Europe,” adding: “And the Remainers dare to say we're safer in the EU!".

The main groups campaigning for the UK to leave the EU - Grassroots Out, Leave.EU and Vote Leave - did not issue statements. But the Ukip message was echoed by anti-EU British dailies such as The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Express.

Their comments prompted an angry reaction in social media and a rebuke by British PM David Cameron i, who called Ukip’s comment “inappropriate” at a time of mourning.

But with the Out campaign in any case ahead in polls, the value of the British pound fell the same day as investors speculated that the events will prompt a knee-jerk swing toward the Out vote.

“Whilst terrorism and migration are very different issues, they’ve been politically linked … there is fear by investors this could breed isolationism and promote the leave campaign,” Jane Foley, an analyst at Dutch lender Rabobank, told The Wall Street Journal.

Wider Europe

Geert Wilders i, the Dutch anti-immigrant politician, whose Freedom Party leads in national polls, told Breitbart, a US news agency, the attacks mean “we must close our national borders and detain all the jihadists whom we have foolishly allowed to return from Syria.”

“The cause of all this bloodshed is Islam. We need to de-Islamise the West,” he added.

Speaking from Canada, Marine Le Pen i, the leader of the French far-right party, the National Front (FN), who is seen as a contender in French presidential election next year, said: “I don't get the sense that Islamic fundamentalism is being treated like the threat it really is … whoever condemns Islamic fundamentalism is accused of Islamophobia.”

Two days before, her niece and National Front MP Marion Marechal-Le Pen said on French TV that if the FN has been in power there would "probably" have been no attacks in Paris last November.

Gian Marco Centinaio and Massimiliano Fedriga, the leaders of the far-right Northern League party in Italy, said in the Wall Street Journal: “EU institutions are weak, fragile, helpless and are turning the other way, allowing these massacres.”

Vlaams Belang, a Belgian anti-immigrant party, said on Twitter: “Please close the borders. We can not stop terrorism if they remain open.”

In Germany, the right-wing backlash came from the general public.

When Steffen Siebert published a comment calling for “solidarity” with Belgium, it prompted a spate of angry rebukes on social media.

“Your boss [chancellor Angela Merkel] is still bringing these Islamists to Germany in hordes,” one Twitter user, Roland Z, said. Another Twitter user, Eva-Maria Schultheis, said: “Merkel welcomed them all with open arms and this is what it has led to.”

US candidates

Some of the most extreme reactions came from Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, two US presidential candidates for the right-wing Republican Party.

Trump told the Fox News broadcaster that the US should “close up our borders to people until we figure out what is going on.” He later told a rally of American Jews that Brussels is a “disaster.”

He also claimed, falsely, in an interview with the CBS broadcaster, that “they have areas in Brussels where the police can't even go … if you look at Paris, believe me it's the same thing.”

His rival Ted Cruz called for police patrols of Muslim districts in US cities.

He said in a written statement the Brussels attacks are due to a “toxic mix of migrants … and isolated, radical Muslim neighbourhoods.”

“We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighbourhoods before they become radicalised,” he said.

The official Russian reaction was muted.

Russian president Vladimir Putin i and his PM Dmitry Medvedev voiced condolences. Even Dmitry Rogozin, the outspoken deputy PM, said no more than that Russia and the EU should cooperate more on counter-terrorism.

The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, blamed the attacks on “the policy of double standards” in which governments “divide terrorists into good and bad … support them in the Middle East and the North Caucasus, while assuming that they cannot go over to the other side of the planet.”

’Double standards’

In a sign that she went off-message, the Russian mission to the EU complained to EUobserver after it reported that Zakharova had blamed "double standards" in Western foreign policy.

“Ms. Zakharova said no such thing,” a Russian press officer said by email.

“I would also draw your attention to the condolences published on the social media accounts (FB, Twitter) and website of our permanent mission,” he added.

But for its part, Russian broadcaster RT the same day published an op-ed by Marcus Papadopoulos, a UK-based analyst, saying: “The West has brought terrorists attacks on their own people by supporting for decades Islamist terrorists trying to achieve geostrategic objectives.”

Russian TV channel Lifenews and internet news agency Sputnik also published a strange story.

They reported that the suicide attackers at the Brussels airport were two Belarusian brothers - Ivan and Aleksey Dovbash - originally from North Caucasus and that Russian intelligence had warned Western counterparts that they were plotting an attack.

But Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian wing of US news agency Radio Liberty, debunked the story by publishing an interview with the two men.

“If we are suicide bombers, why are we are still alive?” one of the two men said.