MCC Brussels Podcast

Denmark isn’t “closed.” It’s controlled.In this Deep Dive, MCC Brussels’ John O’Brien sits down with Danish MEP Anders Vistisen from the Danish People's Party, to dissect the one European immigration model that actually works. Denmark’s approach is blunt, unapologetic, and stubbornly democratic: strict external controls, serious integration demands, honest statistics, and politicians who answer to voters.For decades, Danish governments—left and right—ignored the polite illusions pushed in Brussels and instead listened to the public. The result? Fewer illegal crossings, fewer ghettos, higher trust, and a country that refuses to tear up its social fabric to placate elite sentiment.What we cover:• How Denmark tightened asylum and family reunification rules—because voters demanded it• Why integration means language, values, responsibility and participation, not bureaucratic box-ticking• The cost of mass migration when skills don’t match the labour market• Free speech as Denmark’s pressure valve vs EU-style speech policing that drives grievances underground• Why dispersal, breaking up ghettos and preventing parallel societies actually works• What countries like Ireland can learn before social cohesion snaps under the weight of unmanaged inflows.If you want immigration to succeed, you need control, candour and a sense of national interest. Denmark shows what happens when a country refuses to sleepwalk into disaster—and chooses sovereignty over slogans.

This week, Jacob Reynolds is joined by Agnieszka Kolek and Richard Schenk to break down Brussels’ assault on X, Washington’s blunt verdict on Europe’s decline, and the Commission’s extraordinary pressure campaign against Belgium over frozen Russian assets.Brussels fines X to tame the last free platform.The Commission has slapped a €120 million penalty on Elon Musk’s platform, dressing it up as “transparency” enforcement. In reality, X is the only major network Brussels cannot control. It allows unfiltered footage, dissenting voices and inconvenient facts to circulate. So the EU is trying to discipline it through fines. America calls Europe a civilisation in decline.Washington’s new national security strategy says the quiet part out loud: Europe is losing confidence, population, and purpose. For all the EU’s grand rhetoric, the US sees a continent heading for demographic crisis and cultural fragmentation, while Central and Eastern Europe now look more stable than the West. The battle over Belgium’s Russian assets turns surreal.EU leaders insist Belgium must take on the entire financial risk of seizing frozen Russian funds to help Brussels fund the war in Ukraine.  A liability no other member state is willing to share. When Belgian leaders object, they are smeared as “pro-Russian.” It is less strategy than headless panic.  Brussels needs money for Ukraine, has none of its own, and is now bullying individual member states.

The gender lobby insists debate is forbidden. Institutions rewrite language. Women’s prisons, refuges and schools are paying the price -  and Europe’s political class looks the other way.In this Deep Dive, John O’Brien sits down with Kellie-Jay Keen (Posie Parker), one of the most outspoken defenders of women’s rights, for a blunt, unsparing conversation on how gender ideology captured institutions, intimidated feminists, and erased the very word woman.They discuss:• The moment she realised women were expected to stay silent• Why defining “woman” is now treated like blasphemy• How men are being placed in women’s prisons — and the cover-ups• Why the feminist movement caved so quickly• The indoctrination of a generation of children• What lawmakers must do if they wish to protect women and protect the truth• Why speaking plainly is now an act of civil courageHer message is simple:If you lose the word woman, you lose women.If you value open debate, freedom to speak plainly, and the protection of women and children, make sure to like, comment, and subscribe. It genuinely helps counter the algorithms that punish dissenting voices.And for more conversations like this, follow us every week on Deep Dives from MCC Brussels.

Register now for Europe’s most important conservative gathering: Battle for the Soul of Europe — 3–4 December in Brussels: https://soulofeurope.coThis week, Jacob Reynolds is joined by Richard Schenk and  Pieter Cleppe to tackle the EU’s revived chat control plan, the cold shower of COP30, and yet another Brussels values crusade against Hungary.Chat Control is backThe Commission has quietly revived proposals that would let authorities peer into your private messages. Encryption is being undermined and platforms are threatened with liability until they police speech for the EU. It is the surveillance state in all but name.COP30 ends in embarrassmentEurope’s leaders flew to Brazil to chant green slogans while the continent slides into deindustrialisation. China and India continue to raise emissions. The US has walked away. The EU keeps crippling its own industries and calls it leadership. Even developing nations pushed back against the Commission’s eco-fantasies.Another attack on HungaryThe Parliament returns to its favourite ritual. A new “rule of law” report built by activist NGOs and rubber-stamped by MEPs claims Hungary has violated EU values once again. As always, the target is national sovereignty and any government that refuses Brussels’ ideological line.Europe’s institutions are acting without restraint.From privacy to energy to democracy, this episode shows the scale of the challenge and the opportunity for a very different Europe.If you value open debate, like, comment and subscribe. The EU is tightening its grip on digital platforms and conservative voices need your support to stay heard.

For 30 years, COP summits have promised salvation and delivered nothing but slogans, moral posturing and declining European industry. At COP30, the same ritual repeats: frightened rhetoric, impossible targets, and yet more pressure on ordinary Europeans to pay for an ideology that refuses to face physics.Jacob Reynolds sits down with Samuele Furfari, engineer, former senior Commission official, and author of The Truth About COPs, 30 Years of Illusions, to dismantle the green mythology that Brussels treats as holy writ.Why have CO₂ emissions risen 65% since COP began?Why do China and India thrive while Europe de-industrialises?Why is “renewable energy” a fairytale built on fossil fuels?And why is the COP system, after three decades, little more than a travelling theatre for globalists who preach sacrifice while flying private?If you want to understand why Europe’s energy policy is collapsing, and what should replace the climatist dogma,  this conversation is essential.

Register now for Europe’s most important conservative gathering: Battle for the Soul of Europe — 3–4 December in Brussels: https://soulofeurope.coEurope Runs Out of Money for Ukraine, V4 Regroups, and the Parliament Tries to Police DemocracyThe EU’s crazy solution to fund the Ukraine warBrussels is scrambling to fund a war it can no longer afford. With budget deficits rising across Europe, EU leaders are eyeing frozen Russian assets held in Belgium. This move  could blow up the Euro’s credibility and trigger a financial backlash from Beijing to Jakarta. Our guests explain why this is not strategy but panic dressed up as policy.The Visegrad Four return?Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia and Poland may be rediscovering their shared interests: sovereignty, energy security, and a refusal to accept Brussels-imposed migration quotas. A new patriotic bloc could be forming and Europe’s establishment won’t like it.Parliamentary democracy, EU-styleThe European Parliament is preparing a conference on “democratic resilience.” Behind the slogans: new mechanisms to steer national parliaments, sideline elected MPs, and empower unelected civic bodies that nobody voted for. It’s Brussels’ favourite trick: manufacturing the appearance of democracy while weakening the real thing.This week, host Jacob Reynolds is joined by Richard Schenk and Agnieszka Kolek to examine the stories shaping Europe’s future.Thanks to everyone who likes and comments. Your support genuinely cuts through an algorithm that is still stacked against conservative and patriotic voices. Keep sharing , and we’ll keep making the case for common sense.Follow MCC Brussels on social media:https://twitter.com/MCC_Brusselshttps://facebook.com/MCCBrusselshttps://linkedin.com/company/mcc-brussels/website:https://brussels.mcc.hu

Herman Kelly, President of the Irish Freedom Party, speaks passionately about the EU's destructive climate policies that threaten farmers' livelihoods, while Richard Schenk, a research analyst, sheds light on media bias and its impact on public perception. They discuss the notion of environmentalism as new feudalism and critique the EU's rigid migration policies. The conversation reveals a troubling synergy between state-funded media and propaganda, reinforcing the divide between ordinary citizens and EU institutions.

Join political commentator Richard Schenk and António Tânger Corrêa, MEP and Vice-President of Chega, as they dissect the shifting landscape of European politics. They discuss the potential collapse of leftist coalitions tied to radical Islamism, the surprising rise of Chega in Portugal, and the implications of recent Dutch elections as a backlash against bureaucratic governance. The duo also explores whether the European Court of Human Rights can be reformed and how traditional parties are losing their grip amid a blurring centrist system.

Host Jacob Reynolds is joined by sociologist and MCC Brussels Executive Director Frank Furedi, and Miguel Toledano, political adviser for Vox in the Patriots for Europe, to ask what happens when Europe’s leaders lose their sense of right and wrong, and why ordinary people are beginning to push back.France: Antifa Attack Mourning VigilIn Nantes, young people held a vigil for 12-year-old Lola, murdered by an Algerian woman. Antifa stormed the event, attacking mourners for daring to speak about the crime.The twisted moral code of Antifa and the new left was on full display: mourners were treated as criminals, and the attackers as the righteous.Ireland: The Illusion of VictoryA left-wing president takes office, but hundreds of thousands of voters spoil their ballots in protest.Behind the appearance of unity lies a country drifting from its values, managed by Brussels, and increasingly estranged from its own people.Spain: When ‘Inclusivity’ Crosses the LineIn Spain’s Basque Country, a “trans-feminist” summer camp descended into alleged abuse: children were made to shower with adults and take part in sexualised activities, all under the banner of inclusion. The organisers are under investigation, yet local authorities looked away.This isn’t an isolated scandal but the logical end of an ideology that has erased the natural line between childhood and adulthood. In this new moral order, children are told they can make adult choices, while adults are encouraged to act like children, and the result is corruption disguised as compassion.Are these isolated scandals, or symptoms of a Europe that has lost its moral compass?If you value open discussion on these issues, please like, comment, and subscribe. It's one of the few ways to counter algorithmic suppression of dissenting voices.

Jacob Reynolds is joined by executive director Frank Furedi and Brussels Signal’s Carl Deconinck to dissect a week where Europe’s self-image met reality – from a mooted Trump–Putin peace summit in Budapest to Britain’s two-tier policing and Brussels’ plan to import North Africa via Erasmus.BUDAPEST PEACE SUMMIT – EUROPE SIDELINEDBudapest is on the verge of a historic Trump-Putin summit. The meeting might be on ice for now, but the panic in Brussels at the prospect of a peace deal told it's own story. With the exception of Orban, European leaders are either a sideshow or an obstruction when it comes to peace. But as peace talks rumble on, does anyone, even Trump, have a way out of the war? BRITAIN’S NO-GO DILEMMA – JEWISH SAFETY AND TWO-TIER POLICINGBirmingham’s block on Maccabi Tel-Aviv fans was sold as public order – but the gloating of the pro-Gaza MPs was revealing. This was an effort to ban Jewish Israelis because of the anti-Semitic Islamism taken root in the West. ERASMUS WITHOUT EUROPE – THE NORTH AFRICA GAMBITBrussels’ €42 billion Pact for the Mediterranean now promises Erasmus-style openings for North Africa. It is billed as “values” – in practice, incentives for more migration, taxpayer-funded brain drain and yet another distortion of a struggling higher-education system. Youth unemployment is high at home, standards are slipping, and – as ever – the Commission pushes for ever more migration.