Belgian mayor orders halt to NatCon conference attended by Braverman | Belgium

Authorities in Brussels have ordered the closure of a radical right conference that was addressed by British politicians including Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman.

The order banning the National Conservatism conference from taking place on Tuesday was issued “to guarantee public safety”, according to Emir Kir, the mayor of the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode district in Brussels.

Braverman, who has sought to cultivate a following on the right in Britain and beyond since she was sacked last year as home secretary, took to the stage after police had arrived to execute the order to shut the event down.

She delivered a speech in which she claimed that the UK could leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR), scorning Rishi Sunak’s recent suggestions that he would be willing to exit from it if it prevented him from implementing his policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

“It’s therefore no surprise that recent noises in this direction from the prime minister are being dismissed by the public as inauthentic.”

After her speech, she told Sky News that the “thought police, instructed by the mayor of Brussels” had sought to undermine free speech and debate.

Police entered the building after they were invited in by organisers just as Farage was finishing on stage, before then leaving again and preventing others from coming in.

Organisers told those at the event that the closure of the event would be “gradual” and that they intended to find a new venue for Wednesday. However, they later said on X they were legally challenging the order.

Farage took the stage to tell those gathered that the owner was coming under pressure from the mayor and that the food for the event had not arrived. “This is what we are up against. We are up against an evil ideology. We are up against a new form of communism.” Farage said as he gave a keynote address.

The venue was the conference’s third after others had cancelled bookings. An upmarket venue, Concert Noble, near the European Commission and European parliament pulled the plug on Friday after protests from anti-fascist activists.

The conference was then switched to the Sofitel in Place Jourdan, five minutes from the European Council headquarters and a hotel always booked for prime ministers, many of whom will be staying there for a leaders’ summit in Brussels on Wednesday.

However, opponents of the radical right also questioned the move by local authorities, which was being portrayed as an attack on free speech.

Rishi Sunak had been urged at the weekend to stop Braverman, his former home secretary, from attending the rightwing convention featuring figures who have been under investigation for extremism.

Among others due to appear at the gathering is Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister and a key ally of Vladimir Putin.

In 2020, the Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski was reprimanded under Boris Johnson’s Conservative party leadership for attending a NatCon event in Rome, where Orbán was also a speaker.