Irish journalist Hermann Kelly, who is the communications director for the EFDD Euroskeptic group in the European Parliament, spoke with Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM on Tuesday about the morning’s horrific terror attacks in Belgium.
“People here are absolutely appalled by the loss of life,” Kelly said from the European Parliament in Brussels. “This horrific act of terrorism sadly shows that Schengen free movement, and lax border control across the EU, now presents itself as a huge threat to our security. David Cameron said we must stay in the EU for our security. Well, I’m sitting here in the middle of the European Parliament. A bomb has just gone off half a mile away. People have been killed. And believe me, it doesn’t feel too safe here today.”
“It’s incredible… the head of Europol — which is like the European police, the federal service — said there’s 5,000 jihadists at large in the European Union, having slipped in from Syria,” he continued. Kelly marveled that there were some “94 returned jihadists from Syria” living in the same small area that gave Paris massacre mastermind Salah Abdeslam refuge until just a few days ago.
“For me, it’s just incredible that these people are allowed to come back… murder people in Syria and come back, and live, and walk around as if nothing happened… in the center of Brussels, which is supposed to be the center of the European Union,” he declared. “This whole thing of free movement across borders, in the European movement, allows these fighters to travel wherever they will. It allows them to move their guns, and their explosives, as they like. And we see, now, the consequences of this ridiculous, this stupid, this just incredibly stupid policy of the European Union. Free movement means free movement for fighters, for guns, for explosives, and they can go and carry out their atrocities at will.”
Kelly found the argument, advanced by such European Union proponents as British Prime Minister David Cameron, that keeping Britain inside the EU will enhance its security to be “so ridiculous, it’s beyond belief.”
“We’re all stuck inside a building, we can’t go out, bombs went off half a mile away,” he said of the atmosphere inside the European Parliament complex. “And these people — because of EU policy, Schengen, open borders — these people can, with their fighters, their guns their explosives, go all across Europe at will, and basically shoot up and bomb people as they like.”
He said terror attacks so close to the European Parliament were “not only barbaric, but it’s also a symbolic act, which blows this whole security argument out of the water.”
Kelly described the lockdown across Brussels after the morning terror attacks as similar to conditions in Paris following the jihadi massacre there, adding that enhanced security with military personnel has been in evidence around European Union offices in the city since the Christmas holiday lockdown – conditions that host Stephen K. Bannon recalled other visitors to Brussels describing as “tantamount to martial law.”
Kelly expected Brussels to remain on a high state of alert for some time to come. Staff and journalists at the European Parliament were strongly advised to remain indoors throughout the morning, pending further notice from security officials.
He thought improvements in the security situation were unlikely unless the authorities got serious about dealing with the dangerous elements infesting certain Belgian neighborhoods, through such actions as rounding up the known veterans of Syrian jihad immediately.
“How can they be allowed to just swan around and act as they like? It’s just incredible,” said Kelly.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00AM to 9:00AM EST.
You can listen to the full interview with Hermann Kelly below: