“The authorities decided to shut the event due to possibility of public disorder,” a police officer heard by POLITICO told one of the organizers.
“It’s really something out of a tinpot dictatorship,” Frank Füredi, one of the organizers from right-wing think tank MCC, which is co-sponsoring the event, told POLITICO.
The Claridge event space was already the conference’s third venue, after its first space — Concert Noble — turned them away under pressure from the Socialist Mayor of Brussels Philippe Close, and the liberal mayor of Etterbeek put pressure on the luxury Sofitel hotel to cancel it at the second attempt.
Emir Kir, the mayor of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode where the Claridge is situated, earlier told POLITICO by email that he would “immediately take measures to ban” the event.
Anthony Gilland, chief of staff at MCC, told the police that they would challenge the mayor’s decision in court to keep the show on the road.
Other scheduled attendees at the event included right-wing darlings Suella Braverman, the former U.K. home secretary, and Eric Zemmour, a far-right firebrand who ran to be president of France in 2022.
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