politicians haven't successfully had their opponents arrested merely by declaring their opponents' speech to be hateful It happens in Europe quite frequently.

politicians haven't successfully had their opponents arrested merely by declaring their opponents' speech to be hateful It happens in Europe quite frequently. Geert Wilders is a popular Dutch politician (popular with voters) and has been arrested and taken to court several times for "hate speech" (i.e. criticising immigration and Islam), being found guilty the last time albeit the court refused to punish him. Marine Le Pen has also been arrested and taken to court for hate speech, although the court decided she was not guilty. As for your faith in the fair application of EU law. That is nice. The EU courts are staffed by judges selected for their pro-EU ideology and reliably pro-EU judgements. The ECJ routinely throws out things put in plain English into the treaties themselves or re-interprets apparently straightforward language to mean something entirely non-obvious, always to the benefit of the EU itself. What sort of people rise to the top of this political project? Here is a selection of quotes by the head of the European Commission, the man who really matters in the EU because only he and his directly selected employees can change the law. "When it becomes serious, you have to lie." "I'm ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious ... I am for secret, dark debates." “If it's a Yes, we will say 'on we go', and if it's a No we will say 'we continue’" (in reference to a referendum on EU policy) I will say, for all his faults, Juncker is at least willing to tell it like it is when it comes to the motivations and powers of himself and his comrades.