NatCon conference resumes after Brussels court overturns closure order

A radical right conference that was addressed by Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman as police arrived to close it down has resumed after a Brussels court overturned a local mayor’s attempt to stop it.

Following moves condemned as “unacceptable” and “unconstitutional” by the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, organisers of the National Conservatism conference went to the conseil d’état, Belgium’s supreme administrative court.

On Tuesday there were farcical scenes at the Claridge venue after police entered the building to serve an order just as the former Brexit party leader Farage was finishing his speech.

Emir Kir, the local mayor who had issued the order to break up the conference, was defiant on Wednesday, saying the move was based on analysis by the Belgian state agency that monitors extremist threats.

Kir’s claims that counter-terrorism officials had made the assessment were rejected as “bullshit” by professor at the University of Kent and executive director of MCC Brussels, a thinktank that has received state funding from the government of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, one of the speakers.

Paul Coleman, the executive director of ADF International​, a legal advocacy organisation that champions rightwing causes and backed the court case on Tuesday night, accused the local mayor of “authoritarian censorship”.