Brexit is an affront to his very nature because it represents the free choice of people to say no to him. Tusk, like many at the top of the EU hierarchy, are ideologues. At best they were shaped by a false sense of danger about the future of Europe and the world.

At worst, they are simply power mad opportunists giving voice to their inherent desire to dominate others.

And so, his exhortation to Remainers in the UK to keep fighting to stop Brexit is yet another sad attempt, like King Canute, to hold back the tide of populism that is sweeping across Europe. And it is odious, careerist ideologues like Tusk who have accelerated this pushback by populations all over Europe against his idea of a European super state.

Because every time he opens his mouth, he betrays his disdain for those that don’t share his vision. He openly admitted to working against the will of a majority of Brits who voted to leave his club. No one in British or European media even commented on the brazen interference of these remarks on the outcome of the election campaign underway in the UK

As Brendan O’Neill of Spiked News in the UK points out, the hypocrisy over foreign meddling in the election is off the charts.

This is really a tale of two Donalds. When Donald Trump poked his fake-tanned nose into Britain’s electoral affairs a couple of weeks ago, by proposing an alliance between Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, the chattering classes went crazy. ‘How dare he’, they hollered. Yet when Donald Tusk sticks his beak into our politics, they lap it up. They get emotional, even, shedding a tragic tear or two over the fact that this bloke no one in the UK ever voted for will never again get to boss Britain around once he leaves the EC. How will we cope when this decent bureaucrat, a man just like us, a man so unlike the thick throng who voted for Brexit, moves on?

No depth of mendacity is unplumbed by those in favor of European integration. Because they know that, ultimately, “when things get serious you have to lie,” as Tusk’s mate and also soon-to-be-pastured Jean-Claude Juncker famously said.

The sheer desperation evident in Tusk’s remarks can be summed up in his insistence that the only way for Britain to regain its former glory is as a hind teat within the EU, mercilessly milked for taxes and sapped of investment within their Kafkaesque plutocracy.

I wonder, Don, but how will the UK become anymore of a ‘second-rate player’ than it is under the EU? For decades Britain’s growth has fallen to fall in line with that of an EU on the verge of financial collapse.

The only way the UK fails to thrive in a post-Brexit world is if the EU decides to punish it for its recalcitrance. There’s no compelling reason to put up tariffs or barriers to trade. The default position is that they will return because that’s what men like Donald Tusk want to do to project power and primacy.

Tusk betrays both his historical and economic ignorance in appealing, cynically, to that lost glory of the British Empire, the last vestiges of which, domestically, are tied deeply to the EU. He’s right that politically the current political establishment in the UK is wholly committed to the EU’s empire as a means by which to extend the remnants of the old one further into the 21^st century than it could (or should) otherwise.

So, in that sense Tusk let the mask slip a little further.

But he’s wrong in appealing to Brits like this. It’s frankly demeaning and condescending to older Brexit voters who understand that they aren’t the problem with the UK, he is. And even if they are the problem, it is their right to choose how to fix things not accept solutions from some officious oaf who is so unloved back home in Poland he can’t even run for public office.

And maybe the people who chose Brexit reject the Imperial Dream for what it is, a nightmare that costs far more in the end than it achieves.

The EU is building a technocratic, unelected Imperial Europe built on a model of governance, frankly, worse than that of the old Soviet Politburo. At least in the USSR there wasn’t any pretense of democracy or choice.

The EU has a parliament with no legislative authority and whose masters are chosen in backroom deals far more controlled than any domestic party congress. At least Boris Johnson had to publicly campaign among his own party to replace Theresa May and now is standing for confirmation of his position across the whole of the UK

Not that I’m a huge fan of elections per se since democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others, but I have to ask when was Donald Tusk elected to the position, he still commands for the next two weeks?

Which brings me to another terrible thing Mr. Juncker is famous for saying, that there can be no democratic choice against the European treaties.

The EU is supreme over its member states. Not sovereign, superior. In the same way the US Federal Government is supreme, yet not sovereign, over the States.

And it is this loss of sovereignty that is now being challenged by deplorable people all over Europe for doing exactly what Mr. Juncker told them they couldn’t do, choose against them and their silly pieces of paper.

Pieces of paper, mind you, that are supposed to assist in keeping society civil not subservient. It’s fascinating watching Donald Tusk get the vapors over the threat of a post-Soviet Russia saying they are a strategic problem not a strategic partner while the EU becomes more anti-democratic by the day and Vladimir Putin in Russia presides over a Russian Federation which is slowly devolving power out of Moscow and handing it back to the regions through investment and respect for local differences.

Did I ever hear Tusk stand up for Polish sovereignty in the face of Angela Merkel’s attacks on his home country for how it selects its supreme court? Did Tusk argue against Article 7 proceedings against Poland?

No. He didn’t.

The simple truth is that Tusk’s tenure has been marked by one failure after another. He couldn’t stop Nordstream 2 (not that he should have), Brexit, Russia’s return to the Council of Europe or the rise of populists all across the continent.

On his watch he helped destroy relations with Russia, increasing the likelihood of conflict, rather than improve them. It’s fair to say that everything bad about the EU is personified in Mr. Tusk.

A second-rate politician, unelectable at home, running a second-rate would-be empire.

Cue to a bunch of clueless European tourists haggling about a refugee deal with carpet bazaar ace Ahmet Davutoglu – Turkey’s Prime Minister and grand vizier of Sultan Erdogan. Much more than clinching a sleazy deal, the EU may end up selling what’s left of its allegedly humanitarian and democratic «principles», a.k.a. soul, to the carpet man. Did neither of these Eurocrats ever read Goethe’s Faust?  

So let’s recap what the EU will get from Ankara’s masterful extortion racket. Instead of paying 3 billion euros for the refugee «carpet», it will pay 6.6 billion euros. It will facilitate visa-free travel for what’s left of the Schengen space to 75 million Turks. It will accelerate the bureaucratic road map for Turkish pre-accession to the EU. And it will comply with Ankara’s demand that for every Syrian re-expelled from Greece back to Turkey – over 2,000 arrive everyday as we speak – one Turk will be allowed to settle in the EU’s austerity purgatory. 

This is what the Mob usually dubs «an offer you can’t refuse».

A bunch of European tourists

The Eurocrats thought they had a deal – part of the so-called EU-Turkey Action Plan – before a fateful Brussels summit early in the week, on March 7. EU – and mostly German – absolute desperation was already set in stone; without a deal with Ankara the alternative is the collapse of Schengen (which has already happened anyway) and the erosion of public trust in the EU’s institutions (also already happened).

In Chancellor Merkel’s words, because of the war in Syria and the «geostrategic» situation, a deal with Turkey is «absolutely in Europe’s interest». European Commission President, devious operator Jean-Claude Juncker, added, «this is a real game-changer».

Well, it was a game-changer for the Turks, for sure. Ankara was so dismissive of that bunch of sissy European tourists they raided Zaman, the country’s largest newspaper, took it over, tear gas included, turned it into a pro-AKP rag, and got away with it. Sanctions? That’s for Syria – and Iran. Turkey smashes a newspaper and is rewarded with negotiations on turbo mode for EU membership. So much for «press freedom» and an independent judiciary.

Behaving as absolutely lousy students of history, the Eurocrats were convinced the Sultan and his vizier would take the initial deal because they badly needed EU help in their self-created, nasty confrontation with Russia; extra support along the Turkish-Syrian border (the Sultan’s famous «safe zone» dream); and would be further mollified by NATO ships being used for coast guard patrols.

But then the carpet man pulled a master gambit, and invited his top customer for dinner.

Picture wily Davutoglu running rings around Merkel at the Turkish embassy in Brussels on Sunday evening, March 6. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte – holding the rotating EU presidency – was the other invited tourist.

Davutoglu unrolled a magic carpet ride. Nothing, absolutely nothing that had been discussed for weeks applied anymore. Ankara had a new, much more elaborate «offer you can’t refuse», and the EU summit was scheduled for the day after.

The only thing left for a poor, livid Chancellor was to wake up early on Monday and try to convince everybody else on short notice this was a steal. All hell predictably broke loose. Delegations from quite a few nations openly blamed the Chancellor’s naiveté. In the end there was no consensus, just the Chancellor meekly, vaguely promising that a deal was near.

Grapes of Wrath, the Balkan remix

Brussels has up to the end of next week to seal the deal, during another EU summit. It will be a wild ride. This thing is set to open a can of legal worms/juridical nightmares.

To start with, the «principled» EU may be facing some sort of mass deportation of refugees to countries where they most certainly will enjoy shaky legal protection. So count on EU lawyers to find a loophole; they will elevate Turkey to the status of a «safe third country». Amnesty International is already furious – but who cares?

The one-refugee-for-one-Turk exchange is even more slippery – and there are no loopholes. Only a miracle from Valhalla will convince, among others, the Baltic nations, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Slovenia to accept further refugee relocation inside their own borders. The Balkan Route for all practical purposes went six feet under when Slovenia closed it down. What is Berlin to do? Reopen it with a blitzkrieg?

Moreover, only a miracle from Zeus will convince Greece as well as Cyprus – not to mention France and Italy – that opening the EU doors to Turkey is the right price to pay to ease the crisis.

So assuming a deal is clinched it will open yet another chapter in one of the great tragedies of our time; next it will be a Grapes of Wrath scenario, lost souls plying the Balkan Route – including many families – fighting with their lives not to be deported back to Turkey.

And another «mystery» will remain unsolved; how this mass of refugees got there in the first place.

First they had to sneak around western Turkey – a highly indented coast, with few major cities and only a few local bus lines – on their way to a smatter of Greek islands, mostly Mytilini and Kos but also Chios and Kastellorizo. They would have traveled more than 1000 kilometers from the Turkish-Syrian border – where many had been languishing. 

They left because Ankara told them to. They may have even had enjoyed direct and indirect access to some Ankara «help» to get on bus after bus after bus. Picture the Sultan’s network shipping their massive overland blackmail cargo by bus, delivered right on the doorstep of smuggling rings with the right connections, ready to ferry them across the Aegean to Greece.

Talk about a precious cargo. And this cargo is about to make Ankara handsomely profit to the tune of 6.6 billion – plus immense fringe benefits. And still those sorry Eurocrat tourists believe they are clinching the deal of the century; the «carpet» they are taking home is as rotten as they come.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was in Brussels and made it clear precisely who is in control of the situation. Thousands of migrants arrive each day at the Greek port of Piraeus, creating an additional burden on Greece’s infrastructure and stirring up discord within the «European family», which is already not very friendly. Closing the Balkan route will put Athens in an even more difficult position. Like other Balkan countries, Macedonia has imposed partial restrictions on border crossings.

The flood of illegal migrants into Europe was largely triggered by Turkey’s moves to inflame the civil war in Syria, a fact which some journalists from the opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet had attempted to reveal before being sent to jail for their efforts. And now, in early March, the Turkish government has been subjected to yet more timid criticism for «not respecting EU principles». This was in reference to the campaign of harassment conducted by the Turkish government against the newspaper Zaman. A court in Istanbul has actually placed that periodical, which is allegedly linked to the well-known US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen, under state control, which entails a confiscation of property. On the evening of March 4, police special forces stormed the newspaper’s offices, firing water cannons and tear gas. This is hardly the first example of the persecution of the press in that country. Shall we say the only thing that’s needed for this is to begin asking awkward questions about the brutal war against the Kurds in the country’s southeast, the support of terrorist groups in Syria, or the Erdoğan family’s insatiable appetite for business …

According to Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the timing of the Turkish authorities’ attack on the freedom of the press was no accident. That German politician is certain that Ankara decided to take that step before signing the agreement with Brussels and is thus counting on Europe to hold its tongue on the issue of human rights violations.

Meanwhile Mr Erdoğan has proposed building a new city in northern Syria to house refugees. As we can see, the leader of Turkey has already dismembered Syria in his mind, giving Europeans the impression that he has negotiated all this with Obama.

The countries of the European Union had previously approved the financing for a fund to support refugees inside of Turkey. Ankara added three billion euros to its balance sheet, in addition to a revival of the talks on joining the EU and visa liberalization, plus various related perks, such as the Bundestag dropping its discussion of a potential resolution condemning the Armenian genocide that took place during the time of the Ottoman Empire, in exchange for which the Turks will reduce the influx of migrants into the EU, instead resettling them within their own borders. But the transparency about how the money will be received and spent is, to put it mildly,  insufficient.

During the five years of the Syrian crisis, Turkey, according to statements made by its leaders, has taken in almost three million refugees, in contrast to nearly two million taken in by the European Union, far from all of whom are even of Syrian origin.

Ankara’s conduct makes it clear that it is unlikely to remain satisfied for long with the three billion it is already getting in compensation from Europe. Turkey’s bill for ensuring «calm» in Berlin, Paris, and other European cities could rise to five billion euros. Or even seven, or more, as Ankara deems necessary.

«Erdoğan, who is being offered €3 billion, will not demand €6 billion, but €9 billion. That figure will rise after each summit», claims Miloš Zeman, the president of the Czech Republic.  According to information obtained by Reuters, during the closed-door talks Ahmet Davutoğlu has already requested 20 (!) billion, as well as the coveted goal of the right to visa-free travel for Turkish citizens. As of the evening of March 7, Ankara’s intermediate demands looked like this: Six billion euros and an accelerated path to EU membership.

On the night of Jan. 8 Donald Tusk stated that an agreement had been reached on these points: All new illegal migrants arriving to Greek islands by sea from Turkey will be returned; the plan for visa liberalization will be accelerated; the allocation of €3 billion, plus an additional mechanism for financing assistance for refugees in Syria, will be accelerated; preparations will be made to open new chapters in the negotiations on entry of Turkey into the EU; safe zones could be established in Syria; and Syrian refugees will be resettled based on a one-for-one principle. This document awaits approval during the next scheduled meeting on March 17-18. According to Davutoğlu, visa-free travel between the EU and Turkey will become real by the end of June.

On March 7 a meeting was held in Brussels between NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ahmet Davutoğlu. According to Stoltenberg, NATO will back the fight in the Aegean Sea against smuggling and illegal immigration under the auspices of the Standing NATO Maritime Group, which was established to conduct «intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance at the Turkish-Syrian border». The NATO Secretary General particularly noted that the mission of the alliance is not to detain those who are trying to reach Europe or to return them to their homeland. The head of the alliance, worried about Russian air activity in Syria, warned that the crisis must not be militarized. But if one believes the commander of NATO in Europe, Philip Breedlove, Russia is the one whose actions in Syria are spurring the exodus of refugees into Europe. Given this situation, Ankara’s efforts are aimed primarily against the Syrian army, which is fighting the terrorist groups that are not included under the cease-fire provisions.

Returning illegal migrants back to the country from which they came will also require EU agencies to work with Turkish authorities in the fight against cross-border crime. But apparently the criminal «business models» are advantageous to some people in Europe itself. Reports in the Bulgarian media about trade in stolen Syrian gasoline that passes through Turkey might well prove to be merely the tip of the iceberg, just like Bilal Erdoğan’s Italian escapades.

According to international organizations, 100,000 migrants have arrived in Greece just in 2016, intending to travel onward, mostly to Germany, which, according to a report by Eurostat, has taken in almost 442,000 people in the past year – more than a third of all asylum seekers in the European Union. A noticeable increase in crime and social unrest has forced the Bundestag to tighten the rules for admitting refugees and Angela Merkel to call for the acceleration of the prosecution of migrants who have committed crimes. However, no decisions have been made at the European level on this matter, which explains the growth in anti-immigrant and right-wing nationalistic sentiment that has compelled authorities in individual states (Sweden, France, Germany, Hungary, and Austria) to resort to local legal and technical measures to stem illegal migration.

It is not alarmist to predict that the potential for conflict in Europe is going to escalate. This tension could find an outlet in the form of terrorist attacks, while the US State Department diligently notifies the whole world of the latest terrorism threat levels. And it is quite natural to conclude that when it comes to migration policy, individual states are more effective than supranational institutions. On one condition – those states must be able to exercise real, not mock, sovereignty within their own borders.