Martin Wolf

last year in 2025, well, the Germans feel that it really would have been a pretty good thing if they'd stopped Hitler saying some of the things he said.

Indeed, if they'd removed him and put him in prison for a very long time and not instead of just letting him out when he was put in prison.

So there are questions of what...

how far you allow speech to be free.

It's a fine doctrine, but it seems actually the administration too believes there are lots of things we really don't want people to say.

So there's an issue there.

But I think there's a critique there.

On the civilizational thing, I think, and I wrote this in my book, that

One of the things that define a state, and certainly a democratic state, is the possession of borders.

A state and citizenship, which is associated with a state in a democratic context,

is exclusive by definition.

The values may be universal, but citizenship is not by definition.

And we get that going all the way back to the beginning of these ideas in our ancient world, the Greeks and Roman view of what a republic or a democracy was.

So I think that not controlling your borders

and making sure that the people who come to live in it, particularly the people who come to live in it permanently, are people you've chosen.

It's been a political process in which you've chosen them, is essentially in violation of the citizenship compact.

And I wrote that at length.

And I think it's perfectly understandable why many citizens would feel we don't want everybody in the world to come here.

It would create some very, very big problems.

And I think the view on the parts of the left, quote unquote progressive left, that borders should basically be abolished is not compatible with the survival of any form of democratic notion grounded in citizenship.