Ericeira Stands by Free Speech as the Patriots Academy Goes Ahead

The first Patriots Academy opens today at the Vila Gale Ericeira hotel, and it is going ahead exactly as planned. That is worth pointing out, because not everyone wanted it to.

A group of around 350 residents, Portuguese and foreign, put out a statement against the three-day gathering organised by the Patriots for Europe Foundation. They criticised the hotel for hosting it and asked the Junta de Freguesia da Ericeira and the Camara Municipal de Mafra to take a stand. The hotel kept its booking. Neither the Junta nor the Camara stepped in.

That is the right outcome. Portugal's Constitution is clear on this. Article 37 guarantees everyone the right to express and spread their thoughts freely, "without hindrance or discrimination." Article 41 declares freedom of conscience, religion and worship inviolable. Article 45 protects the right to assemble peacefully, without needing anyone's permission. These rights were won in 1974, after nearly half a century of dictatorship in which censors decided what could be printed and the political police decided who could meet. They were not written only for the views that happen to be popular in a given town in a given year.

A conference of elected MEPs and their parties, whatever you make of their politics, is exactly the kind of speech these protections exist for. Chega is Portugal's second-largest party in parliament. Patriots for Europe is the third-largest group in the European Parliament. Millions of Europeans voted for them. Telling a hotel it should refuse them a room, or asking a town hall to keep them out, is asking for less freedom, not more.

The same Constitution also protects the people who disagree. The residents who plan to gather peacefully on Saturday have every right to do so, and that is how an open society settles disagreements: with more speech, not with cancelled bookings. Two sides saying their piece in the same town on the same weekend is not a problem for Ericeira. It is the system working.

Ericeira has always been an open place. Fishermen, surfers, remote workers, families who have been here for generations and people who arrived last year all live side by side, and they do not all vote the same way. A town that welcomes everyone has to mean everyone. Ericeira is a place for free thought, for everyone. True freedom is being able to accept other people's points of view without silencing them. This weekend, Ericeira did not bend, and it is better for it.