Critic slams 'loathsomeness' of Hegseth speech

Historians and campaigners accused United States Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of desecrating the memory of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, after he used a D-Day commemoration speech on Saturday to warn that Europe faces an "invasion" of dangerous ideologies arriving by sea.

Hegseth did not explicitly mention immigration, but the remarks, delivered on the 82nd anniversary of the World War II allied landings on French beaches that proved decisive in the defeat of Nazi Germany, reiterate criticism often voiced by the US administration about Europe's migration policies and border security.

"Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies," Hegseth said."Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?"

The remarks were swiftly condemned on social media. The Guardian quoted the English historian, author and television presenter Simon Schama describing the remarks as "a special kind of loathsomeness: a blend of historical deafness, grotesque stupidity and comically ludicrous self-importance."

Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said in a social media post that the remarks were "nonsense" and that "immigration policies are internal matters".

According to the United Nations, migrant sea arrivals into mainland Europe peaked in 2015 at more than one million, fueled in part by wars in Syria and Afghanistan.

From April 2025 to March 2026, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Cyprus logged 169,341 sea arrivals, with the UK taking about 23 percent.

Speaking at the United Nations last year, US President Donald Trump told Europe "your countries are being ruined" by migration.

A US National Security Strategy document issued last year described Europe risked "civilizational erasure" if trends continued. The document has unsettled postwar ties and focused European nations on the need to reduce reliance on US technology and defense.

Anti-immigration policy is a key tenet of the Trump administration's domestic agenda and Hegseth's comments extend its criticisms of Europe's approach to migration.

In response to separate remarks made on social media on Friday by US Vice-President JD Vance, the UK government on Saturday stated it did not accept "people trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division".

On Friday, Vance waded into the dispute that has erupted in the UK in response to the murder last year of the white teenager Henry Nowak by a British-born Sikh man.

"Henry Nowak died the same way a civilization dies: abandoned, handcuffed by authorities who neither trusted nor cared for him, and accused of hate crimes he did not commit," Vance said on X. "His murder is as tragic as it is enraging."

Vance added: "He should still be alive today, and he would be if the last few generations of European elites had stood their ground against the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it".

The UK's Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told the BBC he phoned Vance on Saturday to tell him he was "wrong" in the comments he made about the murder of Nowak, and that the killing "has got nothing to do with mass migration".

Lammy said he did not agree with Vance's "caricature" of Western civilization and its perceived decline.

jonathan@mail.chinadailyuk.com