So this is the way 2015 ends for Europe, not with a bang, but with a whimper. With Brussels, Paris, London and Berlin all on high alert, having either cancelled or drastically altered their plans for traditional New Year’s celebrations across the capitals of the continent.

It would be amusing were it not such a tragic development for those of us who have to live among them, that the open-door, terrorist-apologist policies of the liberal left which has its tentacles deep in the “old” conservative parties across Europe have led in many ways to the decline of their own ideals.

“Tolerance” – going. “Sexual liberation” – going. “Feminism” – gone. These, if not yet fully dead, are ideals in their death throes as Europe undergoes a seismic shift in demographics and inevitably, our politics.

And what better way than to mark the occasion that German Chancellor Angela Merkel – not so much the architect as the project manager – delivering her annual New Year speech, for the first time, subtitled in Arabic?

Some have deeply pessimistic takes on it all. It’s hard not to. It is very hard to sit across from someone at a dinner table, and with a straight face proclaim, “I’m sure it’s going to be alright”.

What people are really talking about around their dining tables this Christmas and New Year season are the ever-slimming chances of the survival of their lifestyles; the survival of Western civilisation. And our ivory-tower dwelling colleagues in the left/mainstream media scratch their heads and ask, “Why do people support Donald Trump/UKIP/PEGIDA/Viktor Orban/AfD/Front National” (delete as appropriate).

“Do not portray this as a clash of civilisations,” we are so often told. The implication coming from the liberal left, once again, is that people like me, born into Muslim households in the West, are still predisposed to a different civilisation. THAT civilisation. The one with the beheadings, and the niqabs, and the child abuse, and the hurling people from buildings.

The real racists – a word we were bored of hearing before the clock struck midnight at the end of 2014, and which we have become so inured to in 2015 – are those that would argue against portraying this as a clash of civilisations so as not to offend the first and second generation immigrants already in our midst. As if I’m “offended” by attacks on fundamentalist Islam. (Anyone that is, by the way – is likely a closeted Islamist).

The real racists are the ones who tell you that if you’re ethnic in any way shape or form, you have to vote alongside the liberal left.

But let it be noted that it is desperation emanating from the left and mainstream that is causing such laughable reactions. Politics is Europe is changing again.

So soon after a united continent was declared, and the bureaucrats seized power in the bloodless coup of 1957, we see the load-bearing columns of the European Union beginning to crumble. The Schengen free movement area, the Euro, and indeed, Britain’s membership of the European Union all have diamond-encrusted question marks dangling over them.

The mass migration of 2015 will continue in 2016. Events have no concept of cut off dates, and our own leaders’ geopolitical fuckwittery apparently knows no bounds as our troops are again dragged off to war in some desert, still trying to “correct” a mistake of almost exactly 100 years ago. As if lines on a map are what forces men to spill the blood of others in the name of holy texts.

And 2016 will not be a year solely about the U.S. Presidential elections. Though there is no doubting the majority of news coverage, especially towards the end of the year, will be about which Republican is the most racist, and which Democrat cares most about transgender migrant children.

The forthcoming year will also be about Britain’s membership of the European Union. Those who believe this can be a quiet, domestic news story (i.e. newspaper editors across the UK) will find that it will be one of the biggest international stories of the year, not to be buried on page 31, in the “World” section.

Britain used to be a pioneer. When she began to give up this trait, her most pioneering left and founded a new country that has led the way recently. But Britain can be a pioneer again in 2016. In the year of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, we will once again lock horns with an expansionist Germany. The only difference is this time, they have the French of their side. But then again, when did that ever make a difference?

So here are some predictions for 2016, since I am obligated by ego to do so:

Annus horribilis? You ain’t seen nothing yet…

LISTEN: