The Arab Spring: Rotterdam Edition.

You may have noticed that I frequently refer to Turkish President/Prime Minister/Emperor Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This reflects both Erdogan's aspirations and his changing role within Turkish politics.

In 2003 Erdogan became Turkish Prime Minister.

Well strictly speaking Erdogan's Islamist Justice & Development Party (AKP) was elected the largest party in Turkey's Parliament in 2002.

However having served 10 months in prison after inciting racial/religious hatred and violence against the democratic state Erdogan was constitutionally banned from becoming Prime Minister. So it took Abdullah Gul to serve as Prime Minister for a year in order to change the law to allow Erdogan to become Prime Minister.

In August 2014 Erdogan exceeded the constitutional term limits forcing him to step down as Prime Minister. So Erdogan simply took up the largely ceremonial role of President.

Erdogan now stands on the verge of becoming Turkey's Emperor with a constitutional reform bill.

This scraps the office of Prime Minister and establishes the office of President as the sole executive power within Turkey. It also allows the President to appoint his own cabinet without the approval of Parliament and Erdogan to serve in the role until 2030.

This matter of constitutional reform was a big issue in Turkey's June 2015 General Election. It was seen as a key factor in Turkish voters decision to deny Erdogan's AKP the Parliamentary majority needed to start constitutional reform.

However former US President Barack Obama decided he knew better than the Turkish electorate. So he gave Erdogan permission to start attacking Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. Wrapped in the flag this allowed the AKP to secure a simple majority in the new election Erdogan called for November 2015.

The Turkish voters though still stopped short of giving the AKP the super majority they needed to unilaterally change the constitution. So the matter will go to a public referendum on April 15th (15/4/17).

With Turkish voters having tried and failed to stop Erdogan's power grab twice at the polls it is fair to assume that no-one in Turkey is particularly excited about this referendum. As a result the turnout is expected to be extremely low. This seems to be part of a deliberate strategy by Erdogan to keep any "No" voters at home by labelling them as terrorists.

To boost support for the "Yes" vote Erdogan has turned to Turkish citizens living outside of Turkey - predominately within the European Union (EU). After all they won't have to live with the consequences.

This comes at a time of growing hostility between Erdogan and the EU.

I think we all know about Erdogan's attempts to gain leverage in the Syria/Iraq conflict by flooding the EU with irregular migrants/refugees.

Likewise Erdogan's practice of using these migrant flows to conceal terrorists to attack the EU is equally well known. Although many have tried the November 13th 2015 (13/11/15) Paris Massacres, the March 22nd 2016 (22/3/16) Brussels attacks and the December 19th 2016 (19/12/16) truck attack in Berlin are hard to deny.

What is less talked about though is Erdogan's attempts to use Turkey's diplomatic and intelligence services to recruit Turkish nationals to act as a sort of fifth column against the EU nations hosting them.

One example that has received some public attention came on February 15th (15/2/17). Here Germany officials arrested four Turkish Imans attacked to the Diyanet department of the Turkish government. In conjunction with the Turkish Embassy in Germany they have been working to spy on and harass often German/Turkish dual nationals who disagreed with Erdogan.

This has obviously made EU nations less keen on allowing AKP ministers to address mass rallies in order to whip up Erdogan's fifth column into a frenzy against the nation hosting them.

Matters really came to a head last Saturday (4/3/17) when Germany withdrew permission for AKP rallies in Gaggenau, Cologne and Frechen. Erdogan initially responded by issuing bomb threats against the venues where the rallies had been scheduled to take place. He then escalated things further by accusing the Germans of being Nazis.

The situation deteriorated to the point that on Thursday (9/3/17) the German intelligence services issued a warning that Erdogan would launch a retaliatory terror attack against somewhere in south-west Germany at some point in the near future. That warning seemed prudent because that evening a terror attack was carried out against a railway station in the German city of Dusseldorf.

The account of the Dusseldorf attacker suffering from mental health problems is the sort of cover story intelligence services put out while debating whether to formally accuse a nation of an act of war.

The problem is that Germany has attempted to cover up every terror attack committed against it. Including by groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that Germany is already at war against. Therefore patience amongst Germany's peers has worn more than thin.

In response to the Dusseldorf attack Saturday (11/3/17) saw mass cancellations of AKP rallies in a host of EU nations. At last count two were cancelled in Austria, one in Germany and one in Sweden.

However the one that has caught everyone's attention was the rally in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. This was supposed to be attended by AKP foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. However in cancelling the rally the Netherlands denied entry to him and all other AKP ministers.

Refusing to respect the Netherlands' sovereignty and territorial integrity Erdogan instead dispatched Sayan Kaya the AKP's minister for families. The AKP does not believe in women's rights. As she arrived in Rotterdam the Dutch police arrested Kaya illegally entering the country and deported her.

In an effort to prevent the Dutch police intervening the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam gathered its fifth column for a mass protest in the streets of Rotterdam. This quickly descended into a riot.

12:50 on 12/3/17 (UK date).