The Rise Of The Far-Right: The Political Map of Europe Is Being Redrawn

By TruePublica: According to the mainstream media, everything in the EU is wonderful, except that it isn’t. Italy, the birthplace of the union, where the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957, looks to be creating the next existential crisis since Brexit.

Italy’s banking system is on the verge of implosion, its economy has been stagnant since it joined the Euro. The majority of Italians are now worried the impact of immigration is having on the country as they grapple with large numbers washing up on their shores – far right politics is back as a result.

A survey, by Ipsos PA (for newspaper Corriere della Sera) last summer of residents found that a staggering 71 per cent of Italians thought the country was going in the wrong direction when it came to immigration.  And that figure is up from 59 per cent the year before.

“A boon for the far right: How migrant ‘crisis’ hijacked Italy’s election” reports France24

France’s president is taking action though and not waiting to be punished for doing nothing. Emmanuel Macron’s government is clamping down on illegal immigration with a new bill that accelerates the expulsion of people who do not qualify for asylum. He is also taking action on the illegal crossing of borders and making it an offence punishable by one year in jail plus fines.

In Austria, the new ruling coalition has set out draconian immigration controls that every populist party dreams of implementing. Its 180-page coalition agreement could set the tone for similarly draconian policies (and unusual coalitions) in other European Union member states and the wider Western world.

In Poland, things are going from bad to worse for the EU. As right-wing populists enter government, they have violent radical groups to thank—and to fear.

The Atlantic reports that militant and radical currents coursing through Europe’s ever-more successful nationalist parties, for whom Hungary’s governing Fidesz party is a model in which their interests overlap with neo-Nazi extremists: immigration, Islam, and the EU.

Croatia, the EU’s youngest member state has lurched to the hard right and joined the Visegrad Four  (an alliance between Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic) where Islamophobic attitudes there are amongst the highest throughout Europe.

In Slovakia the traditional right-wing populist party, L’SNS, that enjoyed electoral success is a significant political force. During the so-called ‘refugee crises’, the L’SNS decided to follow an anti-elitist, anti-EU, and anti-Muslim politics.

In Bulgaria, the racist rhetoric toward Bulgaria’s Roma minority was one thing, but its right-wing mainstream politics actually advocated violence to prevent migrants from entering Europe.

Denmark’s, “The New Right,” led by 41-year-old Pernille Vermund, pursues a libertarian economic agenda and wants even stricter controls on migrants in a country that already has some of the most stringent immigration laws in Western Europe.

It is apparent that more than half of the European Union is in some sort of political crisis and is on the move. Are they being encouraged to swing politically to the right?

 

The inclusion of renowned European nationalists at a recent conference of US conservatives and the change of government language about immigrants suggests a shift toward European-style populist nationalism within the reigning faction of America’s Republican Party.

In the largest yearly gathering of conservatives in the U.S., the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) this year showed that it serves as a barometer of the ideological leanings of the Republican grassroots base at a given moment. This year, that base seemed to have embraced a xenophobic populist nationalism, as evidenced by its speakers and audience alike.

“I would describe them as extreme and, for the most part, outside the American tradition,” said Larry Sabato, Director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

European politicians Nigel Farage and Marion Le Pen, were speakers. “You couldn’t have imagined Marion Le Pen being invited two years ago,” Brussels-based libertarian pundit Bill Wirtz said. “Some people have been invited to say things that you can’t say yet as a Republican. That’s where I am very worried –for the future.”

 

Trump’s anti-immigrant stance came into full after the US Citizen and Immigration Services recently changed the wording of its mission statement to remove the phrase “nation of immigrants.”

 

The election of centrist French President Emmanuel Macron and the reelection of German Chancellor Angela Merkel masks a rising tide of anti-immigrant and populist sentiment. It is sweeping aside or weakening mainstream party politics across the entire continent to varying degrees of success. Just ten years ago this was almost unthinkable.

The evidence is not written across your daily newspaper. A Bloomberg analysis of decades of election results across 22 European countries reveals that support for populist radical-right parties is higher than it’s been at any time over the past 30 years. These parties won 16 percent of the overall vote on average in the most recent parliamentary election in each country, up from 11 percent a decade earlier and 5 percent in 1997.

The common cause for this political shift? As Boomberg mentions, “While some parties evolved along the way, they are all now seen as anti-elite, nativist, and having a strong law and order focus.”

In Germany, the Alternative For Germany became the first far-right party to enter the Bundestag for five decades and the Dutch Freedom Party became the country’s No2 party. In Finland, Norway and Sweden, far-right parties have gained over 20 per cent of the vote in recent elections.

The political map of Europe is being redrawn all because arrogant politicians refused to listen to their citizens and failed to support their needs in a fast changing world where almost everyone is uncertain what the future holds.

 

 

 

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