If there is one thing that would drive this deeply anti-Brexit blog into the arms of Brexiteers, it would be the rise of what appears to be soft fascism across Europe.
The outlook does not look good. The far-right are prospering everywhere.
In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s hard right coalition led by her arch-conservative Brothers of Italy party took power last October and is now in the process of trying to impose its conservative moral values on the population. For example, as reported in the Financial Times yesterday, they do not believe same sex couples should raise children. Last week, the birth certificate of a son born to a lesbian couple was annulled by a Padova city prosecutor with backing from the minister for family and birth rates. The interior ministry has ordered city mayors to stop automatically issuing birth certificates recognising same-sex couples as children’s legal parents, leading to lengthy legal disputes. This is only the start, one suspects, of a further erosion of gay rights.
Europe’s worrying drift to the far-right…
In France, the National Rally under Marine Le Pen has hit 24% in the polls. And this rise will only be further fuelled by the riots taking place there. She leads opinion polls in her response to them and is preparing yet another run, her fourth, at the presidency in 2027. Nobody is betting that next time, she isn’t in with a strong chance of winning.
In Germany, the hard-right, Putin sympathising AfD has hit 18% in the polls, achieving third place and snapping at the heels of the Social Democrats. In Sweden, the hard-right Sweden Democrats are in third place at 18%, and its equivalent in Spain, the Vox Party, are in a similar position. Then, in Hungary, Orban and his Fidesz party, who have governed since 2010, continue to gradually erode press freedoms and the independence of the judiciary, flouting the EU in the process.
There are various factors driving this trend. Immigration, inflation, weak economies, and expensive green policies are all a boost to anti-establishment, populist parties, even if, in the end, they are usually far worse at governing than moderates. The implosion of centre-right parties is also helping drive politics to the extremes.
But for all the frustrations of modern life today, there is no excuse for embracing extremism, particularly with Putin on your doorstep.
Wearingly, and with some success, hard-right, populists have never given up, even when they initially lose at the ballot-box. Whether it is Le Pen in France or even Trump in the US, it is a constant whack-a-mole game to defeat them. Democrats everywhere cannot let their guard down.
Europe certainly benefits from the largely moderating influence of the UK. It would have been invaluable if we had remained a member of the EU. We have much work to do to help keep our neighbours on a centrist path, even if nowadays from the sidelines.
Inside Right Politics 