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When Britain elects a Labor government later this year, a majority will no doubt be assured – the result of the upcoming general election remains the most likely outcome – but we will have moved clearly to the right. would vote against the political leanings of many other European countries.
Keir Starmer’s challenge will be to govern more than a one-term wonder that has rejoined Britain in Europe’s right-wing trend. The omens don’t bode well for the Labor leader and his party.
Only four of the European Union’s 27 member states are ruled by leftists, including Germany, where the Social Democratic Party-led ruling coalition is on the verge of defeat, and the Socialist Party, a very fragile minority whose future is uncertain. This includes the government of Spain.
Until recently, there were five centre-left governments in the EU. And last Sunday, Portugal’s Socialist Party government was dealt a major blow.
Keir Starmer’s challenge will be to govern in a way that makes him more than a one-term wonder
Portuguese people are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, which ended decades of dictatorship, with a populist nationalist party, Chega, less shy of its neo-fascist predecessors, in the 230-seat National Assembly. 48 members were elected, the largest number in history. .
While it is true that there are not enough seats to form a government, there are more than enough seats to wipe out the Socialist Party and leave the centre-right Democratic Alliance scrambling to form a minority government. If they reach an agreement with Chega, they will have a majority of the total. But the company wants nothing to do with its right-wing rivals.
Similarly, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) is shunned by the Dutch mainstream. His anti-immigration, anti-Muslim party transformed Dutch politics last November, winning 24% of the vote and more seats in parliament (37 out of 150) than any other mainstream party.
This put an end to the political career of center-right Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who had served as prime minister since 2010, and plunged the Dutch system into chaos. Four months after the general election, there is no new government in the Netherlands, as traditional political parties do not cooperate with Wilders.
As right-wing populism gains momentum in Europe, the question is: By sidelining its standard-bearers, will they be condemned to irrelevance and wither away? Or will it fuel their feelings of discontent and come back stronger in the next election?
The answer could determine the course of European politics for the rest of the decade and beyond.
Despite efforts to keep the New Right out of government, we can already see what it looks like when it comes to power. But it’s a mixed picture. Italy has been in power since 2022 under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the de facto leader of Europe’s right-wing populist movement. Although she heads the Italian Brothers, which have roots in Italy’s fascist past, she has ruled largely in the tradition of the right-wing mainstream.
Geert Wilders’ Party of Freedom (PVV) is excluded from the Dutch mainstream
As a result, she has been courted by President Biden, Donald Trump, and even European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
In stark contrast, Hungarian far-right strongman Viktor Orbán presides over an increasingly authoritarian regime that has undermined the independence of courts and domesticated the media.
Unlike Meloni, he is a fan of President Vladimir Putin and has delayed Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Attitudes toward the Kremlin are a clear rift on the European right.
Across Europe, the populist right is marching to seize power or influence governments and, in the process, upend established European politics.
In Stockholm, the far-right Sweden Democrats (not to be confused with the centre-left Social Democratic Party), although not officially part of it, support the centre-right government through a “confidence and supply” agreement.
Across the Gulf of Bothnia, the populist right-wing Finns Party (formerly known as the True Finns) achieved its best ever result (second place) in the 2023 general election and is now an integral part of the most right-wing government in Finland’s history. ing.
However, not everything went the populist right’s way. Last year, Poland’s authoritarian Law and Justice government was overthrown by a centre-right coalition led by Donald Tusk. And Spain’s far-right party Vox stumbled in elections, leaving the Socialist Party to cling to power.
But the new right still has much to do. In Germany, the anti-Brussels, anti-immigration AfD currently outnumbers all three parties in the ruling coalition.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (formerly the Front National) is considered the favorite to win the next European Parliament elections in June. Some believe that Le Pen is the most likely candidate to become France’s president.
The European Parliament was the next big test for the New Right, and it appears to have passed with flying colors. Anti-immigration sentiment is a driving force behind the populist and nationalist right, but aversion to the concentration of power in Brussels and the EU’s commitment to net-zero carbon emissions are also major factors.
Opinion polls suggest that the center-right European People’s Party will remain the largest group in parliament, while the second-largest group will be a combination of the New Right’s two main groups. There will be no mainstream leftists anywhere.
This has huge implications for the course of European policy on migration and net zero, and is causing a huge headache for the left-wing European Commission.
Tomorrow, Mr Meloni will accompany Ms von der Leyen to Cairo to hand over a €7.4bn (£6.3bn) EU check to the Egyptian government. Most of the money will be used to stop migrants heading to Europe.
But Britain will likely move in a different direction, electing an immigration-friendly government, outpacing the Conservatives in its costly pursuit of net zero, and coziing up to Brussels, eager to return to its ambitions.
This is a dangerous beer and could lead to a short honeymoon as it becomes clear to people that Labor has neither the vision nor the policies to reverse Britain’s decline.
Britain did not fly in the face of Europe’s right-wing currents, but one might say that Britain got there first and then blew it away.
The 2019 election was our populist revolution. The right won in a landslide, gaining a majority sufficient for a two-term government, realigning and reshaping British politics between the conservative regional party, the Conservative Party, and the liberal-left metropolitan Labor Party. Gave me a chance.
It was an opportunity presented by Boris Johnson’s combination of stupidity, apathy, indiscipline and callous disregard for good government. After that, his successors were unable to get the show back on track. The result will almost inevitably be a Labor government, one that will rapidly become unpopular.
That is when the populist embers of the right will be rekindled. That might happen with the Conservative Party, but if the election knocks the Conservative Party off its backside, other political forces could take over.
Europe’s populist uprisings are still going on and are likely to take many different forms. It could be a fascinating new way of doing something, or it could be a return to an ugly past.
We’ll be watching closely to see if we go in a different direction. As Labor collapses on our shores, if this policy is successful in Europe, it may not be long before we play that role again.
We may have left the EU, but what happens on the continent could still be a powerful factor in determining our future.
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