Far right on the rise in Europe
With European elections taking place, right-wing nationalists and the far right across Europe are sensing an opportunity.
Nationalism has always been a feature across Europe's political spectrum but there has been a recent boom in voter support for right-wing and populist parties.
Italy's nationalist League formed a populist coalition in Italy. Spain - once thought a barren ground for such politics - elected multiple far-right politicians to parliament for the first time since the country returned to democracy in 1975. And until this week, Austria's Freedom Party was in coalition with the centre right, before their leader was caught up in a video scandal.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36130006
Today France's far right party defeated Macron in European elections
https://www.politico.eu/article/french- ... -election/
The Trump/Brexit disease is spreading
Well. From the looks of it, there is something very interesting and unusual happening in Britain recently. The British press keep pushing a very pro Euro stance and are not allowing those they interview to speak about the real issues on why much of the UK voted for Brexit. The truth be told that officially the UK was not part of the EU as the British public were never given the opportunity to vote on the, and the whole Brexit campaign was supposed to get Britain into the EU by the back door method.
Britain has trade agreements and other agreements with the EU like shared forces etc, but we are not full members. We are part members. Hence every EU law pushed towards the UK has to be passed within the UK sores by the UK government before it can be adopted. (The UK has the Magna Carter which prevents rule from outside the UK shores over the UK people. So to govern the UK the EU government would all have to move their headquarters to be inside the UK to do it or the UK people have a right to oppose such a government... Hence why we have to retain our own government to go through any law imposed on us and we have the rights to accept or reject it).
Anyway. Here is what is very interesting. About two months ago Nigel Farrage who is a strong minded person who loves Britain felt he had to make a stand (He had already stood before under leader of UKIP but left when we had Brexit... Job done or so he thought... UKIP seemed to go astray with other ideas after he left). Now in not a lot of time at all, and I have not seen the final results yet, it seems he has set up a party and had the majority of MP's voted in stand I g for this new party to get in... To make a stand in the EU parliament on behalf of the UK. This is absolutely amazing if the votes have played out in this way because never have I heard of such a quick work and such a huge support by the British public.
I really get the impression that the two main parties in the UK along with the press are so out of touch with the thoughts and feelings of the people who live outside of the financial centre of London, that they seem between them to have been carrying on for the last few decades as a collective dictatorship and now their feathers are being ruffled.
I have often been agast by the way the TV press here have cut off people from speaking if they start to say the real reasons why people voted for Brexit. They keep harking on about immigration. Yes,it is an issue for some areas but here, in the rural areas we welcome it. There are not many jobs here so it hardly makes a difference as most people here are out of work, and we have met some really nice people. Most went back when the EU grants which paid them to come to the UK ran out.
Overall, even with immigration, the population has actually shrunk, but there are housing shortages in the cities. Why? People are trying to move to the cities to get work. The rural areas are being abandoned. New houses with grants by the UK government are going up in rural areas without any buyers or anyone who wants to live there as with a lack of work, even if we did want a house who could afford to buy one? Also, now it is rare to see a family living in a house. Most now are a single lady with children. The men have the issues as they are not entitled to a house as they have no children. So due to this, suicide rates with men are climbing fast. My brother said that out of the class he was in school with only a few of the boys are left. I am not in touch much myself with those I was in school with as face blindness and being reclusive means I tend to loose people.
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Nationalists, liberals and greens gained. Center-right and center-left (socialdemocrats) lost votes, thought they are still dominant.
https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c7zzdg3 ... tions-2019
The general trend is away from center - both sides.
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Sadly, this is true. We live... interesting times for sure.
Yup. Far right worries me, but so does far left. Hopefully they'll balance each other and will keep the opposite party from doing anything too stupid.
It is the extreme middle that can be the most concerning position for the UK. Here recently the far left and the far right positions we can relate to, as things have become a position where things are so divided there is no mid point, and so to adopt a mid point means stagnation with no way forward in any direction.
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I think this is very close to the truth. Bill Shorten our Australian Labour party leader was defeated in the last federal election ( a week ago) in what was pipped as the "un-losable" election. He lost (infact thrashed) by the incumbent conservatives. Ministers with decidely far right views like immigration minister Peter Dutton were returned to power in their seat despite making questionable racist comments throughout his ministry.
There seems to be a swing to the right in most western nations and I think the general public are becoming more conditioned to the rhetoric coming from the right from years of scaremongering associating non-white immigrants with welfare, economic stagnation, job loss, rape and crime... Nigel Farage did a fairly "Hitler like" campaign to scare older Britains to vote for Brexit by using imagery of hordes of middle eastern migrants marching in Europe supposedly heading to the UK. Trump used the train of migrants travelling from South America in exactly the same way to scare Americans that an invasion from across the Mexican border is imminent. The patter is clear.
What is also becoming apparent is something called the "silent voter". These are young and middle aged voters in European countries who know climate change and racism are bad things but who are quietly changing their preference to voting both conservative and even far right because they are worried about demographic changes in their neighbourhoods and cost of living but feel embarrassed to have to share their views in case they are ridiculed (and rightly so). People are becoming indifferent to minorities like the way Germans in the 1930s became paranoid and believed lies about jews being responsible for the economic crash in the 1920s ushering in the Nazis to power.
I know this might sound racist or unfair, but having a real order in the society is something I long for.
Longing for order is not racist. Thinking that the right side will serve society as a whole better than the left doesn't make you racist.
Some also choose far right because they believe it's the only thing that can protect them from the far left. Here in Finland the far right does know that climate change is real and that immigrants need help, but there's a limit to how much it's okay to affect an ordinary citizen's life because of these things. In the far left, we have people who demonize eating meat and using cars (of course, most of them live in areas where they don't need cars so it's no wonder they know nothing about how rural areas work and how they wouldn't work without cars) and want to raise the limit of immigrants we take to a level majority considers unhealthy and damaging.
In short, while many think far right is bad, they think it's a safer choise than far left.
That's my point. The public is moving in that direction and there's nothing we "lefties" can do about it. For me immigration is not important as it doesn't directly effect me but climate change will have a big impact and a rise in sea levels wouldn't be very comfortable if you live in coastal town in Finland
auntblabby
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from Yeats' "the second coming" -
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
That's my point. The public is moving in that direction and there's nothing we "lefties" can do about it. For me immigration is not important as it doesn't directly effect me but climate change will have a big impact and a rise in sea levels wouldn't be very comfortable if you live in coastal town in Finland
That's true too but lesser evil is lesser evil. And the right in Finland doesn't deny climate change, their ideas of how to fight it are just different.
And just to clarify: I'm neither left or right, I'm in the middle. Here we have official middle parties, not just left and right.
My short version of what's happening:
The left tends to deny any problems concerning immigration, which is the most bothering for the right;
The right tends to deny need for excessive environment protection, which concerns the left the most;
(Additionally, they strongly disagree on LGBT issues.)
The center does its best to avoid adressing any of the problems that concern either the right or the left - or they sometimes do some erratic, superficial movements that hardly help anything.
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<not moderating PPR stuff concerning East Europe>
