Is it a real threat? Or a far cry
The EU referendum has produced a significant shift to the right in Britain and throughout Europe. The Brexit has once again opened the debate on immigration and the rising far right in Europe. The terrorist attacks in France and Belgium gave rise to the anti Muslim and anti immigration sentiments in Europe.
The Brexit sent shock waves across Europe. All the extreme right wing racist and nationalist parties celebrating it as a big step forward for the disintegration of EU and strengthening the nation state. Brexit is a serious warning to the EU leadership. Far right is calling for the same sort of referendums for different countries. Far right see it as their own triumph. Brexit will gave more confidence to pursue their extreme right wing agendas.
It is true that big number of working class people voted in favour of Brexit. The working class communities have been devastated by the neoliberal economic policies and austerity. There is increased anger against austerity and cuts. In the absence of a mass working class and radical left movement, this anger has been successfully channelled behind right-wing political tendencies deeply hostile to the working class. The Leave campaign gave rise to nationalism and anti-immigrant xenophobia.
Far right pose real threat
There is no doubt that in some European countries, the far right is rising. But it will be a mistake to generalised this phenomenon for every country in Europe. In Countries like France, Austria, Denmark, Netherlands,Britain, Germany, Switzerland, Hungry, Bulgharia, Romania, and Sweden has experienced the growth of the far right anti immigrant populist parties. But in Spain, Portugal, Greece and some other countries, left parties have made gains. But in general, the politics in Europe is definitely moving to the right.
In some countries far right pose serious threats to the working class movement. In France, most polls show that the extreme right wing National Front leader Marine Le Pen will win through to the second round. And more likely at the expense of Socialist Party. The ruling Socialist party might not be able to make it to the second round of presidential election.
The very close result of presidential election in Austria came as a shock for many in European Union. Far right Freedom Party lost election for just few thousand votes. It comes a month after the Dutch electorate voted in a referendum against the free trade deal with Ukraine.
The crushing defeat – with 61 percent of voters rejecting it – was political victory for Geert Wilders, anti-Islam leader of the far-right Freedom Party. He said it was a vote of defiance against the European Union.
Immigration and Islamophobia
Another link which joins these radical parties is the rejection of immigration or Islamophobia. In Germany the Pegida movement is the most extreme in expressing these ideals. But this mistrust of Muslims is shared with the the Alternative for Germany Party – the AFD.
In its election manifesto it contended that Islam is incompatible with the country’s constitution. The party made strong gains in the March regional elections and took seats in all the three regional parliaments that voted with results ranging from 12 to 24 percent of the vote.
“This is a European movement with a number of elements to underline. It concerns more central and northern Europe while on the other hand Spain, Portugal and Italy are relatively spared such movements. “Certainly in Italy there is The Northern League and the same in Greece with Golden Dawn, but they don’t carry the same weight as parties like Austria’s Freedom Party. The National Front, the Danish People’s Party and The Finns,” explains Pascal Delwit Political Analyst, University Libre de Bruxelles.
Across Europe, many far-right parties exploit anti-EU sentiment and the social devastation caused by austerity for reactionary ends. Their populist demagogy conceals the aim of a more aggressive offensive against the working class. The concerns of many may be broadly the same: immigration, integration, jobs, incomes, the EU, political and business elites. The euro crisis, followed by Europe’s migrant crisis and the Paris and Brussels terror attacks have fuelled their rise. But their ideological roots are very different: from anti-establishment to neo-fascist, nationalist to anti-austerity, authoritarian to populist, libertarian to Catholic ultra-conservative.
Decline of mainstream parties
What is undeniably happening, however, is that the continent’s traditional mainstream parties are in full retreat. Across Europe, the centre-left social democrats and centre-right Christian democrats who have dominated national politics for 60 years are in decline. What is on the march across Europe may not be the far right, but distrust, disillusion, even full-scale rejection of the political establishment.
Following a collapse in support for its two centrist parties last December, Spain has been unable to form a government and went for second election in six months. The three mainstream parties in the Netherlands are set to win 40% of the vote between them in elections next year – roughly what any one of them might have got previously. Even in Germany, it seems highly likely that support for left and green parties and, above all, the right wing populist, anti-immigrant AfD, could soon bring to an end an era of two-party political stability that has endured since the end of the second world war. In Austria, in the first round of presidential elections, the centre-right and centre-left parties barely polled 10% each.
In many countries, the traditional parties of both right and left losing ground. Once the most dominating political force in these countries, now been challenged by new forces on the far right or left. Working class needs new mass parties with radical left program. New radical mass left parties can stop the march of far right. European working class needs to take initiatives to build the alternate platforms to face off the threat of far right. Working class movements can cut across the increased reactionary ideas of racism , nationalism and xenophobia.