Has Europe
reached peak populism?
Tide may
have turned against nationalist right.
By PAUL
TAYLOR 9/5/19, 4:02 AM CET
Italy’s
Matteo Salvini thought the country was ripe for a hard-right turn when he
pulled the plug on the coalition in August | Marco Bertorello/AFP via Getty
Images
PARIS — It
may seem perverse, in the week when the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)
posted record scores in two regional elections, to even whisper that anti-EU
populism may have peaked in Europe.
Yet a
series of events and votes in Italy, Britain, France, Spain, Austria, Slovakia
and the Czech Republic suggest the tide could be turning against the
anti-establishment nationalist movements that have upended politics across the
Continent, leaving the barbarians howling in frustration at the gates.
That
doesn’t mean that the social and economic distress that turned many
working-class, rural and poorer voters against the traditional political
parties, the parliamentary system and the European Union has gone away. But the
populists seem unable to secure a majority for their radical, anti-European
course almost anywhere.
The most
obvious case is Italy. Former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, whose far-right
League Party was sharing power uneasily with the anti-establishment 5Star
Movement (M5S) in Western Europe’s first populist government, thought the
country was ripe for a hard-right turn and pulled the plug on the coalition in
mid-August, demanding an early election.
While “Il
Capitano” toured the beaches, taking bare-chested selfies with supporters and
breathing fire at Rome, his attempt to consolidate power collapsed. His
erstwhile coalition partners held their noses and agreed to form a government
with the mainstream, center-left Democratic Party instead. Italy has pulled
back from the brink, at least for now, and is set to revert to more moderate,
EU-friendly economic and migration policies.
In Spain
too, populists of the far left and extreme right appear to be losing ground.
Salvini’s
failure has dented his party in opinion polls and raised first doubts about his
leadership. But Italy’s wheel of fortune spins fast. The would-be strongman and
master of social media may be back soon if the economy continues to flatline
and the new coalition falters.
Exhibit B
is Britain. Boris Johnson’s attempt to out-populist the populists by vowing to
lead the U.K. out of the European Union — “do or die” — on October 31, even if
that means crashing out without a deal, suffered a spectacular defeat in
parliament on Tuesday.
The new
prime minister, who had promised to “take back control” from Europe as leader
of the Leave campaign in the 2016 referendum, lost control of Brexit in his
first House of Commons vote, at least for now.
Given the
chaotic state of U.K. politics, public fatigue at endless battles over Brexit
and the unattractive hard-left alternative offered by the Labour Party’s Jeremy
Corbyn, Johnson may yet manage to purge and reposition the Conservative Party
as the true Brexit party and win a general election next month. But that looks
less likely after his big gamble on suspending parliament to push through a
no-deal Brexit has faltered.
Meanwhile
Nigel Farage, whose Brexit Party crushed the Conservatives and beat Labour in
the European Parliament election in May, may once again face the frustration of
setting the Conservatives’ agenda but failing to achieve a breakthrough in the
U.K. parliament.
French
President Emmanuel Macron looked to be in deep trouble earlier this year | Yoan
Valat/AFP via Getty Images
Exhibit C
is France, where President Emmanuel Macron looked to be in deep trouble six
months ago with the grassroots anti-establishment Gilets Jaunes (Yellow
Jackets) staging often violent demonstrations every Saturday and Marine Le
Pen’s far-right National Rally surging in the polls.
Now Macron
is back in the saddle, most of the Yellow Jackets have gone home, at least for
now, and Le Pen fell short of a game-changing victory in the European election.
With unemployment falling and the economy holding up, populism seems to have
hit its glass ceiling in France.
Austria’s
coalition between conservatives and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) crashed
and burned in May when the anti-immigrant movement’s leader was exposed on
video offering contracts to a purported Russian businesswoman in exchange for
illicit funding. Ejected from government, the FPÖ is still polling at around 20
percent but looks unlikely to return to power after this month’s snap general
election.
In Spain
too, populists of the far left and extreme right appear to be losing ground as
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist minority government gains in
popularity.
In Germany,
the AfD’s surge in the states of Brandenburg and Saxony left them still in
opposition; all the mainstream parties seem determined to shut them out of power
locally and nationally.
To be sure,
ruling right-wing nationalist parties scored spectacular victories in the
European Parliament election in Poland and Hungary and continue to defy EU
censure over the rule of law and civil rights. But Poland’s de facto leader,
Jarosław Kaczyński, may lose his absolute parliamentary majority in an October
general election despite his popular combination of welfarism and Catholic
nationalist social conservatism.
Meanwhile,
fears of an illiberal populist wave sweeping the whole of Central Europe have
proven overblown, with a liberal democrat winning the Slovakian presidential
election and billionaire Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš facing mass protests
over his alleged conflicts of interest.
Andrej
Babiš, prime minister of the Czech Republic | Leon Neal/Getty Images
Still,
mainstream politicians would be wrong to see the ebbing of the populist tide as
a reason to relax. The underlying drivers of nationalist politics are still
there.
The erosion
of some of the foundations of 20th century European democracy — political
parties, trade unions, religious communities and industrial jobs for life — has
left societies more volatile. Growing income inequality, concerns about
migration and the disruption of low-skilled jobs by globalization provide a
continuing seed bed for the politics of nativist anger in Europe and in the
United States.
And social
media offers an instant outlet for all forms of protest, amplified by fake news
and other manipulation.
There’s
also the fact that populists don’t need to be in power to set the agenda —
especially on hot-button issues like immigration, where they have successfully
shifted the discussion from how best to welcome refugees and integrate economic
migrants to how to buttress “fortress Europe” and make it harder to enter the
Continent — no matter how valid your claims to asylum.
The tide
may have broken, but there’s still plenty of mopping up to be done.
Paul
Taylor, contributing editor at POLITICO, writes the Europe At Large column.
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