EU survives rise of the right

Much has been made of the outcome of the recent elections for the European Union Parliament, with many commentators proclaiming ‘the rise of the Far Right’.

This has been the popular narrative for a while now, and many journalists have become addicted to it – even when the facts do not quite fit the narrative.

Yes, the Far Right did make gains throughout a good part of the EU (the Netherlands was a glaring exception) but not nearly to the extent that was predicted, or its leaders expected.

The Far Right (or Populism if you like the sanitised version) finished with something like a third of the vote, insufficient to take power from Centre Right and Left parties that have dominated the EU since its formation.

In addition, this may well be the high water mark of its influence. Many of its supporters are moderating their views, talking of change within the EU rather than scrapping the whole institution.

Its weakness comes in defining what it really wants to achieve.

We all know what the Far Right is against — globalisation, elites, the EU itself; and who it claims to represent — the ‘voiceless’, the ‘left behind’, the ‘downtrodden’ and the ‘forgotten’, an amorphous group that somehow never coalesces into something that can be easily identified.

Yet probe further and ask what it wants to replace the institutions it seeks to tear down; or help those it claims to represent, and the rhetoric quickly runs dry.

At risk of simplification I would say the supporters of the Far Right are largely drawn from young people experiencing politics for the first time; anarchists who latch onto any movement when there is chance of riots where they can smash shop windows and overturn cars, and older people with a nostalgic belief they can actually return to the ‘simpler times’ of their youth.

Like any movement, the Far Right will have a smattering of thinkers who actually seek to define a philosophy, but their voice is drowned out by the chanting and the slogans.

Besides the Netherlands, in many other places in Europe the Far Right’s rise has been over-rated. In Germany it was the Greens that made the most spectacular progress, taking second place behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

In France it was said that the right-wing National Rally (NR) had inflicted a ‘humiliating’ defeat on French President Emmanuel Macron. In fact NR polled just ahead of Macron’s Republique En Marche and got fewer votes than in 2014.

Republique En Marche, a new party that was standing at the election for the first time, took a good number of seats to give Macron a greater say in European affairs.  

In the United Kingdom Nigel Farage will persist in claiming a great victory for the his Brexit Party despite it being comprehensively outpolled by the combined vote of pro-European parties, the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Scottish Nationalists.

In addition, many Labour supporters remained loyal in the desperate hope their party will eventually back a second referendum on EU membership.

All this meant, as writer, broadcaster and geopolitical commentator Colin Chapman summed up in his analysis of the election, that the Far Right ‘earthquake’ was little more than a tremor.

The EU emerged from it still intact and probably stronger from the experience, its officials energised and looking to the future.

Changes will undoubtedly come — they have to — but they will happen within the European Union’s existing structures – not on its ruins.