Over the past few weeks, an array of fascistic and violent
far-right attacks on immigrants and left-wing activists have rattled Southern European
countries, particularly Greece and Italy, where a mob of Orthodox and neo-Nazis
have burned down the Libertatia squat, rampaged through the streets, and murderedsix migrants, injuring scores more. Significantly, these ugly developments have
taken place to the backdrop of an increasingly hard-line stance among centre-right
political parties that has begun to spread across the Continent.
The Italian centre-right politician Silvo Berlusconi was
subject to a massive backlash following his declaration, issued right after the
massacre of migrants, that the 600,000 refugees allegedly residing in Italywere a “social bomb” that must be deported. Such rhetoric has been likened to
Victor Orban’s anti-Islamic rants.
The comparison is apt and revealing, but it doesn’t go far
enough. Rather than just Berlusconi, centre-right parties across Europe have increasingly
been “Orbanised” or Fideszised. This shift can be observed inside the Greek New
Democracy party, France’s Les Republicans, the Netherlands’ VVD, and the aforementioned
Forza Italia/Lega North coalition in Italy.
This “Orbanisation,” which can be seen as the right-wing
equivalent of PASOKification, in many cases, follows a definite pattern. In
Greece, Italy, and France, centre-left social liberal governments (PD, SYRIZA, PS)
have pursued austerity policies that have deprived them of their social base,
leaving them as electoral shells (in Greece and France, the centre-left had to
die twice, first in the form of PASOK and the PS, and now SYRIZA and inevitably
En Marche). All of three of these countries also face a rising far-right or
populist party (CasaPound, Golden Dawn, and the National Front), and a centre-right
that was ejected from office as a result of disgruntlement with those same
austerity policies.
Such a situation has caused the leadership of these parties
to move to the ultra-right. In France, Laurent Wauquiez has pushed the slogan “Immigration:
That’s Enough” and has vowed to be “controversial” and “truly right-wing.” He
is practically guaranteed to play a major role in the next French presidential
election, which he may well win due to the unpopularity already facing Emmanuel
Macron, who has escalated the neoliberalism of his predecessors.
In Greece, the New Democracy party has harshly denounced immigration
under its leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, an ultraliberal who has cozied up to Orthodox,
nationalist, and far-right political forces. The VVD in the Netherlands,
although unlike the cases mentioned above, has been in power for multiple years
now, arguably started this trend with its leader Mark Rutte demanding that immigrants
act “normal,” or “get out.”
Despite the more centrist policies of previous Forza Italia
and VVD governments under Berlusconi and Rutte, it must be remembered that the
initial Orban government in the beginning half of the 2000s was also far less
extreme than his later administrations. What caused his shift towards open
anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant rhetoric was:
A.
The total collapse of the centre-right vote
B.
A rising force to the traditional centre-right
(Jobbik)
C.
Austerity policies combined with immigration
As the electoral success of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose own political
career has followed similar trends, has shown, a centre-right party’s turn towards
populism and racism can produce an electoral windfall if accompanied with the aforementioned
conditions. Two parties particularly vulnerable to this process are Canada’s
Conservative Party and Sweden’s Moderate Party, which have already showed signs
of moving in a rightward direction.
Stopping “Orbanisation,” while ensuring that votes do not fall
into the lap of a “big tent” pro-business coalition or forces even further to
the right is perhaps the most important challenge facing the left in today’s
political climate. So far, only one political party has accomplished this feat,
at least temporarily: Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour, the rise of which has led to a
decrease in the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the early days of Theresa May’s Tories.
It is reasonable to conclude, thus, that moving to the left may be the only way
for Europe’s social democratic parties- and social movements on the ground- to
ensure that the continent does not end up in the hands of nationalists and those
who would pull down the curtains on the age of enlightenment for good.