One of the consequences of European integration has been the rise of far-right parties. Before the last ten years they were an exotic foreign problem. We used to listen to stories of Le Pen in France and think ourselves lucky that Britain didn’t have such problems. No more. The BNP, running on an anti-EU platform, has grown massively in recent years. They have started to take thousands of votes from Labour, and have become a regular feature on news programmes that would have refused to talk to them a decade ago.
This is a consequence of official disdain for people’s identity. It is not only the EU, of course. This Labour government in particular has shown itself to be concerned more with the student, ‘Foucauldian’ issues of gender and race rather than the root of the labour movement – the working class. Unfettered immigration has lead many people to feel like they are becoming strangers in their own home (see the survey I posted on yesterday for an example).
Today has seen stories of electoral success for the far right in Austria. Again, the EU figured in their rhetoric. In Germany we can also see the rise of the Left Party on an anti-EU platform.
The EU’s ‘slow-motion coup d’etat’ has caused this boost in support for the extremists. Whereas twenty years ago, if you were a socialist you could vote for the Labour party or a Socialist party in Europe, now those parties have given over control over policy to the EU. Either you don’t vote – a big problem in Britain – or you have to find another socialist party. Thus decent people are driven to the extremists.
The same is true on the right – there is nothing wrong with being concerned about immigration. People who felt that way used to be able to vote for a right-wing party. Now those parties have given away control over immigration to the EU. Your options are to refrain from voting or to vote for an extremist party. Let us hope that good sense prevails in Britain and we halt this disastrous policy of European integration before extremely nasty things start to happen. Anyone who has read their history knows that Hitler gained power with around 33 percent of the vote, the Austrian far-right are nearly there. We should all feel distinctly nervous this morning.
EU007 