The picture presented by parties of the nationalist and populist Right in Europe is one of great complexity and fluidity. Almost every country in Europe has a party that considers itself, or is considered by others, to be rightwing nationalist—although such parties often attract other epithets too! With the disappearance of communism in the East, and the continuing degradation of the quality of life across Europe, has come an unprecedented upsurge in populist, anti-establishment nationalism.
As can only be expected from such a diverse assemblage of countries, they are all very different in their styles and emphases. In the northern and western parts of Europe, such parties are often at least partly free market, tax-cutting, Atlanticist, pro-Israel, and sometimes even libertarian in tendency. In southern Europe they are more usually corporatist or semi-corporatist, often with a strong traditionalist Catholic support base. In the east these parties often include many ex-communists and have a nationalist veneer; they fear their neighbors’ territorial ambitions, and are usually strongly anti-American and anti-Semitic. Often they are centered around individuals rather than particular ideologies, and reflect their leaders’ personal tastes and character traits.
Furthermore, these parties are often extremely volatile. Facing, as they do, unique cultural, ideological, and credibility barriers; unused to success and government; filled with strong personalities and fragile egos; often made up of unlikely coalitions of interest groups, they are especially prone to splits and internecine squabbling. In the east, the situation is especially confusing, with parties springing up and disappearing overnight. In Bulgaria alone, there are over two hundred political parties. Such parties often experience spectacular victories followed by equally spectacular defeats.
In Austria, Jörg Haider’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) has been in government, out of government, and back into government within the past two years, as a junior partner in a conservative coalition with Wolfgang Schüssel’s Austrian People’s Party. After Haider stepped down as leader in 2001, to deflect attacks by the European Union at the time of his party’s original election to office, the party had a succession of short-lived caretaker leaders, who between them helped lose the FPÖ half of its support. To be fair to these politicians, much of this draining away of support was inevitable; parties like the FPÖ often benefit from being anti-establishment. When they enter into coalitions, and inevitable compromises start to be made, some of their impatient or less practical supporters lose their faith. At present, from his power base in the province of Carinthia, and with the assistance of key allies like Matthias Ewald, Haider is angling to regain control of the party, in preparation for the European elections of 2004.
In Belgium, the Vlaams Blok, which is one of the most sensible and successful of the small rightwing parties, had its greatest electoral success ever in May 2003. Campaigning on a resolutely anti-immigration, anti-corruption, and Flemish separatist platform, the Blok is now the fifth-largest party in Belgium, attracting 11.6 percent of the Belgian vote and 17.9 percent of the Flemish vote. It has 18 seats in the federal chamber of representatives and, with 7 seats out of 24, is the largest party on Antwerp’s city council. However, this electoral clout does not do it much good directly, because all the other political parties have imposed a cordon sanitaire on the party, refusing it all cooperation. The Vlaams Blok has a counterpart in the Francophone part of Belgium, the Front National, with which it has surprisingly cordial relations, bearing in mind that the Flemish party depicts Wallonia as an economic basket case and deplores the Frenchification of the Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium. At present, the Belgian FN has 5.6 percent of the Walloon vote, which equates to one seat in the chamber of representatives and one seat in the senate.
But the BNP’s recent achievements have galvanized political life and started to lift the BNP out of the political ghetto. There have been immediate benefits for the residents of areas where the BNP has polled well: The national government has avoided sending asylum seekers to areas where the BNP is strong. The government has even begun to make noises about asylum and seems to be moving away from multiculturalism in favour of assimilation, with David Blunkett calling for English-language tests and Labour MPs decrying arranged marriages. The Eurosceptical United Kingdom Independence Party, which has three MEPs and 30 to 40 local councillors, is very concerned about the possible threat from the BNP, and has accordingly beefed up its immigration policies. The UKIP rejected out of hand a recent BNP suggestion that the parties should form an electoral pact for the European elections.
The Conservative hierarchy is still nervous about raising the immigration issue—and is in any case in a state of flux, having just elected a new leader—but many of its rank and file members and traditional supporters are becoming more and more interested in the BNP. Relations between activists of the two parties in certain areas—notably the northwest, east London, and parts of Essex—are very close, even amounting to de facto electoral pacts. In one area of the northwest, BNP and Conservative activists hold joint social meetings, and even help each other out leafleting on alternate nights. There is a good chance that the BNP will pick up one seat in the European Parliament in next year’s elections; if so they have pledged to work with the Front National, Vlaams Blok, and anyone else willing to work with them.
Other interesting developments have been taking place in the West Midlands, where a new party, the Freedom Party, stood for the first time in May and won two seats (both won by the same person, Sharron Edwards). The Freedom Party aspires to be the first British populist party on the Right that avoids the mistakes that have bedeviled all similar parties, by offering a genuinely democratic party structure, with transparent accounting, respectable personnel, local roots, and sensible policies expressed in moderate language. Although at present they are the BNP’s poor relation, it is not impossible that their modest gains will be longer lasting than those presently being enjoyed by the BNP.
With that quick tour d’horizon of the European Right, the next thing to consider is whether these multifarious parties could help each other more. At present, there is hardly any practical cooperation between these various parties. This is hardly surprising, given the very nature of nationalism, and that many European countries have historical grievances and territorial aspirations that are directly at odds with their counterpart parties in adjoining countries. These parties depend for their very existence on their national traditions, their knowledge of their respective peoples, and their particular prejudices. Although all of them share strong reservations about immigration, globalization, and the EU, apart from that they really have very little in common. What makes sense in Spain will not necessarily make sense in Slovakia or Serbia. Styles and terminology that are perfectly mainstream in Bratislava can sound very peculiar in Birmingham. And with the best will in the world, these small parties have limited resources and need to concentrate their efforts on domestic politics.
Some efforts have been made to develop and deepen such alliances–notably the Front National’s Euronat organization, by means of which 30 foreign delegations (including one from Japan) came to the FN’s last major rally in Nice. But the limitations of such aspirations were made abundantly clear to me some years ago, when attending the Front National’s Bleu Blanc Rouge festival in Paris. We were one of the foreign delegations, as were both the Greater Romania Party and the Hungarian Justice and Life Party. Some FN official had decided that the two parties’ respective stands would be situated adjacent to each other. It did not seem to have occurred to the official responsible that ultranationalist groups representing adjoining countries whose relations have been historically poisonous, and who both lay claim to the same territories, might not be especially good neighbors. Some years previously, there had been tension between some British National Party members and a couple of people from Sinn Fein, who had rather surprisingly attended the rally. The previous year, Serbian and Croat nationalists actually came to blows. This time, the Hungarians and Romanians contented themselves with ignoring each other—ensuring that when one group was at their table, the other delegation was not at theirs—interspersed with tense periods of glowering at one another from opposite ends of the marquee, muttering to themselves in Magyar or Romanian. Meanwhile, the Slovak delegation kept well away from both the Hungarians and the Romanians!
Historical grievances aside, there is a tendency for the more successful of these parties to distance themselves from their less successful neighbors who have suddenly become something of an embarrassment. The Front National used to look to the British National Front as an example, but then the tables were turned, and the FN—correctly in my view—hastily dropped the NF while the NF was going through its “political soldier” period of ultra-Catholicism and hero-worship of Libya’s Colonel Gadaffi.
The FN has been examining ways of broadening its international network, especially in the English-speaking world, with enthusiastic support from Jean-Michel Girard, its South African–born, English-speaking head of foreign affairs. There are plans to replace the Euronat organization with a wider organization, with its own website, English-language news service, and regular meetings. Such an initiative would incorporate pressure groups and publications as well as political parties.
Yet what may be more important in the short term than the FN’s well-meaning, if occasionally misplaced, efforts were the talks that took place late last year in Carinthia between Jörg Haider, the Vlaams Blok, and the Liga Nord. These talks were an attempt to broker an electoral pact for the European elections of 2004, in which, for the first time, voters will be able to vote for parties outside their countries on trans-national “lists.” The discussions were cordial, but have not yet produced any concrete results; yet the participants are still hopeful that a deal can be struck. What makes these negotiations so hopeful is that those who are engaged in them are all politically pragmatic, and accordingly there will be no grandiose statements or schemes, merely quietly competent technical cooperation for a specific objective.
It would seem that the European nationalist Right is going to be around for a long time to come—occasionally feuding, occasionally facing electoral reversals, often failing to capitalize on opportunities through lack of imagination or lack of resources—but nonetheless a force to be reckoned with. For the moment, each of these parties will need to concentrate their efforts internally, trying to work with like-minded people at home while avoiding attacking their counterparts in other countries—acting locally while, hopefully, thinking globally. With participation in real politics and decision-making, and control of budgets, will come greater wisdom, greater credibility, and greater influence. Although change may not be as rapid or as far-reaching as many of us would like, it will come. What little these parties have so far achieved would have been inconceivable ten years ago. Despite their shortcomings, all of these parties, in their dramatically different ways, are helping to slow down what would otherwise have been an inexorable decline into extinction. Much that Europeans have loved will be lost along the way, but in time—and with luck—we will turn the tide.