It has happened again. First France, now the Netherlands. Tuesday’s election there confirms that Europe is swinging to the far right. The assassination of the Dutch far right’s leader Pim Fortuyn does not really explain it. It boosted his party’s support, but a boost is not a stampede and that is what happened — not just to the far right but to the mainstream right as well.
The conservative Christian Democrats did exceptionally well without the benefit of a martyr. Nor were there any similar special circumstances in France to pitch the French far right there into second place. No one was shot there. The real reason why that the Dutch and the French far right have done so well is because politics in both countries have become irrelevant and boring for a large percentage of the population. They are tired of the consensus politics of the last 50 years, imposed by politicians, the media, administrators, the business community, teachers, lawyers and all the rest of that slice of society that can be called the establishment.
They believe themselves to be enlightened, benign and civilized but increasingly they are out of step with Europe’s not so differing public. Whether in France, the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium or Germany, there is an anti-establishment mood. People look at politicians and see individuals who have made a career out by being guardians and promoters of political correctness, who say the right thing at the right time but who have become disconnected from those they represent because they are too busy talking to each other to have time for issues that ordinary people face on the ground.
One might argue that Europe regularly sees swings from left to right and vice versa, rather like schools of fish changing direction en masse. But to move from one to the other in Europe is no great shift, because there has been no real difference between the European left and right for the past 50 years. This shift is something new. The pendulum started swinging in Austria with the electoral success and entry into government of Joerg Haider’s populist Freedom Party, then in Italy, in Denmark and most recently in France. It is not going to stop with the Netherlands. Others will follow because the European center left has its head firmly in the sand. The way the Dutch center left has reacted, blaming everyone else except themselves for yesterday’s results, is not unique. The French center left has reacted the same way. Others across Europe are just as unwilling to learn lessons, and it will be their downfall — apart, perhaps from the UK’s Tony Blair who knows how to jump onto a populist bandwagon when he sees one.
The frightening conclusion is that Europe is heading toward insularity and contempt for the rest of humanity. It is going to become a lot less friendly to foreigners, particularly to foreigners who are Muslims. There can be no other conclusion given the specifically Islamophobic rhetoric of the Danish, French and Dutch far right. And no one in Europe is going to do anything about it. Already things are a far cry from two years ago when the Austrian Freedom Party entered government and the EU’s Portuguese presidency, backed by French President Jacques Chirac and the EU Commission in Brussels, mounted a boycott against it. It was a miserable failure and was not repeated when the Italian far right entered government, although there still are plenty of barbed comments about the Berlusconi administration.
The Dutch far right is now almost certain to be part of the next government in The Hague; its inclusion in government will probably result in the Netherlands leaving the Schengen agreement on open borders and will certainly result in much tougher policies toward immigrants. But there is no whiff of a suggestion that the Netherlands be blackballed. Being tough with the Austrians or rude about the Italians is one thing. Being unpleasant to the Dutch . . . that could start to pull the whole European edifice down.
