This vote, in which only about half the eligible voters participated, is an early warning of a threat from the far right, rather than a signal of immediate change in EU policies or in that of the individual countries. That’s because the executive and main legislative body in the EU is the European Commission and not the EU Parliament, which can only either support or veto the EC’s proposals. The European Commission remains in the service of the big West European and U.S. banks.
It’s expected that Ursula von der Leyen, the current president of the EC, will remain in office. Though not considered of the far right, Von der Leyen has been actively promoting NATO’s war charge against Russia.
The far-right parties base their support on a racist and xenophobic appeal, which is strongly anti-migrant. Some analysts have expressed worries about the danger of [neo]fascism from the far-right parties. They observe that the changes shaking society — U.S. loss of its former overwhelming power, danger of economic crisis, threat of major wars against Russia, in West Asia, and in the South China Sea — may encourage the [neo]imperialist ruling class into promoting a fascist-style party to save its domination.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron reacted to his party’s defeat in the EU vote by calling new parliamentary elections June 30 and July 7. There is a strong possibility that a representative of the far-right National Rally (formerly National Front), which came in first in the EU elections with more than 31% of the vote, will wind up being the new premier. (Macron’s party got less than 15%.)
[…]
The drop in support for the establishment capitalist parties and the social democrats brought no significant gains by left parties. There were a few exceptions: To the nearest percent, the Workers Party of Belgium (PTB/PvdA) increased its support from 8% to 11%, the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) grew from 1% to 3% and the Communist Party of Greece (KPE) grew from 5% to 9%.
Meanwhile, the ultraright parties made large advances. Alternative for Germany (AfD) came in second in Germany with 16%. The extreme right-wing Freedom Party in Austria (FPÖ) and Vlaams Belang of Belgium both came in first in their countries, with 26% and 14% of the vote respectively. And in Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government bloc, considered the most reactionary since Benito Mussolini, got nearly half the votes.
The U.S. corporate media sometimes presents the Western European far-right parties as anti-NATO or pro-Russia, or as defenders of national sovereignty against the European Union. This is false. Where these parties have grown closer to winning office through votes, they have accepted pro-EU and pro-NATO positions, acceptable to EU and U.S. bankers, while blaming migrants for everything.
Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen, head of the National Rally in France, have supported the EU and increased funds for weapons and been sharply anti-Russia. The AfD has backed all the moves by the German government to arm Ukraine and to allow Kiev to use the weapons against targets inside Russia.
With few exceptions, the far-right parties are on the same page with nearly all the center-right and nominally social democratic parties regarding preparations for war, support for West European [neo]imperialism in alliance with the U.S. and support for [Zionism].
The next battle with the far right is shaping up in France with the impending parliamentary elections. Macron, who won two elections for president by presenting himself as the only alternative to Le Pen, now appears to be ready to share authority with the National Rally.
Other left parties in France — La France Insoumise (led by Jean-Luc Mélanchon), the Communist Party, Greens and the humbled Socialists, have made an electoral alliance to provide an alternative to both the National Rally and Macron’s party. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in the streets of French cities on June 15 to oppose the far right and Macron’s pro-war center right.
There is another notable exception which is BSW in Germany. They went from 0% (they didn’t exist before) to 6%. They have some cringy right wing positions on a few issues but nominally they are a “left” party.
aren’t they like third positionist? courting white workers bigotry, with some class demagoguery sprinkled on top?
There are elements of that but i think that’s too shallow of an analysis. First and foremost they are a splinter of the Left (Die Linke) party (which has now all but collapsed, and it would be fascinating and highly educational to get into a whole analysis of why that happened, but not now), with similar but not identical positions.
Here’s an overview of which parties their voter base comes from:
And here’s a demographic breakdown of their base:
Source: https://www.boeckler.de/data/Boeckler_Impuls_2024_10_4.pdf
For those who don’t speak German, what the second graph basically says is that their voters are:
much more likely to be anti-establishment (lit.: “low trust in the government”)
predominantly low income
predominantly from east Germany
sightly more likely to be women
significantly more likely to have lower educational qualifications*
more likely to have an immigrant background (lit.: “immigration experience”)
*(Germany has a three tier educational system that is a bit confusing, but basically this is another class indicator - those who have gone or could have gone to university are less likely to vote BSW)
The last one is particularly striking as it does not fit with what you say about them “courting white workers” (in fact it is debatable if that kind of framing even applies to Germany… Germans don’t tend to think in terms of “white” and “non-white” but rather of native Germans and foreigners, though there is a strong anti-muslim prejudice as well on top of that). I personally know a few people of Turkish background who voted for BSW (this is anecdotal of course, i wouldn’t extrapolate anything from it).
As you can also see by which parties they “poached” voters from, they are a mixed bag, they draw from both left and right wing parties but the common denominator is that these are people who have become disillusioned with the establishment.
There is no analogue in US politics. The closest would be the UK’s George Galloway and his Workers Party (WPB). Reactionary on some social issues but not always (anti-LGBT but not racist or islamophobic like the “right populists”), while on economic issues they are closest to what the old-school social democrats used to be before they went all neoliberal. The establishment calls them “left populists”.
It’s also a bit strange i think to use the term “class demagoguery” because that’s what the liberal establishment calls it when anyone, including us communists, talks about any class issues.
Overall i would say they are a tailist working class party, and their mixed views on social issues reflect the mixed views of the working class itself which tends to be economically left but also sometimes skeptical of the social issues they perceive as being championed mostly by upper middle class university educated liberals (incidentally that’s exactly the base of the Greens, and so unsurprisingly Greens voters are the least likely to switch to BSW), the liberal establishment, and the mainstream media.
They are certainly not socialists or communists but they are useful insofar as they pull away support not just from mainstream parties but also from the far right (where a lot of disaffected people gravitated towards when that was the only anti-establishment alternative), and most importantly they are one of the only prominent anti-war voices in German politics.
WPB is a Joti Brar party so it’s straight up third positionist (watch Joti Brar interview with Caleb Maupin if you have any doubts on that)
And I say “demagoguery” because it’s just that in the case of nazbols, natsocs, strasserites, duginists, call them what you will
I prefer not to get into that sort of name-calling, it’s not productive.
People like Brar and Maupin are not just unproductive, they are completely detrimental
A bit confused now, Is lemmygrad going r/europeansocialists? Frankly I don’t have time to follow closely, happy to fuck off altogether if that’s the direction