Despite years of hand-wringing about the populist right in Europe, the elite in many European nations have proven their preference for those groups over any momentum by leftists who will implement policies that will match the EU’s liberal marketing materials.
The EU presents itself as a beacon of democracy, with free speech and a vehement commitment to human rights. But their actions have never matched that propaganda.
“What we're witnessing is the failure of the European dream, if you like. The idea of this community of nations, which at its heart was always a neoliberal financial cabal. And, it's failing. It's falling apart,” explained Phil Kelly, a Belfast-based political commentator and socialist activist told Sputnik’s Political Misfits. “It hasn't delivered in its kind of mythical promises. And the reality of what it's producing is increasingly stark economic failure and decline and declining living standards.”
In France, President Emmanuel Macron appointed centrist-right Michel Barnier as prime minister. Barnier’s party came in fifth during the national elections. The New Popular Front, the leftist party that came in first place, offered several prime minister candidates to Macron, but they were refused. While the French left have drawn up impeachment documents against Macron, the leader of the RN, Marine Le Pen, gave her tacit approval for the Barnier appointment. The sign is clear: Macron will negotiate with the RN, but not the left.
“This guy is an EU stooge, the blandest of the bland, you know, somebody that was probably spawned in a laboratory in Brussels, whose veins pump with blue EU blood. Not someone chosen by the people,” Kelly said of Barnier.
“If France is going down a route with Macron…where he desperately clings to power, clings to preserve his own position for a little longer, the legacy of that is to sow a bitter harvest that one day he will have to deal with, and that is that you're making an enemy of the French people by denying democracy,” Kelly concluded, dubbing Macron “Marie Macronette” as an “isolated political establishment with no connection to the people.”
In Germany, after three people were fatally stabbed at a street festival by a Syrian man who said he was inspired by ISIS* German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party all but adopted the AfD’s immigration policy, closing its borders and ending, at least temporarily, the Schengen-Visiting Zone, which since 1985 has allowed visa-free travel between most EU countries.
“While the kind of conservative center parties and the liberal elites within Europe won't use the extreme rhetoric that you hear from the AfD or Le Pen and France or other far-right groups, their actions really demonstrate that they are the same,” argued Kelly. “And any serious student of history will tell you and understand fully that at times of crisis, liberals will always align with fascists, and that's exactly what we're seeing.”
As the adage goes, scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Kelly pointed to the ruling parties in Europe allowing migrants to drown in the Mediterranean, supporting terrorist groups in Syria in an attempt to overthrow a sovereign state, supporting and arming neo-fascists in the Ukrainian military, and the support of genocide against the Palestinian people as evidence that the center-left and center-right parties are, at best, no better than the populist right that they say they fear. “Certainly, the blood soaking their hands is as thick and probably more splattered across their faces than anyone else,” Kelly said.
"This political establishment are every bit as racist, every bit as despicable as the brown-shirted, goose-stepping thugs that they tell you to be scared of. They're one and the same, they rely on each other," he added.
As Europe was falling, Germany, previously the industrial heart of Europe, made no real protest when the Nord Stream pipeline was sabotaged. Many, including Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, pointed their fingers at the United States. Yet Germany –like many EU nations– continues to function as an extension of the United States.
“At that moment, Germany really revealed itself to be a vassal state to the US,” argued Kelly. “You only have to think about the Nord Stream bombing, which devastated the German economy. And yet, the German government, as it pains, said it doesn’t really want to know who is behind that.”
Faced with a failing economy and ineffectual leaders, it is not uncommon for people to turn to populism. The question is what brand of populism they will gravitate towards, right-wing or leftist. Unfortunately, the right wing has gotten a head start in Europe.
“My worry here is that Germans who’ve seen their economy collapse, who’ve seen industrial giants like Volkswagen start to struggle, all as a result of the boomerang effect of sanctions and following blindly the US military and economic policy, that’s creating the problem, but you have a narrative where migrants are the scapegoat in Germany,” argued Kelly. "[Germany's] history proves it's a great fan of the scapegoat."
“The left [in Europe] must find itself in the dark,” Kelly continued. “It needs to stop the circus because a left opposition to this wave of reaction is neither a rainbow postmodernist, clown twerking, to quote from Judith Butler, nor is it a kind of brown-shirted, goose-stepping clown juggling hammer and sickle, where you have a left that kind of masquerades itself as some kind of left-wing fascism.”
Instead, the left needs to focus on economic issues if it wants to stand against the momentum of the right. “This is where we need class-based politics… to be connected to the people, but that connection is not strong enough in Germany. And I hope the [Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, a new leftist party recently launched in Germany] gains ground. I hope it gains momentum because that’s where hope would arise,” concluded Kelly, noting earlier that he did not agree with their migration policies that somewhat mirror the AfD’s.
“But at the moment, the clouds on the horizon are the AfD, and a political establishment who are opening the doors, as I said, and rolling out the red carpet for them to either march into power or have such an influence on the government that it’s indistinguishable,” Kelly warned.