Europe’s far right

Culture matters more

The far right in Europe is rising in many European countries in spite of its inability to provide a coherent economic message

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The far right parties are just making use of nationalism to gain popularity among people. But they do not know how to get the coutry out of the economic crisis. Their policies can hurt those innocent immigrants. It is unfair to do so.


The Golden Dawn party in Greece is much more extreme than any of the far-right parties to be found in western Europe (I do not know so much about the Hungarian fascists) and they only gained any significant support after the crisis hit Greece extremely hard. Before the Great Recession, the Golden Dawn Party received a mere 0.1% of the popular Greek vote. After the crisis, and Memorandum imposed by the Troika, the Golden Dawn exploded its support to almost 7% of the national vote. Before the crisis, there was a different far-right party in Greece called LAOS (Popular Orthodox Coalition) but it was extremely moderate in comparison with the Golden Dawn. With the onset of the crisis and the massive explosion in in poverty, the support for the unmistakably neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party rose by geometrical progress.
My point being, that at least in the case of Greece, who now boasts a genuine neo-Nazi party, the reasons can be found almost exclusively to economic issues. Of course, one can say, that anti-immigrant sentiment was lurking beneath the surface for several years, and with the onset of the crisis, it reached critical mass. Because, on the other hand it is true, that may people in Europe, are not only worried about economic issues, but also about what they perceive as a foreign invasion by Arab and African immigrants.


Along with mainstream political parties, Europe's settled minorities have a responsibility to promote and protect the values that allowed them to find a better life here. In particular, the Jewish people, as an upwardly mobile minority group in many EU countries, should take every opportunity to trumpet the rights originally articulated for their benefit (and those of other minorities who were persecuted during the Holocaust) in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Visit to learn more about Jewish values and universal human rights.


Our beloved blogger Gwitreg has posted a link( to justify Vichy collaboration with the Nazis and France's unpardonable role in expediting it's Jews to the crematoriums. is a dating site. I guess she got her late night net cruising confused with reasonable debate. Poor girl, she's got so many things going through her head at the same time. ROTFLMAO. I took a screen shot of it. I am waiting for her justification which should come within minutes.

Swedane in reply to Josh_US Lux

I think emmafinney is right. Whenever and wherever in the world I meet an American he/she always tells me he/she comes from America – he/she does not say from which state or place unless, perhaps, he/she is from New York. By contrast when somebody asks me where I am from I tell them I am from Denmark – not “from Europe”.

Andreas Panteli

It is not what they are coined, or how they look. It is how the act. And from history we know that Greek military junta who they were supposed to help the Greek people, among other things they sold Cyprus and this debacle created a tragedy that is still unfolding.

beape in reply to emmafinney

'"SOME Americans, do consider themselves a Texan, New Yorker, Floridian, and so on before American."

Great now all you have to do is provide the source for this information.

Eagerly awaiting polls and surveys that back up your claim. Thanks'

Emma, Mr Lock only has to find a single Texan, New Yorker, and Floridian to back his claim. No need for surveys.

On the contrary, by claiming "No Texans are Americans first and Texans seoond" as you did earlier, it is you who need not only "polls and surveys" but a 100% coverage of the opinion of all Texans to back your claim. It suffice to find a single Texan who think otherwise to refute your claim.

Mr Lock in reply to emmafinney

Really? That's what you gather from that bloc of text. FINE, let me us one of possible thousands of examples.

Some might see themselves as Cornish, Scottish, English, Welsh, Yorkshire, Manx, Londoners before they considered themselves BRITISH. Some may not.

Some might consider themselves Bavarian before German. YET funnily enough they through the Zolverin and the leadership of Bismarck, created the nation of Germany. I'm sure that many saw that as a pipe dream, and in fact many did such as the Prussian conservatives saw the 1848 revolution in Germany.

CANADA: People from Quebec consider themselves people of Quebec before Canadian.

SOME Americans, do consider themselves a Texan, New Yorker, Floridian, and so on before American. It is purely down to the individual, but to picked that out as you main counter argument is unscrupulously simplistic.

I think Germans will accept 'transfer union' as they have benefited from it before the crisis and ever more so throughout the crisis. I think Angela is very intelligent in playing this close to the chest but the endgame is either some form of federalism in Europe or economic catastrophe. I honestly prefer the latter, and it won't stop me from being British in my way, or Germans from being German. It is not like Europe is some alien nation that has descended on us.

I swear with the logic people put about the permanence of nation-states, would dictate London would be Mercia and further idiotic ideas. The idea of Europe is not popular, but I rather have the 'bureaucratic nightmare' over the revitalized multi-polar Europe that regular fought over resources. So instead of summits, we would have conflicts, no trade, no freedom of movement, and ever prejudicial states. SOUNDS LIKE A BLAST. I rather have Europe, maybe some sort of light-federal model akin to Germany, just to ease governance and provide legitimacy. It seems fair enough as MANY nations, like listed above and you can find everywhere that are a combination of many unique, surviving cultures.

One key example: THE UK.

Made of a few distinct countries with various languages and even religious differences all with their own football teams, TV. This is all whilst under a VERY centralized power in London yet they thrive and Great Britain continues, even with Alex Salmond. Belgium is another example, Spain and this is just Europe. So before you brush it off, think.

emmafinney in reply to Mr Lock

No Texans are Americans first and Texans seoond and that is why the USA is a transfer union.

Germans will not ever tolerate a transfer union, so a federal Europe is only a pipedream.

Ken Eff in reply to Zultra

Our enlightened western societies spend billions on brainwashing to cancel out this perceived ignorance and apathy among the populace, so that we obey and get with the program of post-national globalism. In the process they are cancelling out healthy critical thinking, but that's alright with a lot of the modern, enlightened, tolerant people who think the people at large are brainwashed ignorants.

shaun39 in reply to Zultra

" 'racism' is just a media tag with no weight or essence. "


And with talk of organic nations and what not, the rest of the comment doesn't seem any more intelligible.


Yes - it is disappointing to read about the rise of far right wing parties in the Netherlands. I expect as much in Greece, but the Netherlands?

emmafinney in reply to L6QjhvJGVk

Well you certainly don't know the younger generation of French ladies.

Ever wonder why Macdonalds reports its biggest sales in Europe in France?

Or why any restaurant with a Texan or New York flavor is extremely popular in France?


Well its not like Gladstone would have approved of the single currency either.

Gladstone March 17th 1891

“The Finance of the country is intimately associated with the liberties of the Country. It is a powerful leverage by which English Liberty has been gradually acquired … it lies at the root of English Liberty and if the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the grants of public money, depend upon it your liberty will be worth very little… It lies at the root of English Liberty, and if the House of Commons can by any possibility lose the power of the control of the grants of public money, depend upon it, your very liberty will be worth very little in comparison …That power can never be wrenched out of your hands… That powerful leverage has been what is commonly known as the power of the purse – the control of the House of Commons over public expenditure – your main guarantee for purity – the root of English liberty. No violence, no tyranny, whether of experiments or of such methods as are likely to be made in this country, could ever for a moment have a chance of prevailing against the energies of that great assembly. No, if these powers of the House of Commons come to be encroached upon, it will be by tacit and insidious methods, and therefore I say that public attention should be called to this.”

However, what we are seeing comes from another foresight of the master economist.

"But let the working man be on his guard against another danger. We live at a time when there is a disposition to think that the Government ought to do this and that and that the Government ought to do everything. There are things which the Government ought to do, I have no doubt. In former periods the Government have neglected much, and possibly even now they neglect something; but there is a danger on the other side. If the Government takes into its hands that which the man ought to do for himself it will inflict upon him greater mischiefs than all the benefits he will have received or all the advantages that would accrue from them. The essence of the whole thing is that the spirit of self-reliance, the spirit of true and genuine manly independence, should be preserved in the minds of the people, in the minds of the masses of the people, in the mind of every member of the class. If he loses his self-denial, if he learns to live in a craven dependence upon wealthier people rather than upon himself, you may depend upon it he incurs mischief for which no compensation can be made."

TE likes to think it is a liberal publication, so when will it start publishing liberal articles instead of ones with illiberal socialist demagogism?


extreme parties have never required a real explanation of what they will do. You say you'll do things differently, change the country and eventually people start believing it.

It's one of my (many) problems with a unified Europe, who will be there to oppose a fascist leadership? Even if fascists get elected in some Scandinavian country or Greece, it will be but a one or two countries. Sovereign nations will be the external check and balance on these places, they will never be allowed to go overboard as was allowed in Germany.

Snarkibartfast in reply to wobytides

And policy-wise, the Progress Party in Norway is a lot like the American GOP (except pro-welfare).

Populists, nativists, flirting with xenophobia, sure. But they're not fascists like Jobbik or Golden Dawn.

My anxieties, and those of the vast majority of Europeans, would certainly not be assuaged by your proposal. I would be deeply distressed to see so many people forced out of their homes and country just to satisfy some peoples’ dislike of change. (If I was one of the citizens being forced out, I would presumably be more than just distressed.) I would also live every day in fear that a government that could do such a thing would eventually do something equally bad to me.

Atrahasis in reply to Atrahasis

”Presumably if it were in their power, they would also provide medical treatment for any Greek citizen who required it, without the wretched and demeaning demands for payment or evidence of private medical insurance and so on which characterize the Thatcherite approach to Public Health.”

As economiser1167 wrote on this page on 10th August, “the pre-condition for right-wing extremism is historical amnesia”. This was well said, because my paragraph above does contain a specific lapse of historical memory. According to the article (in Greek) at the link below, the ‘medical treatment’ recommended by the Golden Dawn for ‘defectives’ and others who ‘threaten the purity of the race’ would be compulsory sterilization or extermination.



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