To wonder about the political landscape of Europe?

[AspireMe]

Italy I'm not really surprised with regarding their politics, but Sweden!! Sweden was always upheld as the liberal utopia of Europe, what's going on!? Is it a rejection of mainstream media and the messages they publish? Are people turning their backs on the Left because they feel they aren't being listened to? Immigration? It's not just unique to these two countries, it's a pattern being repeated over the continent, and elsewhere.

I wonder if this is just a natural swing of the political pendulum or something deeper. And what the response will be.

When the left stopped representing the citizens and preaching some pretty insane ideas to them the citizens decided to try something else.

On immigration, Swedish locals have seen their cities and towns become foreign in just a few years. Italy put up with it for less time.

On the environment, the citizens have seen their power bills go up and now they are being told to ration energy.

On gender, the citizens have been told to believe such fantasy most just shake their heads and think 'wtf'.

The voters simply don't want to buy what the left are selling any more. Until the left step back and come up with some sane policies that benefit the average person the current lurch to the right will only continue.

There are tangible reasons and it's also a bit cyclical. Italy's always been a political basket-case, frankly.

I'm reserving judgement until I've looked into their leader's actual policies myself. Media has a tendancy to sensationalise. I think many are fed up of failed left/liberal policies. Look at Sweden's imported gang violence.

Sweden was unprepared for the gang violence and rise in crime that have started to become a major feature of areas with a high immigrant population.
Especially when that spills over into the general population.
They thought they were a sanctuary that grateful migrants would accept and settle into peacefully, with rainbows and smiling harmony as a result, but it all turned out rather more complicated than that, and the indigenous population are beginning to wonder wtf is happening.

I seemed to have missed Sweden, might be at news capacity

Also France shifted to right although not whole way

A variety of issues some outlined below, but yes it’s not to be ignored. People are increasingly voting right for a reason

Italy has also pleaded with the EU for years for help and support with migrants crossing the Mediterranean. And got very little in the way of money, practical assistance or understanding. Other than ‘Be Kind’

Personally I have been expecting this for quite some time basically since the left bought into the (insert baned term) of identity politics and have gone from being parties of the working classes and instead became only interested in the privileged white middle class woke bros who claim to be the most oppressed ever and aggressively attack anyone who disagree with them as "fascists", "bigots" and "hate mongers". When this sort of attack on reasonable society occurs anyone who is a sane rational person (and those who are less so) will react and be driven to the opposite extreme and won't necessarily realise that they are moving that way since everyone and everything is "fascist and bigoted " anyway.
Unfortunately many innocent people will pay the price for the excess of the privileged minority who like to claim victim hood

Are any of these parties further right than the current ERG wing of the Conservatives that we have?

Society is a trade-off. We toe the line, (pay our taxes, go to work, behave well, set up a pension, join the queue for housing), because in return we get protection from the state and the benefits of a more collective approach. It's as basic as that.
When we start to feel that those rules don't apply any more and "it's not fair"- we start to wonder why we are keeping our side of the bargain - and not getting what we should back. When after ten years we are still at the back of the housing queue and can't get a GP appointment, when our small businesses go under or our elderly parents can't get an ambulance - then we start to say "why should we keep paying in and following these rules.?"

Whether we are right about that is neither here nor there. Everyone will have a slightly different view of what they are owed and what they owe. But I suspect that is partly why people have voted for change.

A prominent tory voter on twitter just boasted that the UK was the only major country to not have a far-right movment in its parliament. The top reply said 'fish don't realise they're in water'.

This doesn’t end well. We got Brexit but Italy may have fewer options when it comes to that type of action. What then happens we’ll see but not worth hand waving these shifts away as some do (not you)

Climate change is going to increase pressures around borders too

A bit of a racist undertone in some of these posts. Sweden was a Utopia until the Brown People came!! FFS.

....you've just proved @Hoardasurass point perfectly.

It is the elephant in the room though. Sweden, and indeed all the far Northern countries were extremely homogenous. No history of colonialism or immigration. They have struggled with a large influx of peoples of different cultures and religions. I don't think that it is racist to highlight the difficulties of a major societal change.

Their skin colour is totally irrelevant. Their cultural attitudes- to women in particular- are relevant.

The gangs are formed around the culture of their homelands. These young men will not integrate into their adopted country and they are bringing the violence with them, rather than escaping from it.

Same shit happening in Leicester.

That's true but as soon as they start to realise the benefits of a multi cultural society , things will settle as they did for us and that wasn't easy to begin with. Now we generally benefit in many ways.
I think the rise of the Far Right-and it is nothing like the Tory Party-is based on racism, no matter how it is dressed up. People afraid to embrace change and welcome new ways of looking at life.

I should run for cover here, but generally the Conservative party in the UK is centre right, and you could argue over the last couple of years, have moved pretty far towards the centre, with massive state help over Covid and now the cost of living crises.

Because the left stopped representing the working classes and started to finger wag at them. As always, people may vote for those they dislike but won't vote for those who hold them in contempt.

They were talking about this on radio 4 this morning. They said that in Italy’s case, people who would have voted quite centrist in past were a huge voter base for her, and that’s partially because she is seen (for better or for worse) as the only candidate who actually has stuck by her beliefs over the years instead of being blown about by the political zeitgeist of the week/month/year. It’s almost a reaction to the political bandwagoning that happened with Draghi. More’s the pity, in my opinion.

‘A bit of a racist undertone in some of these posts. Sweden was a Utopia until the Brown People came!! FFS.’

No, the perception was that it was. Their self image was one of liberal welcome and acceptance. But it’s got a relatively small population of just over 10 million, and so when children are killed and gun violence soars, it has a significant impact.
Here’s a link from The Guardian.
www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/fatal-shootings-have-risen-in-sweden-despite-fall-across-europe-report-finds

Except that's not what I said at all

Sweden was (is?) seen as a liberal Utopia, people constantly pointed towards Sweden as being open and progressive and welcoming and left leaning and in the space of less than a decade, have seen a significant rise in right wing parties, which might indicate backlash against the backdrop. I can't see racism in any of that - if you can, perhaps that's on you.

"The left" is a red herring. We haven't a had a self-identifying leftwing government in my lifetime. Ask a leftist how they feel about Blair.

It's funny but entirely typical at how that guardian article managed to get to the end without evening mentioning the word immigration. The paternalistic narrative of the left, the demand that you squint when you see the truth to keep your vision in line with your pure values, is part of the problem.

Here's an article that manages to provide a context to the violence.

www.ft.com/content/67b9104d-f988-41d1-afb3-78f9baa579a5

Across a number of issues the Sensible Centre has been abandoned. When left-wing parties won't question/debate issues that are not settled in the public consciousness and the right-wing parties are blowing the trumpet for anti-woke as the alternative it's going to split the vote.

The conservative parties are moving right as the hard right minority parties shift the Overton Window in that direction one issue at a time. The classic example is the UK, where a relatively trivial minority party (UKIP) took a relatively trivial issue from the last thing on the electorates' mind to the lead issue of the day. This took the Conservatives to the right, left the Left unsure what to support, and once the dust settled both the Conservatives and Labour went through a purging of the moderates - which left the Conservatives dominated by the harder-line extremists and their acolytes. Similar things have been happening in Italy, Greece, France, etc.

FourTeaFallOut
Two things.
I posted a link to the left-leaning, woo-approved Guardian because even they can’t deny what’s happened.
Secondly, your link is unreadable.