What's going on with the far right parties?

[ItsPrettyGoodReally]

Hi,

I wondered if anybody might know what it is that means far right parties are rising in so many countries?

I was really desperate for this general election so we could get rid of the tories and get a labour government. But now suddenly people are talking about the far right in the UK, and in France and Germany, and Trump seems to be doing well in America.

I do kind of understand that maybe it's a reaction against globalisation and a return to the nation state.

However, I also see the massive gap between the ultra rich and the rest of us, and that reminds me of the way things were just before WWII, which is not a good thing.

It all feels a bit 1932 to me, and I would rather that the world was keeping a calm head while dealing with all the challenges.

Does anybody out there have a way to rationalise the situation that seems like there is a safe and calm way out of all this?

I think the key is that we all (across the globe) have to keep respecting democracy, and talking, and voting, and above all keeping our best calmest heads on, but I would be glad to know what others think.

Thanks!

Unfortunately democracy cannot be respected. Because capitalism and globalisation will not allow it to be.

Can you imagine if there was a referendum on immigration levels? How do you think that would go?

So the simmering resentment, rapid cultural changes, decreasing quality of life and wages will continue. Most people know that this ponzi scheme of 'just keep bringing in more!' to prop up the economy and care needs won't work. Because those people bring dependants and age too...so it can never end.

Which unfortunately means that resentment will harden over time, and more and more people will be crying out for someone, anyone, who actually points at the elephant in the room. And the chances are by that point they won't care whether that person is radical or not.

Unless we can start having a grown up conversation, without swathes of the country being labelled, then we will follow Europe towards the far right. Which will be disastrous for all of us.

Well said Foggyfield! Until we can have constructive grown up conversations about these things without finger pointing we will sadly head the same way which will be devastating. ☹️

Thanks for responding.

I agree that grown up conversation is absolutely the way to go.

I feel as though people talk so much, particularly on MN, about what we are "entitled to".

I mean in many cases, legally we are currently entitled to things, but very often these entitlements just came through totally unfunded political promises. When the money isn't there, the public services get more and more stretched, and people start to realise that something is wrong in the system. Looking at the discussions on MN though, I don't think any of us realise fully where it is wrong and what needs to be done.

I mean just shouting for our entitlements doesn't seem to be working, and the political system is still so terribly prone to false promises. The more we shout, the more watered down the services become, until they are barely there at all.

I feel as though we need to start being honest about what the country can afford and start being grown-ups about our own choices. Perhaps, listening more to the "fact-checkers" and less to the politicans that spout nonsense soundbites on the telly.

I really don't think we should be pointing the finger at immigrants. I think we need concentrate on having only as many dependents as we can afford, and making sure everybody pays their taxes.

In the case of very wealthy people, I think they need to be asking the government to tax them fairly, because it's bonkers that some individuals are sitting on billions of pounds while some families have nothing. Surely if the economic scale is so wide, then eventually money stops making sense?! If it stops making sense, then that's how war starts. We need money to work for social cohesion, not to mess it up.

I think people's frustration with immigrants is complicated. I think it's because the world is so globalised that people can move so easily now and almost live in two or more countries even really quite easily. It's almost like the globalised world needs a global government, rather than just loads of national governments. If we have so many international people and companies, then we need international government. I think that just makes sense. I have no idea how to do it.

Sorry, I'm kind of thinking out loud, but I really feel as though the world is changing and we MNers need to be part of the discussion.

I know there are a huge number of incredibly smart and educated MNers here. Can we figure something out amongst ourselves?

We also have Reform. Farage is far right, but under a facade of "common sense". Because of his and others rhetoric it makes it harder to have a decent conversation about immigration. We need the conversation to be led by someone who isn't racist.

What needs to be addressed is why people are leaving their countries and what we and other rich countries can do to stop it.
We are always going to be attractive as we colonise the world and made everyone learn English and be ruled by our monarchy for decades.
The answers are tricky but investing in developing counties, getting rid of absolute poverty and stopping climate change would all help hugely. Obviously the far right
would never fund these things because they don't actually give a fuck about immigration they just want power and to create division and hate.

I really don't think we should be pointing the finger at immigrants. I think we need concentrate on having only as many dependents as we can afford, and making sure everybody pays their taxes.

I don't disagree with you, but I think we have to be careful about phrasing with things like this.

Given first and second generation immigrants tend to have a higher birthrate than the native population, telling them to have even less dependants might not land well. I think we could be in danger of legitimising the racist 'great replacement' trope.

My home country is also having a birthrate crisis, but I'm guessing hell will freeze over before the country accepts a large influx of immigration as the solution.

From an observational standpoint, it will be interesting to see how different countries respond to this crisis and which response turns out to be the better one.

I agree with this and it is acted out on MN over and over again. I said yesterday (and only this - nothing else) that Reform is the only party acknowledging that the NHS needs more than just money and that immigration was causing issues, in the context of asking how people would vote.
I am not a Reform voter but think those two differences are worth noting.
I was immediately called a racist and told I like liars.
People like this poster seem to think that by refusing to engage in conversation and insulting people, they will get them to see the error of their ways.
They are terribly wrong.

Because of his and others rhetoric it makes it harder to have a decent conversation about immigration. We need the conversation to be led by someone who isn't racist.

Unfortunately we’re at a place where our own government and opposition have avoided this for far too long (add in discussions about the NHS, gender ideology, education, ineffective local government), have allowed corruption and greed to cause the biggest transfer of wealth whilst simultaneously blaming poor and disabled people for the state of the country.
The country is in a state because of our poor leadership.

Underestimating people’s need for change and underestimating the hold Farage has on them, and assuming that all reform voters are racist, will push us further to the right.
Reform voters are not all racist. They are mostly (IME) people pushed to the edge by years of shit with nowhere to go.
Conservatives have been corrupt and self serving. Labour (as I read in another thread) are likely to be turbo crap. Something has to give. Farage comes in and talks about the things that no one else is talking about. Of course people are going to listen. It’s not like our own government is saying the hard stuff. And it doesn’t matter if he’s not telling everyone how exactly he’ll do the things he’s saying he will do, because no one else is saying it either.

We’re being led further right because, in part, the Tories are not bringing the subject up because I assume they can’t or won’t. Left purists won’t allow certain discussions to take place without calling people racists and bigots - you can see that on every thread that brings up reform. It’s a mess.

I'd just like to point out that northern European countries have moved further left recently and that even Germany was split on this down an East West divide.

People are getting dumbed down deliberately so they believe the likes of Farage/trump etc. The mega rich want to keep us in our place and asking no questions.

The mega rich only benefit from large scale migration, it keeps wages low, and brings in more bodies/money. Why would they want people angry about it/voting against it?

That doesn't actually make any sense as far as conspiracy theories go.

Sort out the north south divide
Reduce wealth inequalities
Invest in people via better education and training. Invest in left behind areas
Trickle down economics doesn’t work.
The far right is increasing in popularity because whole swathes of the country haven’t seen the same prosperity as London and the south east. Even Johnson could see that levelling up needed to be done. Sadly what could have been a great opportunity was hijacked.
With climate change immigration is only going to get worse as millions are unable to survive. Don’t know what the answer is.

I think the problem is ultimately because the media have lost control of the narrative.

Back when we only had four TV channels, the broadcast media could exclude certain political opinions. Certain topics such as immigration were off limits. People might have grumble down the pub, but were powerless because all the main parties were the same and the media made it clear those opinions were unacceptable.

The internet has changed everything and now people can access alternative narratives, find like-minded people and organise.

I think that's ultimately a good thing because we were living in a charade of a democracy.

But can society actually function when people aren't having their thoughts controlled by a, hopefully, benign media? Is the current chaos just the growing pains of a society learning to live with these new freedoms or will things get progressively worse until society completely fractures?

As much as the left lines to blame the right, I think the left needs to temper its extreme positions - e.g. open borders would result in tens of millions of people flooding into Britain (similar to what happened when Germany opened its borders). Open borders would mean those people would qualify for public services, which would quickly collapse, as would law and order. Open borders is actually an extreme and dangerous policy which would result in chaos and violence on the streets, but it's considered to be 'nice' and 'progressive' by the left. When the left advocates such extreme policies, can it be surprised when the right responds with 'extreme' positions such as zero net immigration?

O thought the labour position was open borders in principle but not possible in practise for all sorts of practical reasons. Open borders are only possible in a fairer world

It's simplistic thinking we need to get away from

Even reform won't close the borders

Are you actually serious?

I don't believe that the media has lost control of the narrative.
The newspapers push this far right philosophy.
Calling the judges enemies of the people, going after Keir Starmer for his beer and curry, and Angela Rayner for whatever that was, just about ignoring everything the tory party is getting up to.
Creating an illusion that we are being inundated with 'illegal' immigration via small boats, when the reality is these are small numbers compared with 'legal' routes - where you prove your income etc.
Putting Farage on the tv far more than any elected politician.

The Telegraph going on and on and on about the labour party's huge hike in taxes, when the reality is they have said no increases in income tax or Vat etc etc.

What is needed is fair journalism, with no bias for either side, reporting on the facts as they are, not this client journalism where nobody picks anyone up for nonsense they spout.

As we see with the £2083 per household it is going to cost us if labour win, if you say something often enough, everyone will believe it, even if it has been fact checked and proved to be a lie.

Probably. I have a friend who continually comes out with the same sort of comment - that the 'upper class elites' (unspecified) want to keep the rest of us down to preserve their privileges. And I keep pointing out that 'upper class elites' have been all about preserving their privileges for centuries, so what's new?

Thanks for pointing that out, yes I was trying to say something complicated and it came out a bit clumsily. Sorry, I definitely didn't want to be making a comment about other people. What I meant is that I, myself, have to be sure to only have as many dependents as I can afford.

I'm a dyed in the wool labour voter, but as the public services have got more and more stretched, I've come to realise that I need to pay my own way in education and health care, and I'm having to take really very different budgeting decisions that in previous years.

I'm no longer thinking "can I afford a car or a nice sewing machine?". I am now thinking "can I afford to send my son to school?" and "can I afford to take my son to the private GP?" (We are an ASD family, and the state schools and NHS gp cannot meet his needs).

It's a very different world, and I suppose this is the sort of mindset that perhaps Conservative voter private school families have had for years, but I'm having to engage with it now too. It's a very big change and taking time to get my head around.

This and a fear of Communism, loss of border control, and cultural control of our neighbourhoods. Loss of food producing land, (being concreted over for housing for exploding populations) lack of infrastructure to adequately cope with exploding poputation - roads, hospitals, schools etc.

Isn't part of the problem with climate change just that there are too many people for the globe to support? I mean, I understood that since we started burning fossil fuels, the population had massively expanded.

I wondered if what we need to do is gradually reduce the population back to sustainable levels. Then we wouldn't need to concrete over everywhere to house the exploding population.

Sorry, this feels like such a huge topic. It's so nice to be able to talk about it though.

Yea that is one serious way of thinking about things - when you see people who tend to suffer under right wing policies supporting them ut does make people question their intelligence

Right wing societies tend to be very unequal and depriving the population of decent education ( and we know we have problems with education) is one way to control the population

There are others

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/finding-new-home/201911/why-people-support-far-right-political-views?amp

blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/06/01/understanding-right-wing-populism-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Why are people claiming Reform are the only party talking about immigration? It's been a major issue for Tories and Labour for years. Did you miss all the Rwanda stuff? The Stop the Boats rhetoric? It's been part of mainstream political discourse for a long, long time.

Tories always need an enemy - in the 90s that was single mothers, under Cameron it was benefit claimants and disabled people, then it became immigrants. It's Conservatives who won't have a so-called 'grown up conversation' on immigration because they only want to stir division and anger, pitting factions of society against one another so that no one looks to the super rich who hoard resources and profit from everyone's misery. That's why it will always be in the interests of the super rich to create resentment and fury against immigrants, knowing full well we will always have immigration so that they can exploit it to enrich themselves even further.

Labour aren't advocating open borders, immigration policy is part of their manifesto for anyone to read.

Reform aren't the only ones talking about it and they definitely aren't talking any particular sense about it. And a lot of Reform candidates are racist and have expressed racist views openly so no one is name calling when they point that out. It's important that we do hold politicians or those standing to be politicians to account.

Good point, well made.

One could just say "it's the economy stupid" - things are bad and there is little hope so something new , explaining why the economy is bad and promising to sort it will of course gain popularity

Honestly I am quite gloomy about the rise of far right politics in the U.K; I think it has a while to run yet. The mainstream of politics has unbelievably simplistic messaging on immigration, fears about “integration” are ripe for “common sense” parties like Reform to start attacking what has been a closed and cosy matter for the government.

They would not be getting anywhere unless people did not feel so poor and public services were not in such a state. The Tory Party are responsible for this mess, they have done the worst thing possible by engaging with the immigration debate but increasing the figures and then cynically focusing on small boats.

Saw Rishi Sunak in Grimsby where this was mentioned in terms of migration. He affected not to know the figures. People are very angry. Whatever you feel about Brexit, they were angry. You could hear the noise, they had to soundproof the room to stop the yelling outside from disrupting the recording. I had never heard a PM get a reception like that. Ever. Sunak looked scared as if he had a very small insight into what he might actually be dealing with.

If that anger is not addressed by Labour in terms of people having a better life then we are in real trouble.

Excellent post.

I must say I am becoming very suspicious of some of the faux naivety being expressed on MN since Farage threw his hat in the ring.