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!

Thinking about it, more social housing is one of the biggest ways to address so much of society's problems.

It would save money (so appeal to the rightwing) by dramatically cutting the benefits bill and saving the NHS money. It would also go a long way to addressing hostility towards immigration, 'blow-ins', reduce Elderly and Disabled and Benefits Bashing, and it would rebuild community cohesion.

The conservative austerity programme was never about the economy, it was part of an ideological argument about the small state.

I consider myself to be very economically right wing, but i agree that we need a massive house building programme.

The Green Belt needs to go and we need massive factories producing millions and millions of high quality prefab homes.

That will provide decent well paid jobs, reduce housing costs for working people and the benefits bill for the government. Economic growth will follow as disposable incomes rise.

It will never happen, though. Britain is in thrall to NIMBYs and eco nutters.

It was necessary after Labour wrecked the public finances. It was just starting to work, when COVID hit and Sunak pissed away £400 billion. We're now completely fucked and spending £100 billion a year on debt interest.

Buckle up! Big cuts are coming or inflation and interest rates are going to rise.

There's no other outcome.

It began after the global financial crisis.

Everything has been cut to the bone. Where are these 'big cuts' going to come from?

Welfare.
PIP & DLA.
Pensions.
Retirement age.
Civil service.
Quangos.
Transport.
Foreign aid.
Public sector below inflation pay rises.

Everywhere basically.

Things are going to be quite a bit shitter.

@ThisOldThang

"Buckle up! Big cuts are coming or inflation and interest rates are going to rise. "

I fully agree with your post but given it's a Labour Government ideologically it will be difficult to put through spending cuts ( although not impossible with 450 MPs.

Instead it would be far easier for them to raise taxation instead. They could freeze the tax bands to allow fiscal drag, capital gains tax on principle private residence, tighten private pension contributions etc. But against that they have ruled out increasing income tax or VAT.

Labour did not wreck the economy in 2008 as the Tories & their media allies would have us believe. There was a world wide banking crisis and most economies in world took a major hit.

I think the biggest trick the Tories & their allies have pulled off is convincing media/public that they are good with the economy but that has never really been the case. Even during the so called golden years of Thatcher her chancellor Nigel Lawson led us through boom and bust. It only appeared good because of the left wing Labour Govt of 70's had made a mess of things.

I can also remember the infamous Black Wednesday and sterling crisis and the horrendous chancellor Norman Lamont[s famous " I have no regrets" line under John Major's Tories.

This current Govt have wrecked the economy and Liz Truss did more damage in 7 weeks than many Govt's do in a term.

So it is a myth that the Tories are great with the economy perpetrated by a lot of their rich press baron friends who always can guarantee the Tories will put interests of wealthiest first and foremost.

we need massive factories producing millions and millions of high quality prefab homes.

That will provide decent well paid jobs, reduce housing costs for working people and the benefits bill for the government. Economic growth will follow as disposable incomes rise.

If only whoever is next in government did this. It's the morally right thing to do but also good economics. So should be something supported by both the left and right wing.

@ThisOldThang

"I consider myself to be very economically right wing, but i agree that we need a massive house building programme. "

Actually objecting to state intervention through planning policy which prevents house building and thereby restricting supply. And being in favour of a massive house building programme is economically right wing.

Locking up a large proportion of the nation's wealth in unproductive bricks and mortar is bad for the economy when such wealth could be invested in the economy either through savings, pension contributions or consumer spending at say your local restaurant which creates jobs.

From a home owner perspective just because your 3 bed semi is worth £350k today rather than £175k fifteen years ago doesn't mean that the house is necessarily any better.

It is actually in most people's interest for house prices to come down and it always depresses me that the public and media celebrate house price inflation but complain about inflation on food, energy and other goods.

@paolo2145

"Labour did not wreck the economy in 2008 as the Tories & their media allies would have us believe. There was a world wide banking crisis and most economies in world took a major hit"

Actually Labour increased debt to GDP from 36% when they took over in 1997 to 70% when they left office in 2010 - ie doubling.

The Conservatives also increased debt to GDP from 70% in 2010 to 100% today.

There was also a massive increase in consumer debt principally mortgages that Labour were warned about (remember Vince Cable) but did nothing. Along with a massive increase in company debt (Royal Bank of Scotland and Fred the Shred).

In short a large part of UK and global economic boom in the late 90s and 2000s was built on debt.

Unfortunately after a great party there is always a huge hangover.

But ThisOldThang is talking about building social housing (I think?). Which isn't unproductive bricks and mortar. It's vitally needed decent affordable homes. Lots of people wouldn't afford to buy even if house prices dropped.

Yes, building more social housing is economically right-wing. As ThisOldThang says, it helps boost the economy. Creates job and training opportunities and dramatically cuts the benefits and NHS costs. And people would have more chance of being able to invest in the economy through consumer spending, savings, and pension contributions.

But it's also leftwing, because too many people are in desperate need of decent affordable housing, and lack of it impacts on health and increases poverty.

(It also wouldn't significantly affect homeowners concerned about their house price, because lots of people would still want to buy somewhere if and when they could afford to. Owning gives more choice in type of home and means equity when the mortgage is paid off. All it means is those who can't afford to buy have decent affordable homes too).

Tytler also said, speaking of the Athenian democracy and noting it was enforced slavery, "Nor were the superior classes in the actual enjoyment of a rational liberty and independence. They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked themselves under the banners of the contending demagogues; and these maintained their influence over their partisans by the most shameful corruption and bribery, of which the means were supplied alone by the plunder of the public money".

He could have been talking about today's corrupt tory party and its owners.

And to suggest that a country on the edge of becoming a total basket case, with its waterways already dangerously polluted by its citizen's faeces, faces the greatest threat to its democracy from the left and socialism - without even the faintest whiff of a left wing government since the '70s - is embarrassingly ridiculous (to say the least).

Thank you, this is fantastically helpful. I will try this on my Irish relatives and see if I can get DS a more positive self-image.

Thank you very much for taking the time to talk about this. Now that you've started me off, I have a better idea of where to go looking for more, which is great. I think DS and I will have to go on a mission to learn about the good things that the English have done, and find a sense being English that works for us.

Thank you very much. :-)

Newton - who discovered the laws of motion and gravity (and invented the telescope) was born in Lincoln.

OK, I must pick you up on this point as a matter of personal pride - because his birth place is about 10 doors down from my house and I am not in Lincoln. I am in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth (a village about 8 miles south of Grantham)

Everything else sounds fab though.

I think it says a lot about Britain's education system, and the self-loathing of the metropolitan media bubble, that we have people living in Britain that can't think of a single positive thing that the English have ever done.

• Industrial revolution and the modern world as we know it - for better or worse.
• Steam power.
• Scientific method.
• Modern medicine/pharmaceuticals.
• Trains.
• Jet engines.
• Splitting the atom.
• Civilian nuclear power.
• First computer.

FWIW, i think that it might be good for England to have a campaign of explaining to the world why they think they are quite nice really, and valuable to have around.

Whenever I visit Ireland I spend a lot of my time listening to Irish folks basically using me as a therapist to help them get over the trauma of the 1922 fight for independent from the UK. It's really a huge thing for them, and going on holiday there is incredibly hard for me work because of that.

I moved to Scotland aged 8, with an English accent and had to acquire a Scottish accent very very quickly. This was because the boys in the playground were not happy about me being perceived to be sympathic to the concept of being English.

In both countries the English are considered to be he
heartless invaders who raid and pilage, and leave weaker countries with nothing.

As a child travelling around Europe with my parents, I saw my Mum over and over again coming up against hostility from the locals, which magically melted away when she said "I am Scottish" in whatever the local language was. The GB sticker on our car marked us out as being English in their minds, but as soon as we introduced ourselves as being Scottish, the hostility was gone.

I'm reading between the lines a little, but I get the sense that those folks in Grimsby are feeling used, in the same way that the Irish and Scots do.

I think maybe it's not England, per se, but the English government that is maybe a little hard hearted even towards its own population at times.

I totally get that people will argue back about that, but that is what I have seen over my lifetime of travel.

I think some of that was Britain, rather than England. I'm pretty certain James Watt was heavily involved with the birth of steam power and he came from Scotland.

I feel very very proud to be British, but I struggle more with being English.

I think you're right about the self-loathing thing and the media bubble. There is really a lot wrong with who we feel we are as a country, and I think there needs to be a whole lot of talking to help us find a healthy self-image.

And I would guess that also means taking care of the people in Grimsby. They matter too.

I think the Irish need to get over it.

If British people were calling the Germans names and holding grudges, they'd quite rightly be called out as bigoted.

I've had a more careful look, and I'm so sorry - you are absolutely right. The silver lining is that I've discovered the NT-owned Woolsthorpe manor in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth (exactly as you say: 8 miles south of Grantham and a full 40 miles south of Lincoln) where he was born. It looks fab - with a science centre and an apple tree descended from the original - and it's now definitely on my list of places to visit

And that's the sort of attitude that's really, really unhelpful.

Ireland suffered through centuries of colonisation. The impact is still felt today, very much so.

Saying 'get over it or you're a bigot' just gets people's backs up!

British-Irish relations have come a long way thankfully, but no thanks to this sort of outlook.

People holding grudges and blood fudes for things that happened centuries before they were born is ridiculous.

I'm decended from Irish Catholics that probably left Ireland during the potato famine. It's pointless worrying about such things in 2024.

Later this year I'm travelling to Germany with some Jewish friends. If they can get over their history, it seems bizarre that the Irish are indulged in their anti-English hatred.

tbh I feel a bit the same. DH and I settled in England partly because it got really tiring living in countries that had a chip on their shoulder as a national pastime, iykwim.

So I suppose that means that one of the things we genuinely like about England is that it is forward looking and doesn't have a chip on its shoulder about its relationship with other countries. That is a good thing to have figured out. This is helpful.

One of the things I've realised from travelling and living all over the place is that countries have a sort of personality, and it is determined to a large extent by the weather in their country, rather than by anything intrinsic to the people.

For example Scotland is very cold and wet, because the weather fronts coming across the atlantic arrive at Scotland as the first landing point in Europe. Because they hit Scotland first, they dump an absolute truckload of rain on Scotland. This is not the Scottish people's fault, it's just a fact of living on the west coast of the continent. The effect of all this rain is that life is harder and shorter in in Scotland. They are often cold and wet, and seasonal affective disorder is a much bigger problem. This means they are more vulnerable as a country, but they also have very different attitudes, both politically and socially, I think.

I think Ireland is in a similar situation, because they also get the brunt of the rain coming across the atlantic.

England I think, is different, because by the time the atlantic weather reaches England, it has already dumped most of its rain on Ireland and Wales. As a consequence, England get pretty good weather most of the time. I get 11 months of good weather a year in the south of England, versus the 2 months of good weather I got each year in Scotland. I think that is partly why England attracts able people and pumps out such a lot of new inventions and good things and ideas. It's also why they struggle with immigrants, while Scotland doesn't. England is just a very nice place to be because the weather is better.

The thing I'm coming to though, is that I think the characteristics of the English, Scottish and Irish populations are not really intrinsic to the actual people. I think they are a lot to do with the weather. So instead of fighting amongst the different nations, and being competitive, I think it might be a good idea to just accept that the weather is the main basis for the whole thing and work together to manage round it.

That's find of what I've concluded after getting around rather a lot over the last 50 years. I also lived on the continent for a bit, and that was different too.

Thank you for reading that. Sorry it was a bit long. It's hard to explain.