Far Right wins Austrian election

[candlewhickgreen]

The far right won the most votes in an Austrian election for the first time since the Nazi era on Sunday, as the Freedom party (FPÖ) rode a tide of public anger over migration and the cost of living to beat the centre-right People’s party (ÖVP).

The pro-Kremlin, anti-Islam FPÖ won 28.8% of votes, beating the ruling ÖVP of the chancellor, Karl Nehammer, into second place on 26.3%, according to near-complete results

Frightening times, the FPO got into the European Parliament and want to bring in a remigration minister. They campaigned on remigration for this election and are pro Putin.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/29/far-right-freedom-party-winning-austrian-election-first-results-show

Terrifying.

I have no words.

There's a far right wave across Europe. Utterly awful.

It is very sadly not a shock to me. I write that as the mixed race daughter of a commonwealth economic migrant who came in the 1950’s.

People don't seem to realise what's going on. All these far right parties getting in in Europe is a complete nightmare and no one seems bothered.

You'll have people along soon saying everything is far right nowadays and it's meaningless.

Some crackpots like me have predicting the rise of the far right and talking about it being like the 1930’s for the past four years or so.

Lucky there’s nothing in it eh?

I've spent a lot of time in Austria - I lived in southern Germany in the late 90s.

Even then, I found that far-right sentiments were never very deeply hidden. Put more than a couple of colleagues and acquaintances right who thought that because I'm a white Westerner I shared their repugnant views

@ViciousCurrentBun

My son is mixed race too. I know so many people and children who are. Must be quite discombobulated for them.

fuck help us if Trump wins

It is frightening but, in many respects, I’m not surprised, and I think it will continue in elections across Europe. I believe that many people are essentially tribal and see things that affect their cultural beliefs (whether they are cut on nationality, race, religious, economic or political lines) as something to react against once a tipping point has been reached.

We can only hope for the pendulum to swing in the opposite direction.

Remember that "winning" an election in a European system by being the largest single party doesn't mean that the party will form the next government. Austria has a highly proportional system. 34% got Labour a thumping majority in the UK, but with 28.8% FPÖ isn't even guaranteed a place in the government.

Look at the Netherlands, where the only slightly less far-right (and arguably more bonkers) PVV got 35% of the vote. Their leader, Geert Wilders, is such an arsehole at a personal level that nobody would go into a government with him in it. As a result the current Dutch government is mostly run by responsible adults, enacting one or two socially-conservative-ish policies, but is still very pro-Ukraine (which Wilders isn't). Basically he is the dog that caught the car.

Or Italy, where practically the first thing the "anti-immigration" Meloni did was to increase the number of visas for foreigners, because Italy needs people. (I note also that Suella Braverman's "anti-immigration" Home Office issued over a million visas in FY 2022-2023.) She still has a pop at the evil gays from time to time, but she is no fan of Putin and overall the western alliance is no weaker for her premiership.

Hungary is a more difficult case because Orbán managed to get a majority once and is now using every electoral trick in the book to maintain his power. The EU is doing its best to rein him in by using financial coercion.

Of course the far-right are very worrying, and I wish people wouldn't vote for them, but we have to accept that they do, and perhaps try to understand why. When 5% of people vote for them we can maybe dismiss them as Alf Garnett-type racist cranks, but when it's 30% that's a lot harder. It's a bit like the old joke about how if you owe the bank a million pounds you have a problem, but if you owe the bank a billion pounds then the bank has a problem.

Genuinely interested as to reason why there has been a far right increase?

Genuinely interested as to reason why there has been a far right increase?

Mass immigration. Due to wars, climate change, no hope of jobs in countries economically deprived, political instability.

Immigrant young men with ideas non-compatible to western values. (Democracy, women's rights and equality, freedom of religious expression).

In USA the conspiracy theory of the "great replacement theory".

@Upupandaway10

There's a vacuum in that the left doesn't present any kind of alternative to the status quo. The status quo is neoliberalism. Labour for example has abandoned its socialist roots and therefore the working class.

There's a lot of economic insecurity and that drives anti immigration rhetoric as immigrants are blamed. Multiculturalism and lack of integration is seen as a threat and gives rise to ultranationalism.

The far right opposes the cultural left: gender ideology, immigration, global warming for example. It appeals to the working class who have been abandoned by the political class and the economic failure of neoliberalism.

Freedom of speech has also been a factor, no government has stopped the rise in harmful and anti democratic rhetoric. Though they are under surveillance and classed as an extremist organisation, the AfD in Germany have been allowed to flourish.

As others have said they may not form a government yet, however either way the number of people voting in that direction in Europe is rising. Anyone forming a government needs to listen and understand the root cause however unpalatable.

Agree with this. I also think social media has undermined democracy and massively amplified both hate speech and conspiracy theories.

This is horrifying and saddening. They didn't learn from history.

People need to wake up. We voted to leave the EU because of the mass influx of Eastern Europeans. It felt like we were swamped by them. That's now been replaced by an influx of people from Africa / Middle East and a govt who seem intent on not addressing the issues and concerns of people living in this reality.
Said it before, we are sleep walking into a scenario of great national unrest where the 'far right' will seem to be the only viable option.

People who vote for fascist parties don't care about preserving equality, democracy and women's rights. It's not really the beliefs of those men they object to so strongly. It's their race. They are afraid of them. Because of racial stereotypes, they think these men are liable to be criminals. It's the same bullshit as is going on in the US with migrants. The propaganda is that a lot of them are criminals, but they actually are less likely to be criminals than native born Americans.

^ @candlewhickgreen

Excellent explanation.

Most Western countries have been taking in immigrants for labour purposes due to aging population and dropping fertility - the UK is not special in this regard. Here in Australia we have twice the number of overseas born that the UK in terms of percentage of the population and many of them are non-white.

What people are really unhappy about is their economic situation and they don’t mind immigration when times are good.

Immigration can’t stop because of our economic model. The UK like most of Europe has an ageing population & a shrinking tax payer population.

For those who live in areas that have been changed into unrecognisable places due to ghettoisation of (usually) poorer parts of the country, it’s hardly surprising. No party seems to take their concerns seriously, preferring to label them as racist.

Many early immigrants believed in integration. Passed on some of their culture, continued to worship in their chosen religion, but also embraced the way of life in the UK. There is concern about the perceived growth of certain behaviours, especially towards women, that belong in the distant past.

While everyone bemoans how horrifying the rise of right and far right are, no one can be surprised.

It also doesn't help that people go and automatically assert that anyone voting them does so for wrong reasons and is a bigoted idiot.

Op was right that the voters are mainly people ho were left behind by other parties. They don't just feel they were left behind. They were.

Multiculturalism and lack of integration is seen as a threat and gives rise to ultranationalism.
Lack of integration IS a big problem. I say that as integrated immigrant who (and her non white husband) refuses to live in too multicultural areas where cultures are clashing.

@Seymour5 exactly.

Also doesn't help that people who expresses concerns regarding sensitive issues (eg immigration, trans rights) is dismissed as a far right bigot. Some are, but many want an opportunity for an open discussion and recognition of concerns. By brushing these social nissues under the carpet, they fester and push people to the right.

Multiculturalism and lack of integration is seen as a threat and gives rise to ultranationalism.

I agree with this as a non white immigrant. What I find frightening is most of the 'multiculturalism' people are seeing are from immigrants who would be out of place with their thinking, even in more developed parts of their home country. And so what they think is normal for that culture and should be protected is really not - the home countries have changed drastically and many who've come here since the 60s or even now are stuck in a redundant way of life. I find it ironic that the south Asian and Middle Eastern communities here are so much more conservative and hard line than back home. In fact so many have told me they find it shocking how much more 'western' it seems - and it's like, yeah that's what globalisation, more equality laws and education will do to a country....

So actually you get more far right and conservative folks from other countries who vote in left leaning Govts who give them more powers to be far right (far right about their home country's culture, not nationalist about the country they live in). They integrate less because of their beliefs, which is then used by the far right parties as a stick to rile up the disenchanted who then vote them in. It's fascinating and terrifying at the same time. And integration is far more important to cohesive life and taking down the far right than people realise.

This is what happens when people feel insecure and not listened to.

The number of asylum seekers is only going to increase. Many thousands have left Lebanon for Syria in the last few days. They won't stay in Syria. Sadly these increased numbers will cause a lot of people to vote for such far right parties and to support their policies. I dread to think how this is going to end. With the rise in anti Semitism it seems like a perfect storm is brewing.