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

I am not surprised and said we’d see this a couple of years ago

This will continue until politicians work out how to reassess convention

I find it very, very concerning and unsettling. I'm deeply worried about how normalised racist rhetoric has become, both in this country and in many others around the world. I keep getting echoes of Nazi Germany, except that it's mostly another group being targeted.
I feel like we're sleep walking into this nightmare.

I agree with pp the need to suppress pressures means people will use what they can - a vote

The issues are uncontrolled immigration and people from other cultures failing to integrate and mainstream governments failing to address the issue.

As a result some voters are then seduced by far right ideology, which is pushed by some parts of the mainstream media.

It is scary, but also a reminder that all governments, including our Labour, need to get to grip with illegal immigration and increase requirements for legal immigrants to speak the language and respect the customs of the country that welcomes them.

I say that as an immigrant myself. I became a British national and did my best to integrate and learn about the culture and expectations of my new country.

I totally agree. Labour will do nothing to reverse the problem and indeed with a PM who think that immigration laws are racist, it will get worse. I would expect Reform to win a significant number of votes at the next election (not suggesting Reform is far right).

This is the point. I think most Brits are very welcoming and tolerant, but there is an expectation that new arrivals adapt to our culture and values. There was bizarre student politics thread yesterday which appeared to take arguments around cultural relativism to mean that we can’t possibly expect incomers to integrate. We have to. The alternative is people living in silos, friction around equality, freedom of speech, religious freedoms, etc and ultimately ethnic conflict.

Not just Brits. I am from central Europe and while people can be careful at the beginning once you show you are trying they take you in. We had black tv presenter since I remember, we have liked east aaian community, many others bits from here and there.
You integrate, work, learn language, you are good. You don't, people will never take to you. You demand changes to accommodate your things which clash with local things, people will not like you. Simple. I used same princip when emigrating elsewhere. Learn language, work, learn about local life, be part of local society. At home, do what you want, but in public, adhere to local standards.

Excellent post. That's the beauty of Proportional representation. You don't get to be a dictator by winning 3 votes out of every 10. You just get 30% of the seats.

The far right tells people what they want to hear. Global warming is a hoax which is great ; you can burn fossil fuels and drive everywhere using diesel or petrol. Covid is just a cold. Vaccines are bad for you. Meat is good hence more meat is better. Immigrants are only coming for benefits ( since climate change is a myth)

Although sometimes it's a bit confusing , they don't seem to mind. For example, men are under attack from feminism ; yet we must stop immigration from cultures that don't have equal rights for women / gays.

A huge problem throughout Europe has been the failure of parties like Labour to do their job : improve the material conditions of the working class. As pps have said they just offer their own version of neoliberalism.

Not surprising .

I don't understand why people are so surprised.

This is Austria - where three Taylor Swift concerts had to be cancelled due to terrorist threats against audiences that were overwhelmingly teenage girls. Austria - just over the border from Germany where public knife attacks are an almost weekly occurence. You really think people are going to put up with that?

We were in Vienna earlier this year. Large parts of the tram system were immobilised by large pro-palestinian demos by largely Turkish immigrants. We just left for the relative calm of nearby Bratislava. Similar in London. Well the demos really worked, didn't they?

And people are expected to endure this nonsense week in and week out? I say this as somebody in an international marriage with mixed-race kids.

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.

And yet youth unemployment in Italy in December 2023, the latest figure I can find, was 22.7%.

In the UK youth unemployment is 14.2%.

And there's underemployment, where workers are employed in less than full-time or regular jobs or insufficient jobs for their training or economic needs - the rate is around 6-7% and is not decreasing.

2.4 million working people claim Universal Credit, meaning they don't earn what they are judged by the Government to need.

The jobs market is not working well.

Whatever other arguments there are for immigration, I'm not convinced "needing workers" is necessarily one of them.

I don't know. I see a tiny number of Islamic extremists out of 2bn Muslims and I don't feel that Muslims are a threat. Just as I didn't feel scared of the Irish when the IRA were blowing up places in England.
I live in a multicultural place with a high number of Muslims who are an asset to our community. Lovely, hardworking people who are integrated into our community. Where there are "ghettos" I see poverty.
As for the pro- Palestine demos, I wouldn't want to live in world where people didn't protest against these atrocities.
Critical thinking is needed in this day and age, not a blind belief in everything that's reported on GB News.

yet we must stop immigration from cultures that don't have equal rights for women / gays.

I know a couple of Reform-(etc) minded gay men. They genuinely don't seem to realise that many of the people who they think are their friends still use words like "poof" and "bum-boy" to describe them, and would not shed a tear if they were found beaten to a pulp in the pub car park.

I don’t agree. Hostility toward migrants is usually connected to economics. When people are struggling with cost of living and there is a perception that immigrants are taking away resources such as housing, medical centre queue places etc people tend to turn on them.

I give you Germany in the 1930s as an example. Jews in Germany were very integrated with the surrounding culture. They dressed like Germans, spoke German, did not look that much different in terms of skin colour etc and were hard working but still the post WW1 economic conditions were brutal enough that non - Jewish Germans were receptive to the Nazi message of blaming Jews for what was wrong with the country.

People naturally turn on each other when resources are scarce. In fact, conflict doesn’t disappear when there are no immigrants because narcissism of the differences means that even when you are very similar, it is human nature to find and focus on a difference.

And Austria? They are not doing badly, it’s a weathy country

With regard to GDP per capita, according to numbers from 2022, the Swiss are the richest in the group at $94k, second are the Austrians with $52k and third the Germans with $49k per capita.

The far right has been on the rise in Europe since the last global recession. In 2022 Austria experienced high inflation due to energy prices amongst other things and in early 2023 it peaked at just over 11%.

Austria suffered a recession in 2023 due to high inflation, energy prices and sluggish manufacturing and exports. Like the rest of Europe Austria has a housing crisis and ever increasing rents.

Like everywhere, big businesses are experiencing record profits while wages have stagnated and the people suffering the most are the working class.

It’s relative though. The Austrians probably feel worse off than five years ago. I live in Australia, which is also wealthy in absolute terms on a worldwide basis. But everyone here is feeling the impact of high interest rates, inflation, shortage of housing etc compared to our living memory.

Added to that, we have a lot of far right social media content which is driving discontent. I was amazed that my colleague here in Australia was complaining to me about minorities like native Americans, African Americans etc even though he has never met any or suffers any disadvantage from their presence. And it’s because he watches far right American You Tube content. This is a guy that never commented on anything politically before. Elon Musk himself certainly was pouring on fuel in the recent UK riots even though as an American billionaire he is not affected by a Somali in Hounslow.

@WalkingaroundJardine I don’t disagree re people feeling poorer, shortages of housing, high energy costs etc. But I would never discount the lack of integration. Multiple factors are involved.

I’d say with this people are overlooking the major push on this.

It’s linked to the conventions inability to deal politically with climate pressures and increased migration

Which is why each year you’ll see further shifts until someone works out how to resolve that

@WalkingaroundJardine

Added to that, we have a lot of far right social media content which is driving discontent.

The far right have been particularly good at exploiting social media like TikTok. The AfD for example, has a lot of young supporters who have been watching their TikTok ads that are only a few seconds long but very effective.

What would you say the causes are? Just ordinary people suddenly turning mean and racist?

Farage and Brexit gave people courage to openly voice their racism. Years of austerity made people turn on each other.

Would you say that all non-western cultures in the UK are just as well integrated today?

I agree with what you say about the Jewish community in Germany, but you didn't mention all the bad feeling there was about the fact that they tended almost exclusively circulate their custom and money with the Jewish community and therefore their contribution to Germany, struggling to overcome a devastating recession, was not what the Germans expected of the citizens of that country.
I think because the holocaust was so utterly harrowing, people feel understandably feel uncomfortable mentioning that there was even the slightest genuine reason for the German people to resent the Jewish people, in case they get accused of antisemitism.

But it is disingenuous to suggest that any hostility against migrants is purely down to people looking for others to blame for their struggles.

People focus on U.K. only as in pp but they’re missing EU wide shifts

It’s a response to migration pressures, across the Med and channel

Same with Mexico to US

What does integration mean in practice though? And would that include non-immigrant communities too? What about Western religious movements who do not mix either such as Jehovah’s Witnesses? It’s human behaviour to find a tribe and hang out together. When I was at school the Goths and animal liberationists kept to themselves and had their own ways of dressing such as white face paint, long skirts, doc martens etc. Biker gangs also come to mind - their way of dress and way of life is distinctive. Should they integrate too? And how do we determine the standard of what it means to be integrated? Some Western movements will not even participate in government or voting for example.

Also re the German Jews the idea that they brought down the economy by circulating money within their community is widely accepted as misinformation. It was contained I think in the fraudulent document “The protocols of the elders of Zion”. It’s similar to what we are seeing today, except it’s on steroids today with SM.

But it’s actually normal for close knit communities to help each other out. My church did it. And these days on the family scale, mums and dads help their kids get on the property ladder. It’s normal human behaviour. It’s unlikely to bring down an economy because everyone does it.