ANDREW NEIL: With Britain turning Left just as the rest of Europe turns Right, ... trends now
When Britain elects a Labour government later this year, no doubt with a comfortable majority — still the most likely outcome of the upcoming General Election — we will be voting against the political trend in much of the rest of Europe, which is moving distinctly Rightwards.
Keir Starmer’s challenge will be to govern in a manner that makes him more than a one-term wonder, after which Britain rejoins the European drift to the right. The omens for the Labour leader and his party are not great.
Only four of the 27 European Union members states are governed by the Left, and that includes Germany — whose Social Democratic-led ruling coalition is teetering towards defeat — and a very fragile minority Socialist government in Spain, whose future is uncertain.
Until recently, there had been five centre-Left administrations in the EU. Then, last Sunday, Portugal’s Socialist government was given the heave-ho.
Keir Starmer ’s challenge will be to govern in a manner that makes him more than a one-term wonder
The Portuguese celebrated the 50th anniversary of their Carnation Revolution, which ended decades of dictatorship, by electing a record 48 deputies to its 230-seat National Assembly from a populist-nationalist party called Chega, which is not too shy about its neo-fascist antecedents.
Not enough seats to allow it to form a government, to be sure, but more than sufficient to sweep out the Socialists and leave the country’s centre-right Democratic Alliance scrambling to form a minority government. It would have an overall majority if it did a deal with Chega. But it wants nothing to do with its Right-wing rival.
Similarly, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) has been shunned by the mainstream in the Netherlands. His anti-migration, anti-Islam party upended Dutch politics last November with 24 per cent of the votes and more seats (37 of 150) in Parliament than any mainstream party.
It saw the end of the political career of Centre-Right Mark Rutte, who had been prime minister since 2010, and threw the Dutch system into chaos. Four months after its General Election, the Netherlands is without a new government as the traditional parties won’t work with Wilders.
As Right-wing populism gathers pace in Europe the question is this: Will sidelining its standard-bearers condemn them to irrelevance and to withering on the vine? Or will it stoke their sense of grievance, so they will return stronger at the next election?
The answer to that could well determine the course of European politics for the rest of the decade and beyond.
Despite efforts to keep the new Right out of government, we can already see what it looks like in power. But it’s a mixed picture. In Italy, it has been in government since 2022 under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the de facto leader of Europe’s Right-wing populist movement. Despite leading the Brothers of Italy, with roots in Italy’s fascist past, she has largely governed in the tradition of the mainstream Right.
Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) has been shunned by the mainstream in the Netherlands
As such, she is being wooed by President Biden, Donald Trump and even European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
In stark contrast, hard-Right Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban has presided over an increasingly authoritarian regime, which has undermined the independence of the courts and tamed the media.
Unlike Meloni, he is a Putin fanboy, delaying Sweden and
