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Europe Moves Right: Part 1 - UK Labour Collapsing, Reform Ascendant [1]
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Date: 2025-09-05
This is the first entry in a series of quick diaries about politics in Europe, namely in the UK, France, Germany, as well as places like Slovakia and Hungary and their breathtaking shifts into rightward populism in this last decade.
Despite winning a landslide victory over Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives a year ago, the Labour Party currently in power in the United Kingdom, under Prime Minister Keir Starmer has in the words of Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland, “hit the midterm blues within a few months, currently has the poll numbers of an administration in its dying days – and has now witnessed a scandal and resignation close to the apex of power.” With the departure of Angela Rayner as both Deputy PM and deputy leader of the Labour party over tax inaccuracies relating to her property dealing a body blow to the current government. Creating an ever more appealing opening for some of the most far-right elements in British politics to rise, namely Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party. The shocking transformation in support, even in classic Labour strongholds towards Reform, serving as a sign of what's to come.
The number one issue being discussed in the UK: Boats. Specifically small boats used by immigrants to cross the English Channel to enable migration into the UK. Here is a primer on the issue.
www.channel4.com/…
www.independent.co.uk/…
www.bbc.com/…
To observers of US Domestic politics, a few analogues and parallels between the Boats and our conception of immigration “open borders” and the depressing, brutal humanity of it all become apparent right away. “Others, foreigners, illegals, are coming in, ruining ‘our country’, draining ‘our resources’, which we should be spending on our own people.” Concepts as old as the first borders of the Roman empire. These sentiments not only echo here, they echo across Europe, as each state in question grapples with a massive surge of anti-immigrant, rightward populism. Name a country, from Portugal to the Baltics, and there is a right-wing, anti immigrant party in ascent.
The actual objective size of the problem (and it is a problem) has given way to attack, distortion, cudgel-wielding and hysteria, racism, nationalism and xenophobia, at its worst. These are precisely the feelings and mechanics that Reform UK is betting on, to topple Labour, and to win control of Westminster in 2027. The first test of the UK public’s mood will be local elections held in 2026.
As you can see in the 2017 photo chosen for this story, Farage has long been active in connecting and exporting this xenophobic, nationalist populism. For example, Germany: Nigel Farage tells German anti-immigrant party AfD: 'Once you are able to speak the unspeakable people will begin to think the unthinkable'. When articles are titled The Race to be Italy's Nigel Farage, you know the impact is undeniable.
The emerging trends are unmistakable. Europe and its voters are shifting rightwards, threatening to revert all of the integration and progress achieved since the global and European security architecture was remade post WWII, and all of the political progress made since the end of the Cold War.
Illiberal and anti-democratic leaders, such as Hungary’s Orbán, Slovakia’s Fico, Belarussian dictator Lukashenko are salivating with a smile at this turn of events, each, like Farage, doing what they can behind the scenes to stoke these divisions, sentiments, and populist parties.
Putin, Xi, and others are watching this from a distance, and rubbing their hands with glee, as they watch the biggest and most powerful political and economic bloc (and the only bloc capable of challenging their power) on the planet, EU/NATO, tear itself apart at the state level, using nationalist right wing populism and thousand year old, anti-outsider sentiments.
Next: Germany, and the rise of the AFD.
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