Is there a country in the EU where the far right isn’t on the rise? I need a Backup plan in case the nazis are voted in Germany again
Denmark. You may not like how Frederiksen did it - she essentially opted for politics that are as anti-immigrant as legally possible - but she also obliterated the far right there. The two far-right parties in Folketing now total 10 of 179 seats…
And the difference between Frederiksen’s social democrats and the actual far right is huge. No climate change denying, no cozying up to Russia, no anti-lgbtq nonsense, no anti-EU propaganda and so on.
“Anti-immigrant” but welcoming people from select countries. Reminds me of how a Swedish person told me he thought there were too many immigrants but that I, a Canadian, would be perfectly welcome to go there.
Apparently some people are considered immigrants and that’s bad, while others are just expats looking for a new home.
It’s cultural and religious differences that irritate people moreso, I find.
It’s also that there’s no interest to adopt the culture of the host country and rather building foreign bubbles
Apparently some people are considered immigrants and that’s bad, while others are just expats looking for a new home.
I don’t think they’re considered expats if they plan to stay indefinitely. But yeah, there’s vastly different sentiments towards different types of immigrants. Usually the surveys ask for “European immigration”, but I guess a Canadian would fall into that as well, so they might just as well ask about Western immigration (the use European because of EU freedom of movement). In part sentiments obviously have a lot to do with racism and xenophobia, but it’s unfortunately not just that. The statistics for people who immigrated irregularly (i.e. without a visa) really don’t look good. E.g. here in Germany in 2022 foreign nationals made up some 16% of the population but 32% of crime suspects (excluding crimes around migration which Germans can’t commit). The percentages regarding people who actually get convicted are even worse and “Zugewanderte” (recent immigrants, mainly asylum seekers) used to have even worse numbers as well (before the refugees from Ukraine, largely women and children came).
Obviously there’s demographic and socioeconomic reasons for that discrepancy. The main issue is that there’s a lot of young men among immigrants and you men tend to commit most crimes, but that obviously doesn’t undo any of these crimes. Ukraine’s rather sexist border controls (they don’t allow men aged 18-60 to leave) really did their diaspora a solid here.
Yeah we have tax rebates for the rich, defunding of education, some laughably passive bordering nonexistent policies to protect local environment and combat climate change (heavily lobbied for by the agricultural lobby)…shit is going just A-OK here 👌
shit is going just A-OK here 👌
Well, the baseline is the rest of the planet, so unironically: yes. I mean, take the climate change portion for instance: Every single country on the planet is doing worse than Denmark. .
I also think your pig farming is silly and detrimental to the environment afaik the only reason you’re not in a recession is fat people in America, but still, the numbers on pretty much everything make Denmark look pretty good. Or the rest of the world very shitty.
Ireland?
Oof, later in the day from when you commented that, there was a far right riot 😬
😬
Well that aged poorly exceptionally quickly 😂
Portugal? IIRC they’ve been quite resistant to right-wing populism.
Portugal’s Chega party increased to 7,2 % in 2022. That’s lower than in the rest of the EU, but still an increase by eleven seats.
I stand corrected. And somewhat dejected.
Sorry :(
Switzerland is a well tested option
SVP currently holds 25% of the seats in the federal council of Switzerland. Not exactly what I’d call Nazi-free.
Worse still, they are at 27%. And they have been in this area for quite a long time, so the proportion is somewhat stable.
The last time the Nazis were in power in Germany, Switzerland closed its borders to most people trying to flee, so maybe a well tested, but still not so good option…
They are probably banking on it, vacuuming the vault carpets and everything.
spain’s fsr right wing party went down from 15% to 12% in the last elections.
This one hurt. The fight for the EU, the climate, diversity and the democracy just became harder.
Well, that’s not set in stone yet. If he doesn’t manage to form a coalition (and it’s very much in the realm of possibilities that he won’t be able to), the GreenLeft-Labour Party is next in line. In which case a GL-PvdA/VVD/NSC/D66 coalition (parties #2-#5) is not unlikely. Which I’m guessing would have to make some concessions when it comes to migration, but would probably be OK-ish news for the EU, the climate, and democracy and rule of law.
Sure, but it’s the amount of support he got that scares me. There’s a lot of support for the right wing in the Netherlands. That means that either a lot of people support those views or are willing to put up with these xenophobic zealots just to make a statement.
Yes, the Netherlands is really two different countries when you separate the big cities from the countryside.
That is true for almost every country (with the main exceptions not having one or the other at all).
Well apparently people don’t want the kind of diversity they got…
I can’t change the way I look and I only got one passport, so tough luck.
If you only have the one passport you are already a citizen of your country right? So no need to worry as long as you actually respect the local culture.
So no need to worry as long as you actually respect the local culture.
This is a pretty callous reply.
Why is my need not to worry conditional?
Why is my culture not part “the local culture”? I’ve lived here longer than many so called natives.
You are saying I will never fully belong here, regardless of what I do. And that’s exactly the problem.
I have exactly the same rights as any other citizen, and I expect my right to exist however I well damn please within the confines of the law to be respected.
You are saying I will never fully belong here, regardless of what I do. And that’s exactly the problem.
I have exactly the same rights as any other citizen, and I expect my right to exist however I well damn please within the confines of the law to be respected.
I am telling you that you belong, as long as you are willing to respect the local culture, traditions and rules.
If you disregard those you will also be disregarded, not because you might be of a different color but simply because you don’t respect others.
Why is my need not to worry conditional?
Why wouldn’t it be? It’s the same for me, if I won’t behave conforming the local culture&traditions I will also be excluded from that same society. This is not something weird that suddenly came up, this is common sense.
I am telling you that you belong, as long as you are willing to respect the local culture, traditions and rules.
That’s where you are dead wrong. I belong. My traditions are the local traditions. No if. No conditions.
If you don’t like it, try and do something about it.
It’s the same for me,
That’s not what you said back there. But I welcome you trying to walk back your drivel.
That’s where you are dead wrong. I belong. My traditions are the local traditions. No if. No conditions.
Well if your traditions are the local traditions there is no issue here right? And there will always be conditions, that’s not for you to decide but the society you life in.
If you don’t like to conform have fun living in the woods without any of societies benefits.
Society is a two-way street, for everyone.
Yeah thats the point.
Calm down. While he got the biggest share, it is “just” 35 seats in a 150 seats parliament. He would need another 41 seats in coalition to get anywhere, which means (as his share is the largest) he would not only need one, but at least two partners willing to form a coalition with and a government under him.
While those 35 seats are still 35 seats too many, I doubt he will run the country.
I really, really hate this kind of thinking.
Election in 2008: “Calm down, the far right only got 3%” Election in 2012: “Calm down, the far right only got 7%” Election in 2016: “Calm down, the far right only got 13%” Election in 2020: “Calm down, the far right only got 18%” And so on…
Can you people really not see a problem with this?
It’s the intolerance paradox in full view. Wilders should have been convicted and jailed years ago. A tolerant society must be fiercly intolerant towards intolerance.
A tolerant society must be fiercly intolerant towards intolerance.
Yes. Tolerance is not an inherent virtue or anything, it is a contract between two or more parties. If one party stops honoring it, all bets are off.
Not sure if jailing him is the right solution, but after his Moroccan speech, he should at the very least have been barred from public office, as well as participating in any political parties.
At least that way, there is a strong deterrent to preventing politicians from spewing this kind of hate.
What exactly would you jail him for though? While he is mostly spewing bullshit without coming with any real solutions, he isn’t actually doing anything ‘legally’ wrong.
He was tried around 2008/2009 for hate speech and discrimination. He should have been convicted then.
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There is quite a bit of a difference between genocide and some mean words about the Islam.
Yes, words can be harmful but the holocaust is quite a bit outside that scope.
Something that you probably understand, seeing as you came with this absolute shit strawman take.
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What does the parent comment have anything to do with the intolerance paradox. The population is increasingly voting far-right, it’s terrible and has nothing to do with the paradox.
A shift of the public opinion at that scale doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It can only happen if society as a whole tolerates increasingly intolerant messages and behaviour. Those far right rat catchers wouldn’t have much of a platform, if they weren’t tolerated, and their supporters wouldn’t be nearly as brazen if they were told off wherever they dare to publicly state their support.
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Ok, you jail him and maybe even his closest allies. What do you achieve with that?
Imo, at best you got a bunch of people protesting out in the streets, calling it political persecution. And at worst the party’s popularity might even increase, handing them an even larger victory.
If he had been convicted years ago, we wouldn’t be in this situation today.
At the same time, people are bound to compare it to e.g. Trump, who actually got a majority. It’s good to know that our electoral system works differently, if you’re unfamiliar with it.
Just FYI, Trump never won a majority of votes either, although he was a lot closer than Wilders.
Haha yeah fair enough, he got a majority of electors (I think that’s the right term?), but not of the popular vote, which is what counts in the Netherlands - another sign of how different the electoral systems are. But yeah, the larger point is that the level of popular support is way lower.
Or compare him to Trump whose trials are frankly far too little and far too late for their next election.
It really depends on your take home message.
If it’s “shit is dire, but it could be worse and we still have a chance to fight back”, it’s one thing.
If it’s “everything is under control go back to sleep”, it’s quite another.
To be fair, the vibe I got from GP was more towards the latter though.
I see the problem with it, but it also means they have not won (yet), and you can work towards the next election to fix it.
If anyone knew how to work to fix it, that would be somewhat calming. Instead this just gives reason for increasing panic and feeling helpless.
Well, the best way to fix political issues that concern you is getting active in politics.
That doesn’t help if you have no idea what works. Describe getting active, please, and how it can fix the rise of rightwing politics.
How about finding the political party you find best, and join?
And then what? No party has a working concept. I don’t have one either, so how should joining a party help in any way? Then I’ll be helpless in a party.
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Oh yea? I don’t see the US deal with their blatant fashism problem. One of the biggest American fashism problems actually wants to get back into the White House.
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The far right got plenty more votes in those elections, just for other parties. I think in total this election the far right received something like 3 more votes than last time? The difference is that it’s now mostly concentrated in a single party.
Right now people are theorizing 2 possible coalitions, the first one is PVV - NSC - VVD and the other one is GLPVDA - NSC - VVD - D66. This means we’re either getting a far-right populist as the prime minister or we are getting a coalition that will get us absolutely nowhere and will change nothing from the status quo, while also likely destroying leftist support even more because of how little to coalition will be capable of vs. what the leftist party (GLPVDA) promised
We’re not doing okay
Then again the first option is rather likely to implode in record time. Meaning we’ll have to have elections again.
Or at least I hope so.
it is “just” 35 seats
The article says that the projection has now risen to 37.
As a Dutchman, I’m kind of shocked. The battle seemed to be between the previous largest party VVD, the new NSC party and the labour/greens fusion. Then the PVV suddenly surged. Apparently a lot of people who weren’t sure yet ended up going with the PVV. Out of the 4 largest parties we have 3 that are right-wing and/or conservative. The PVV is far-right (though hard to place), the VVD is a neoliberal party, and the NSC is closer to the centre but also quite conservative. We’re entering dark days…
The leader of the labour/green did a very bad campaign. I voted for him out of conviction, but I can totally see undecided voters not being convinced by his campaign. The loss of the VVD can be explained partly by the punishment that ruling parties get in elections in these times. I’m just hoping the leader of the NSC doesn’t agree to be in a coalition with PVV. Best thing we can hope for now is a center-right coalition with the Labour/Greens, the VVD (neo-liberals) and NSC (center-right) :(
What shocks me is that unconvinced voters thought his idiotic anti-Islam position wasn’t a reason not to vote for him.
They’ve know that’s what he stands for the past 17 years. Sure, he said it’s ’negotiable’ if it helps him get into government sometime during the campaign but now that he’s the biggest he’s gonna make a stand on that once more.
Everyone here would do well to read the room a bit if we find that surprising. Or at least keep tabs on whats going on outside of your particular ideological bubble.
Anti immigrant sentiment is up big time across the EU right now. And specifically directed towards people from the Middle East and Africa. I’d wager a lot of people didn’t vote for him despite his stances on that issue, but rather because of them.
The thing is, he kinda sorta distanced himself from his earlier anti-Islam statements. Not really though, but he made them ‘negotiable’ in order to get into government. This in turn seems to have opened the door for VVD to not exclude them from taking part in government from the start. This made PVV a ‘legitimate’ choice where it was once seen as throwing away your vote because they would be excluded anyway.
But I’m no political analyst so take this with a grain of salt.
Yeah I think that’s a fair take
To be fair, his concession speech was stellar. Talk about peaking too late.
And D66, otherwise they won’t have a majority. Though the Senate (Eerste Kamer) I think will still be a challenge.
Ah right, I forgot about D66. But they will surely want in. Alternatively, either the CDA or the CU, or both, could also enter the coalition
Would have to be both. I guess technically that’s an option, in that it might make it more palatable for VVD+NSC, but then we’re at a five-party coalition (six if you count GL/PvdA as two parties).
What would you say the chances are of Wilders being able to form a coalition?
Before the election I would have said unlikely, because both NSC and VVD ruled out a coalition with PVV. Afterwards the NSC already caved to “respect the choice of the voters” and the VVD also did not make a clear statement.
To add to this, even during the campaign the leader of the VVD (neo-liberal party) didn’t exclude the possibility of working with Wilders like the former PM of the VVD always did. I think this helped Wilders a lot.
She did not exclude a coalition, if the VVD got more votes. Now that Wilders would become prime minister, they are more hesitant about it.
Hesitant but they’re gonna cave at some point I’m sure. Either that or they’re going to negotiate a deal for the VVD leader to become PM to give the PVV some other thing they want.
I agree. The VVD is too power-hungry not to form a coalition with the PVV
That sucks. Thanks for the insight.
Perhaps it’s like the Trump win. People declared they’d never vote for him publicly, but secretly did
May I ask if there are any kind of statistic significance in terms of age or city/suburbs/land PVV voters are stronger than voting for any other parties?
I can’t do this anymore, fuck.
Anyone who thinks this shocking needs to leave their social bubble.
The European liberal left is in losing battle for their voters and their solution is pretending that nothing’s happening.
I don’t think that they’re pretending that. However, the issue is that right-wing and right-of-center parties carelessly throw around lies and half-truths that match the way people tend to be thinking anyway.
It also doesn’t matter to them that they create rather than solve issues, as long as their narrative is stable. A very recent example: Conservatives normally claim that they are in favor of having a strong and growing economy. However, German conservatives just deliberately worsened the economic outlook of the entire country by suing against the 2021 state budget. To do so, they weaponized an overly aggressive debt ceiling they themselves[1] put into place in 2009 and which they themselves ignored for most of the years between 2009-2021.
[1] Along with the Social Democrats who unfortunately have been moving further to the right for at least the last 20 years. Since Conservatives, Free Liberals and Social Democrats all voted for this debt ceiling rule at the time, it’s now part of the constitution. Abolishing that rule is now an impossibility, as the coalition would need support from a large number of Conservatives to do so.
Welp, there goes my willingness to move to the Netherlands.
Not sure where you’d be moving from, but as an American… Even their craziest far-right dude is basically just a racist socialist. He’s got some bad ideas, for sure, but half of them are racism and the other half are “so some of the shit that hasn’t worked for America.”
I’m not saying that makes it okay. I’m surprised and disappointed in the Netherlands. But compared to most of America’s politicians, he seems downright reasonable.
The main anti-islam laws aren’t gonna fly anytime soon. They require a change in the foundational law (art. 1), which takes a 75% majority of the parliament elected by the next election. Not something easily achieved.
The more worrying parts are the hype to incarceration, having a zero-policy system that badly punishes without any merit but to lock people up, further stressing the already trembling mental health system.
And there are plenty of election promises that only get carried by this party. Abandoning the EU, for example, will be something the part wouldn’t get any support in from other mayor parties and is likely to be culled.
But it’s all just hypothetical, not sure what’ll happen next, it won’t be quick that’s for sure.
Ninja edit: proofread and minor phrasing
Oh you still can. Nothing will really change. Still has to make coalitions, compromisses blablabla if thats possible and if not well maybe new elections. Is he extreme? Yes allthi he seems to have lighten up a bit who knows. But its not like other countries. A Prime Minister is not a total ruler only a sort of spokes person. All the parties have to agree on things to make shit happen, and is why everything goes so slow here. Its not the best explanation but its the gist of it. Its still shit he MAY represent every dutch person but its not done yet. It way better then thierry beaudet (cunt). There a lot of assdicks in our parties.
I think I heard that whoever made the current Russian flag design explicitly copied the Dutch flag design to make Russia look more European or something.
If I’m wrong, the downvote button is right there.
Close, but not quite. This flag was used on the first Russian ships in 17th century. At that time Russia didn’t have it’s own fleet, so they just used the flag of the most powerful fleet at the time, that just happened to be Dutch. But it was not considered as the national flag. Later, after the February revolution, the flag of the Russian Empire was considered a “symbol of tsarism” at could no longer be used, so the provisional government just decided to use this flag as a placeholder, before the new one could be created. And after the fall of USSR Russian Federation just returned everything to how it was between February an October revolutions.
So I guess I wasn’t wrong all along
I need to stop rhyming
Give it time enough and the Russian flag wíll be an European flag :/
:/
Seems like Europe is turning against the Muslim community.
As a Canadian I’m curious why this is happening and what people think could be done to make for a more welcoming transition. We also accepted quite a few middle eastern refugees over the past few years and I’m wondering if there are lessons to be learned.
General problems being projected on foreigners, turning into racism.
General problems are parents integrate well, children clamp on their parents identity and prefer that over the identity of their place of residence. And if you look at the statistics it’s not projected, it’s true (math doesn’t lie)
While there might be some minor problems caused by immigrants or by people whose parents were immigrants 99% of the problems the right-wing parties claim are caused by immigrants are completely domestic issues (affordable rents, job losses, crime,…), caused by domestic policy about immigrants (e.g. complaining they are expensive when you literally don’t allow them to work) or just rely on people not understanding numbers and percentages (anything about replacement by immigrants).
Huh. It may be because I’m not exactly neurotypical, but I am not only the child of immigrants, I came to the Americas as an 11 year old. (Ok so it’s the U.S, which also might skew things) I did NOT clamp onto my parents identity. I love being an American (right down to bitching about how bad it can be, and how much things need to change)
My husband was born in Alabama with a Korean mother and also does not think of himself as anything other than American. Again, tho, he isn’t neurotypical. Hm.
Got any of those statistics?
That does not justify this racist party
That’s just BS (and bad statistics and malicious reading of statistics)
These don’t seem like general problems but I can see the racism bubbling up.
Canada is extremely picky when it comes to refugees. And it has the choice to be picky, because crossing the sea from the Mid-East/North Africa to Canada is hard. Even refugees from South America need to travel through the US first. So in the end, Canada gets people who are relatively well-off and well-educated and who pose fewer problems integrating.
Europe on the other hand is the natural route for Mid-East/North African refugees which due to the geographical closeness is available to a lot more people, including some from social segments below the middle class of their original country. And since the people coming to the EU tend to integrate worse, need more education and social services, there’s a tremendous opening for right-wing parties to swoop in and make claims. The EU also really needs to work on integration of new arrivals, even a country that pretends to be fairly open like Germany is partly really steeped in outmoded, hostile, demotivating processes and a mentality of not seeing refugees as people but as a burden to society.
I would disagree that Germany has not been welcoming.
The public opinion has just shifted after numerous incidents including rape, murder, terrorism in addition to the bad integration and clashing cultures.
It is also obvious at this point that it’s not refuge but immigration we are looking at, which changes the entire deal a bit and makes the aforementioned problems look worse.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Now Geert Wilders has likely won a massive election victory in the Netherlands and is in pole position to form the next ruling coalition and possibly become the country’s next prime minister.
In his first reaction, posted in a video on X, formerly Twitter, he spread his arms wide, put his face in his hands and said simply “35!” - the number of seats the poll then forecasted his party had won.
In 2009, the British government refused to let him visit the country, saying he posed a threat to “community harmony and therefore public security.” Wilders had been invited to Britain by a member of Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, to show his 15-minute film “Fitna,” which criticizes the Quran as a “fascist book.” The film sparked violent protests around the Muslim world in 2008 for linking Quranic verses with footage of terrorist attacks.
To court mainstream voters this time around, Wilders toned down the anti-Islam rhetoric and sought to focus less on what he calls the “de-Islamization” of the Netherlands and more on tackling hot-button issues such as housing shortages, a cost-of-living crisis and access to good health care.
His campaign platform nonetheless calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union, an “asylum stop” and “no Islamic schools, Qurans and mosques,” although he pledged Wednesday night not to breach Dutch laws or the country’s constitution that enshrines freedom of religion and expression.
He also is a staunch supporter of Israel and advocates shifting the Embassy of the Netherlands there to Jerusalem and closing the Dutch diplomatic post in Ramallah, home of the Palestinian Authority.
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Freedom of movement is a human right! For everyone, everywhere, in every direction!
