In Europe, we have recently heard two big stories about the far-right. One of failure and one of success.
The story of failure comes out of Spain. Vox, the main far-right party in the country and the most influential since the transition to democracy, was gearing up to get into government for the first time, leveraging its MPs to force a coalition deal on a victorious centre-right Partido Popular.
Yet the elections that took place last month did not deliver on that narrative, not even close. Vox lost seats while the right in general underperformed. The left, for its part, did better than expected. The odds of a right-wing government of any formation have fallen away and, in a sign of their desperation, Vox has dropped any pretences to getting ministerial positions, promising unconditional support to the PP’s choice of Prime Minister in a minority government. It likely still won’t be enough and fresh elections beckon.
The story of success comes out of Germany, where the far-right AfD have continued to rise in the polls as the government gets caught in repeated missteps and internal battles. Most notably, the AfD have recently secured second place in a number of national polls, putting them ahead of any of the parties in Germany’s governing three-way coalition of social democrats, liberals and greens. Only the centre-right CDU, also in opposition, remains consistently above the AfD.
What is interesting about these two cases is the one big similarity that unites the AfD and Vox: neither have put much effort into moderating themselves.
Over the last few years, a standard narrative of far-right success has built up. In this narrative, far-right parties are successful when they move towards the centre. In practice, this has meant stepping away from more extreme positions (which covers everything from racism to climate change denial and from calling to leave the EU to restoring the death penalty), while still being strongly right-wing (nationalist rhetoric, hostility to immigrants and refugees, objections to LGBT rights, lack of respect for the rule of law, strong euroscepticism etc).
This template was understood as the key to success for at least the early years of far-right governments in Poland (Law and Justice), Hungary (Fidesz) and most recently Italy (Brothers of Italy).
Taken on its own, Vox’s failure fits that pattern. It seems quite likely that voters in Spain were put off by a party that lumps together Catalan independence, feminism, LGBT rights, communism and UN sustainable development goals as ideas to be literally thrown away.
But the AfD’s growth throws a spanner in the works. If anything the party has become more radical over time, moving away from its roots as the pet project of academics critical of eurozone bailouts and towards more extreme views, opposing climate action and more aggressively calling for an end to the EU. That the party has steadily grown in popularity around the same time that Vox has stumbled suggests that the AfD is not simply riding on a general wave of support for the far-right in Europe.
To further round out the picture, we should add the case of the Rassemblement National in France. Across the Channel, the leading figure of the French far-right, Marine Le Pen, has become wholly associated with the concept of ‘de-demonisation’ (a less clunky word in French). From its origins as the holocaust-denying Front National, under Le Pen’s father, the party has increasingly integrated the mainstream and was among the first big far-right parties to drop calls to leave the EU.
However, while their success has continued to develop, they have never been able to breach that critical threshold, at times falling out of the spotlight entirely (such as during the recent protests against the pensions reform). In spite of all their success, it remains difficult to imagine Le Pen winning a presidential election.
So where does this leave us? It appears that the concept of ‘moderate to win’ is not especially useful.
Overall, it is difficult to pin down solid trends or good rules of thumb to help us understand when and how far-right parties in Europe might enjoy success or failure. Neither radicalism nor moderation seem like surefire wins and parties adopting the same strategy at the same time may see different results. Perhaps they are just like other parties and adaptability and opportunism are better explanations than overarching forces.
In any case, this should give us pause for thought when people suggest that Europe is decidedly swinging one way or another. As the European Parliament elections approach, it is very likely that commentary on Europe’s rightward drift will start to multiply. Given what we know and what we have seen in recent weeks, we would do well to remember that what seems like a trend one day may be shortlived and that even where parties succeed, they are not assured popularity for the long-term.