Owen Jones - If there is another economic crash, Europe’s far right is ready for it
The last economic crisis never ended, and another
one may loom. Europeans have endured years of unemployment and
underemployment, stagnating or falling living standards, and cuts to state
services on a scale ranging from steep to decimation. The disintegration of
Syria has sent a tidal wave of human misery crashing over the country’s
borders, some of it lapping on the shores of the European continent. And
already the populist, anti-immigration right is in a strong position, from
Sweden to France, Greece to the Netherlands. So when Greece’s motorcycling
former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis warns
that Europe could
be falling into “a modern 1930s”, it is time to sit up, listen – and
prepare.
Anybody can predict the next economic crisis and go on to
claim vindication, but here is what we know. We never got over the last crisis:
we remain in the aftermath, a lost decade, and governments will have far more
limited options if another meltdown happens. In the eurozone – where membership
of a single currency leaves less room for manoeuvre, and years of spending cuts
have meant extensive social and economic devastation –around one
in 10 remain out of work.
It
is especially bleak for the young: over a fifth are without work; in Greece
and Spain, the level remains nearly half; in Italy, nearly 38%; in France, over
a quarter. The “graduate without a future”, as
journalist Paul Mason describes them, is recognisable across the continent:
young people who find that the opportunities they expect from education simply
are not there. Poverty and hardship has become the lot of an increasing number
of Europeans: Oxfam found that there
were 7.5 million more Europeans in “severe material deprivation” in
2013 compared with four years earlier.
And now the economic ghosts of 2008 appear to be doing a
comeback tour. Global growth has become ever more dependent on a slowing
Chinese economy. Fears mount of a US recession, weakening European industrial
production, and a
possible credit crisis in Europe’s banks. Pictures of panicking
traders, hands clasping fraught faces as markets tumble, add to a sense of deja
vu. Osbornomics has left Britain poorly prepared for crisis, with weak wage
growth meaning
fewer tax receipts and shrinking
industrial production leaving us ever more dependent on the City.
And who is waiting, preparing and consolidating? Europe’s
far right, already feeding off the despair of economic crisis and a backlash
against refugees fleeing violence from the Middle East. Where once the
principal target was Jews, now it’s Muslims. Despite failing to achieve an
anticipated breakthrough in December’s regional elections, Marine Le Pen’s
far-right far-right Front National – combining anti-immigration politics with an
audacious raid on the economic rhetoric of the left – won
nearly 7m votes in France. Even if their leader Marine Le Pen is mercifully
unlikely – in the current political climate, at least – to win a presidential
election, it is distinctly possible she could top the first round.
In Sweden, the far-right Swedish Democrats – a party with
neo-Nazi origins – occasionally leads opinion polls, regularly receiving the
support of
nearly a fifth of the electorate. Here is a party whose leader once
denounced the growth of Islam as “our greatest
foreign threat since world war two”. In Finland – already stricken by
recession – the hard-right Finns
party is already in government. The Northern League is surging in
Italy; its leader, Lica Zaia, has
demanded the razing of Roma settlements, and last year, after becoming
governor of Veneto, hedemanded
the expulsion of African migrants. While the far-right Freedom party –
whose former leader Jörg Haider was accused of Nazi sympathies – failed to win
Vienna in elections last year, it
scored a record result.
Polls in the Netherlands suggest a party led by Geert Wilders –
who, like Donald Trump, wants Muslim immigration stopped to prevent an
“Islamic invasion”– is on course to come top in a general election. In
austerity-ravaged Greece, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn terrorises immigrants. Even
in Germany – which, in the postwar period, has resisted the rise of the far
right – the populist hard-right Alternative für Deutschland has
growing support.
And so it falls to the left to offer an alternative outlet.
It is possible. Spain has been hammered more than most, but so far has not
endured the rise of a similar, far-right anti-immigration party. Instead,
popular discontent has been funnelled in the direction of Podemos, a
progressive party arguing for an alternative to austerity.
Podemos has flourished thanks to movements that have
organised in local communities, such as the anti-eviction movement. But its
approach to communication is worth understanding, too. Eschewing the
traditional symbols and language of the left, even resisting talking in the
language of “left” versus “right”, it has appealed way beyond the traditional
leftist comfort zone. It has appealed to a younger generation in despair. The
message is one of relentless optimism and hope. Podemos is resolutely patriotic
in approach, redefining patriotism as defending the interests of the majority
against the elite and ridding the country of injustice.
The left – including the British left – has a lot to learn.
A convincing, coherent alternative to slash-and-burn economics, not least if
another economic crisis is on the way, is desperately needed too. But there
should be much greater urgency in leftwing ranks, for the far right is
stronger, better organised, and well-positioned to benefit from any impending
crises. The history of Europe should be
warning enough. Time to prepare, and quick.
