Tories and Labour to blame for rise of Farage

Jon Danzig | 10 January 2025

Mainstream political parties across Europe attempting to see-off far-right political parties by copying them instead of challenging them hasn’t worked. It can’t work. It won’t work.

Or as historian Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at Oxford University said on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme:

“There is good evidence that politics of appeasement by mainstream liberal centre-right parties trying to win back voters by adopting some of the more extreme rhetoric and policies doesn’t work.

“Because voters say why should I have the dog whistle when I could have the real dog?”

Today, in seven EU countries, electorates have voted for the “real dog” meaning that their governments include far-right parties. In another four EU countries, “the dog” is close to winning.

▪ In Austria, The Freedom Party (FPÖ) secured almost 29% of the vote in the September 2024 parliamentary elections and is about to form the government, marking Austria’s first far-right-led administration since World War II.

▪ In Italy, The Brothers of Italy, a right-wing nationalist party, leads the government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

▪ In Finland, the Finns Party, a right-wing nationalist group, secured 46 seats in the Eduskunta (parliament) during the April 2023 general elections, becoming the second-largest party with 20.07% of the vote.

▪ In Hungary, The Fidesz party, under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has been in power since 2010. Fidesz is known for its national-conservative and sovereigntist policies.

▪ In Slovakia, The Slovak National Party, a right-wing nationalist party, is part of the governing coalition.

▪ In Sweden, The Sweden Democrats, a nationalist party, have significant influence over the government through a confidence and supply agreement, despite not being formal coalition members.

▪ In The Netherlands, The Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, has gained substantial support, leading to the formation of a right-wing government.

As of January 2025, several European countries have far-right or right-wing nationalist parties that are gaining significant support and are close to achieving governmental power.

▪ In Romania, Pro-Russian far-right candidate Călin Georgescu is leading in the polls for the upcoming presidential election, with over 40% support.

▪ In Germany, The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing populist party, has been increasing its vote share in recent elections.

▪ In France, the National Rally (Rassemblement National, RN) led by Marine Le Pen is a far-right party making significant gains and securing Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

▪ In Spain, Vox Party is one of several far-right and right-wing parties gaining voters.

And in the UK?

In last year’s general election, the far-right Reform UK party (yes, it is far-right) gained 5 seats with just over 14% of the vote share. Its leader, Nigel Farage, is convinced that he will be Britain’s next Prime Minister.

How did this happen?

Because liberal-thinking, middle-of-the-road parties and politicians, who should have known better, let the blame-game grow. The anti-immigration, anti-refugee, anti-EU, pro-Brexit message gained momentum without being properly challenged.

In the process, both the Tories and Labour have transitioned from being pro-EU parties to basically Brexit parties.

I have written multiple articles about this. For example, ‘How freaky hair ‘won’ in the Netherlands and Britain’

Even today, Labour promotes an anti-migrant message, and continues to support Brexit, even though the way ‘Leave’ won the referendum was fraudulent and undemocratic; Brexit is doing huge harm to Britain; it cannot be ‘made to work’, and polls consistently show that most people think it was a mistake.

Instead of attempting to ape the far-right, now is the time all good parties to come to the aid of the people by powerfully exposing the false diagnoses and empty promises promoted by far-right politicians.

YES, people need affordable homes, decent wages, better access to medical care, good education for their children. And NO, it’s not the fault of migrants.

Properly fixing those problems will see off far-right parties that always exploit hardship by wrongly scapegoating others.

Going down the far-right route will simply cause division, hatred, and societal decay, and still won’t give us affordable homes, decent wages, better access to medical care, or good education for our children.