The Rise of Right Wing Political Parties in the 21st Century

I often see on TV and media “experts” expressing surprise at the increasing support for right wing political parties all over Europe. Why surprised? If the experts are knowledgeable and actually think about the effect that the policies of present EU government—and for that matter previous administration in USA—have, they should not be surprised.

It has been very obvious and well reported that allowing millions of economic migrants and their dependants into Europe has caused dismay, distrust, and fear among tens of millions of indigenous “working class” people. A similar effect is being seen in America with the illegal entry over the border with Mexico. These blue collar working class people are the people who have to share resources with the incomers and it is they who have their social customs and established rules challenged and weakened. The middle income groups of the media and political classes simple carry on in their own social circles, either oblivious to or simply ignoring protests from people outside those circles. The very rich simple fly off to some other place.

This is all known, so why surprise that these voters turn to the only politicians who appear to understand their concerns? All centre and left of centre politicians seem utterly disdainful of the genuine grievances that the indigenous, relative poor have. This disdain reaches the level of being dismissive and insulting in any reference to those concerns. The same politicians who live protected lives but demand the poor accept multiculturalism call the protestors racist and bigots. It cannot be a surprise to anyone that there is an increase in support for any politician who appears (genuinely or not) to be speaking for the millions of indigenous people. Voters will turn to those politicians who claim they are on their side. Those turning to right wing political promises are those who have their schools, healthcare, and housing overwhelmed by demand; the people who see their religious and social customs being forcibly changed and see the law being applied differently to incomers. They feel they are being made to pay for some vast social experiment conducted by an uncaring elite. Naturally, they wish to rebel. Naturally, they turn to anyone who promises to stop what is being done to their societies and their normal way of life.

Those turning to the right can witness, every day, how the deprivations of overcrowding and the holding down of low levels of pay are harming them and their families. They can see this and they can see the politicians and media presenters living lives of luxury and privilege. The rise of the right wing is no surprise.

In the 20th century it was the extreme left who benefited from the discontent of the poor, but in our modern era the left have become so politically correct, so addicted to their virtue signalling, that they have abandoned the people they claim to support and turned to policies that victimise the very people they should be speaking out for. The left are abandoning their traditional support base in favour of elitist idealism. This idealism makes no allowance for the cost to the majority of those policies. The costs are not only financial but also there is a diminishing of esteem, a loss of social cohesion and there are genuine fears that their belief systems are being eroded and disrespected. It need not be actual truth but it is easy for people to believe that incoming economic migrants are being given priority over the indigenous people.

A politician who says, “We should welcome all incomers, we should embrace their cultures, we should extend every opportunity to help them,” is not going to appeal to a voter who finds themselves further down the list for social housing, or the voters who find their children in overcrowded classes, or those elderly who can not get state funded social care, because the budgets are now over stretched.

Democracy is about rule by the majority but to most people it now seems that any minority can claim privileges denied to the majority. This may or may not be reality but it is widely believed and the right wing political parties use this belief. It is up to centre and left wing politicians to use genuine understandable evidence to show that this is not true, but sadly the left is so busy claiming support for any and every minority grievance, that they utterly fail to convince the majority that they are wrong in believing they are the ones being discriminated against.

The big political error in Europe was not that they accepted refugees and asylum seekers; it was not that they accepted incomers with prearranged work; it was the open to anyone and everyone policy. Welcome to all and we will try to find how to cope later. That was and still is the political mistake. It is the underprivileged, indigenous people who are having to do the coping. It is the indigenous poor who are having to share their resources and they are turning to any political party who promises to stop this situation getting worse. This is why the right wing parties are gathering strength and power.