The Guardian: How globalisation has transformed the fight for LGBTQ+ rights

 It was no coincidence that the notion of LGBTQ+ rights was spreading worldwide at the same time that old boundaries were collapsing in the era of globalisation. The collapse of these boundaries led to the rapid spread of ideas about sexual equality or gender transition – and also a dramatic reaction by conservative forces, by patriarchs and priests who feared the loss of control that this process threatened. These were the dynamics along the pink line, particularly in places where people came to be counted as gay or lesbian or MSM (men who have sex with men) or transgender for the first time. In most societies, they had always been there, albeit in ways that were sometimes circumscribed or submerged, but now they claimed new status as they took on new political identities. And they became enmeshed in a bigger geopolitical dynamic. [...]

Particularly in Europe, these new-look nationalist movements sometimes bolstered their agendas by claiming they were protecting not just jobs and citizens but values, too. By the time Le Pen was running for office in 2017, these values included the rights of LGBTQ+ people. The man who wrote this script had been the crusading Dutch anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated in 2002. Fortuyn, who was gay, attracted mass support when he claimed that Muslim intolerance of homosexuality posed an existential threat to European civilisation. His far-right successor, Geert Wilders, drove the agenda hard. When a troubled Muslim man killed 49 people at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016, Trump – then on the campaign trail – slammed “radical Islamic terrorism”. Wilders, fighting his own election campaign back home, capitalised on this: “The freedom that gay people should have – to kiss each other, to marry, to have children – is exactly what Islam is fighting against.” [...]

In western Europe, the issue of LGBTQ+ rights was being staked as a pink line against the influx of new migrants. At the same time, in eastern Europe, it was being staked as a pink line against decadent western liberalism. In both instances, queer people themselves came to be instrumentalised politically as never before. They acquired political meaning far beyond their own claims to equality and dignity. They became embodiments of progress and worldliness to some, but signs of moral and social decay to others.

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WorldAffairs: Strongmen From Mussolini to Trump

 Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat has spent her career documenting the stealth strategies authoritarian leaders use to gain power. In her new book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, she outlines the “strongman playbook” used by authoritarian leaders including Donald Trump. She says that the January 6 insurgency by far-right extremists, meant to facilitate Trump’s self-coup, lays bare how much the 45th president has in common with autocrats like Benito Mussolini and Vladimir Putin. When President Trump incited his followers to storm the US Capitol, some were shocked, but Ben-Ghiat saw this coming. She joins Ray Suarez on the podcast to talk about last week’s events and warn us of what could come next.

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4Liberty: LGBTQ Community Became Viktor Orban’s Latest Scapegoat

In the second half of 2019, racism was the next topic to be tested, and the Hungarian Roma community became the focus point of Orbán’s hateful rhetoric. Orbán started with a harsh anti-Roma narrative, then denied financial compensation for Roma children who were forced to learn in segregated schools for years. Orbán portrayed the victims of segregated education as people who are “looking for free money”.[...]

In May 2020 Fidesz made a radical move: they completely banned legal gender recognition for Hungarian transgender and intersex people. This is an unprecedented phenomenon in Europe: legislators usually work towards a more equal society, not the other way around. This law ended a 20 year practise with which transgender people could (although, though a very long and malfunctioning, but still existing process) get the personal documents that provide their basic safety within the society. [...]

These cases show how Fidesz shifted from the “behind closed doors” narrative to the “pathologizing” narrative. And when Fidesz started talking about changing what LGBTQ people are doing in the privacy of their own home by sending them to conversion therapies or depriving them of their right to adopt, fundamental radical groups started to disrupt LGBTQ cultural indoor events.

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Reuters: Hungary's Orban calls for central Europe to unite around Christian roots

 “Western Europe had given up on ... a Christian Europe, and instead experiments with a godless cosmos, rainbow families, migration and open societies,” Orban said in a speech.

He said the monument, a 100-metre long and 4-metre wide ramp carved into a street near Budapest’s parliament building, was a call to central European nations to strengthen their alliance and rally around what he called the “Polish flagship”. [...]

Orban himself had rarely criticised rainbow, or same-sex families, but Parliament’s speaker - a long-time ally of Orban - had equated gay adoption with paedophilia.

Last weekend, two rainbow flags were torn down from municipals buildings in Budapest, prompting a warning from the U.S. Embassy that neo-Nazi groups should not be tolerated.

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UnHerd: The irresistible rise of the civilisation-state

America’s decline is impossible to disentangle from China’s rise, so it is natural that the rapid climb of the Middle Kingdom back to its historic global primacy dominates discussion of the civilisation-state. Though the phrase was popularised by the British writer Martin Jacques, the political theorist Christopher Coker observed in his excellent recent book on civilisation-states that “the turn to Confucianism began in 2005, when President Hu Jintao applauded the Confucian concept of social harmony and instructed party cadres to build a ‘harmonious society.’” In any case, it is only under his successor Xi’s rule that China as a rival civilisation-state has really penetrated the Western consciousness. “The advent of Xi Jinping as the Chinese president in 2012 propelled the idea of ‘civilization-state’ to the forefront of the political discourse,” the Indian international relations scholar Ravi Dutt Bajpai remarks, “as Xi believes that ‘a civilization carries on its back the soul of a country or nation.’” [...]

Yet the appeal of the civilisation-state model is not limited to China. Under Putin, the other great Eurasian empire, Russia, has publicly abandoned the Europe-focused liberalising projects of the 1990s — a period of dramatic economic and societal collapse driven by adherence to the policies of Western liberal theorists — for its own cultural sonderweg or special path of a uniquely Russian civilisation centred on an all-powerful state. In a 2013 address to the Valdai Club, Putin remarked that Russia “has always evolved as a state‑civilisation, reinforced by the Russian people, Russian language, Russian culture, Russian Orthodox Church and the country’s other traditional religions. It is precisely the state‑civilisation model that has shaped our state polity.” In a 2012 speech to the Russian Federal Assembly, Putin likewise asserted that “we must value the unique experience passed on to us by our forefathers. For centuries, Russia developed as a multi‑ethnic nation (from the very beginning), a state‑civilisation bonded by the Russian people, Russian language and Russian culture native for all of us, uniting us and preventing us from dissolving in this diverse world.” [...]

In a revealing 2018 essay, Putin’s adviser Vladislav Surkov — who was fired from his role this February — foregrounded this hybridity, part-European and part-Asian, as the central characteristic of the Russian soul. “Our cultural and geopolitical identity is reminiscent of a volatile identity of the one born into a mixed-race family,” Surkov wrote. “A half-blood, a cross-breed, a weird-looking guy. Russia is a Western-Eastern half-breed nation. With its double-headed statehood, hybrid mentality, intercontinental territory and bipolar history, it is charismatic, talented, beautiful and lonely. Just as a half-breed should be.” For Surkov, Russia’s destiny as a civilisation-state, like that of the Byzantium it succeeded, is one as “a civilisation that has absorbed the East and the West. European and Asian at the same time, and for this reason neither quite Asian and nor quite European.” [...]

Warning his audience that “we know that civilisations are disappearing; countries as well. Europe will disappear,” Macron lauded the civilisational projects of Russia and Hungary, which “have a cultural, civilisational vitality that is inspiring,” and declared that France’s mission, its historic destiny, was to guide Europe into a civilisational renewal, forging a “collective narrative and a collective imagination. That is why I believe very deeply that this is our project and must be undertaken as a project of European civilisation.”

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BBC4 Analysis: The Smack of Firm Leadership

What does the way in which rival political systems around the world have managed the Covid-19 pandemic tell us about the global political future?

Writer and broadcaster, John Kampfner, considers what has made a "good leader" during the months of the outbreak and how that is likely to affect the vitality and long-term future of individual regimes. Are today's authoritarians - often savvier and subtler than their twentieth century counterparts - becoming more confident and optimistic? Is this a good time for the world's populist leaders from the Americas to Europe to East Asia? And has democracy, already tainted by its response to the global financial crisis and enduring questions over its popular legitimacy, continued with its woes or might there be a glimmer of light after the years of darkness?

Among those taking part: Francis Fukuyama (author of "The End of History and the Last Man"); Anne Applebaum (soon to publish "The Twilight of Democracy"); Singaporean former top diplomat and President of the UN Security Council, Kishore Mahbubani; writer and broadcaster, Misha Glenny; eminent international affairs analyst, Constanze Stelzenmüller; Bulgarian political thinker, Ivan Krastev (joint author of "The Light that Failed") and Lionel Barber, former editor of the "Financial Times".

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National Review: 82-Day Dictatorship

At the time of this great panic for Hungarian democracy, Hungarian opponents of Orbán spread ludicrous and easily-checkable claims about the legislation, saying that the parliament itself had been suspended and elections cancelled, a claim spread by people as eminent as Anne Applebaum. Other experts told us confidently that these powers were gathered by Orbán for the purpose of suppressing the inevitably disastrous performance of his nation’s health-care institutions. American political strategists predicted extravagant things, such as: “He’s going to wind up putting Gypsies in permanent detention…” [...]

Orbán is not immune from criticism for his use of the powers. He used the power to rule by fiat to pass a planned redevelopment of City Park, which his party desired to do but which has been blocked by the opposition in Parliament and by the mayor of Budapest. This is an abuse of emergency powers, and a bit of political hardball, though not one that touches on the fundaments of democracy. End runs like this are commonly done in the Western world. New York governor Andrew Cuomo used sweeping emergency powers to amend or rewrite hundreds of New York laws, including many unrelated to the response to COVID-19 that he couldn’t pass through the legislature. Among these was suspending the requirement that cities and towns publish certain legal notices, a serious source of income for local media that could lead to newspaper closures and will make it harder for citizens to know how their tax monies are being spent. This too is an abuse, but nobody outside of the letters to the editor section of newspapers seems to notice it. [...]

In my book, the police were too zealous and the law too broad. Neither of those two men should have been questioned even if they weren’t charged. But overzealous and lunkheaded investigations are launched by the police frequently in free countries. And Hungarian speech restrictions, even in the emergency, are put into relief when contrasted with European peers with great liberal reputations. Hundreds of people in the U.K. face lengthy and expensive trials or even prison sentences for charges under the Communications Act, and police there regularly threaten the public to watch what they say on social media. Germany’s Network Enforcement Act defines dangerous speech so broadly it would give supporters of opposition parties a second thought about expressing themselves on the Internet. Non-liberal states such as Russia, the Philippines, and Singapore have all cited it as an example to be emulated. German politicians have demanded that the law be made more repressive and loopholes in it be closed.

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The Washington Post: Where would U.S. democracy head in a second Trump term? Hungary and Poland show the answer.

Former Obama administration deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes clearly had this sentiment in mind last week when he tweeted, “If you want to know where Trump wants to take America in a second term, look at Russia, Hungary and Poland.” While comparing the United States’ potential future to Russia’s mafia-state was a stretch, Rhodes’s references to Hungary and Poland were not. [...]

Freedom House removed Hungary from its list of democracies last week, calling the country’s decline “the most precipitous ever tracked” by one of its flagship reports. Freedom House now labels the government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban a “hybrid regime,” meaning that it marries some elements of democracy with those of an autocracy.

Under Orban, Hungary maintains some democratic traits; for example, it holds elections, albeit ones in which Orban’s government provides his party significant advantages. Yet Orban and his ruling coterie have neutered a once-vibrant media, politicized the administration of justice and promoted the interests of regime insiders such as the prime minister’s son-in-law, all while scapegoating migrants and asylum seekers. Orban recently dropped any semblance of adherence to democratic rule and used the fight against covid-19 to have Hungary’s parliament grant him indefinite rule by decree. [...]

There’s a reason all this may sound familiar. As multiple political scientists, intelligence officials and historians have documented, governments that turn away from democracy and the rule of law increasingly follow a consistent pattern. Summarized as a slow roll of subversion, elected autocrats chip away at democracy’s foundations in the courts, media and civil service with the grudging (or sometimes energetic) support of their political allies. As Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt put it, “Democracy’s erosion is, for many, almost imperceptible.” Yet that erosion is real, and the United States is experiencing it, too.

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TLDR News: Is Hungary a Dictatorship Now? Orban's Controversial Coronavirus Law Explained

euobserver: German ex-commissioner Oettinger lands Orban job

According to the commission's rules, former commissioners have to notify the EU executive with "a minimum of two months' notice of their intention to engage in a professional activity during a period of two years after they have ceased to hold office". [...]

Oettinger has informed the commission that the Hungarian government had discussed with him a possible function in the Hungarian National Science Policy Council, a commission official said when asked by EUobserver on the matter. [...]

In 2016, Oettinger used a private plane for a travel to Budapest offered by a German businessman with strong Kremlin ties, Klaus Mangold, which possibly broke EU ethics rules - even though the commission at the time considered it to fall outside of its transparency and ethics rules.

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UnHerd: ‘Cultural Christian’ is an empty idea

But what, in practice, are the new social conservatives seeking to conserve? Calls for a revival of cultural conservatism, many in the name of Christian values, seem often on closer examination oddly insubstantial. In 2017, UKIP’s leader-for-that-week Stephen Crowther said that the UK is a Christian country, “and we intend to stay that way”. [...]

Elsewhere in Europe, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbàn describes his brand of authoritarian, identity-oriented politics as “Christian democracy”. Only a minority of Hungarians go to church every week – only 12% attends church regularly, although around three in four identity as Catholic or Protestant — but the identifier “Christian” has nonetheless become central to Orbàn’s politics.

Much as Crowther did, the Orbàn-supporting Bishop of Szeged, László Kiss-Rigó, bridges this gap with a vague, cultural definition of what actually constitutes a Christian: “In Europe, even an atheist is a Christian”, he said. It turns out that being “Christian” is less about prayer or doctrine than values, for as he puts it: “We are very happy that there are a few politicians like Orbán and Trump who really represent those values which we Christians believe to be important.” [...]

Having come unmoored from its roots either in the past, the divine, or the popular will, McManus suggests that this postmodern conservatism has warped a Burkean belief in tradition into a kind of moral cosplay whose main purpose is less seeking the good life than making a noisy defence of whichever identities its sworn enemies attack. As the postmodern liberal-left demonises heterosexual white males, so postmodern conservatism sets out to defend them; and so on.

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The Guardian: How liberalism became ‘the god that failed’ in eastern Europe

No single factor can explain the simultaneous emergence of authoritarian anti-liberalisms in so many differently situated countries in the second decade of the 21st century. Yet resentment at liberal democracy’s canonical status and the politics of imitation in general has played a decisive role. This lack of alternatives, rather than the gravitational pull of an authoritarian past or historically ingrained hostility to liberalism, is what best explains the anti-western ethos dominating post-communist societies today. The very conceit that “there is no other way” provided an independent motive for the wave of populist xenophobia and reactionary nativism that began in central and eastern Europe, and is now washing across much of the world. [...]

Liberalism’s reputation in the region never recovered from 2008. The financial crisis greatly weakened the case, still being made by a handful of western-trained economists, for continuing to imitate American-style capitalism. Confidence that the political economy of the west was a model for the future of mankind had been linked to the belief that western elites knew what they were doing. Suddenly it was obvious that they did not. This is why 2008 had such a shattering ideological, not merely economic, effect. [...]

Yet focusing on the corruption and deviousness of illiberal governments in the region will not help us understand the sources of popular support for national populist parties. The origins of populism are undoubtedly complex. But they partly lie in the humiliations associated with the uphill struggle to become, at best, an inferior copy of a superior model. Discontent with the “transition to democracy” in the post-communist years was also inflamed by visiting foreign “evaluators” who had little grasp of local realities. These experiences combined to produce a nativist reaction in the region, a reassertion of “authentic” national traditions allegedly suffocated by ill-fitting western forms. The post-national liberalism associated with EU enlargement allowed aspiring populists to claim exclusive ownership of national traditions and national identity. [...]

The extent of post-1989 emigration from eastern and central Europe, awakening fears of national disappearance, helps explain the deeply hostile reaction across the region to the refugee crisis of 2015-16, even though very few refugees have relocated to the countries of the region. We might even hypothesise that anti-immigration politics in a region essentially without immigrants is an example of what some psychologists call displacement – a defence mechanism by which, in this case, minds unconsciously blot out a wholly unacceptable threat and replace it with one still serious but conceivably easier to manage. Hysteria about non-existent immigrants about to overrun the country represents the substitution of an illusory danger (immigration) for the real danger (depopulation and demographic collapse) that cannot speak its name.

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The Guardian: Anti-LGBT rhetoric stokes tensions in eastern Europe

In Poland, and elsewhere in central Europe, there has been a notable rise in tolerance and empathy towards the LGBT community in recent years, illustrated by the emergence of a confident new generation of activists in smaller towns and cities. But across the region, populist politicians and church leaders are using the issue to mobilise their conservative bases. [...]

That message will resonate with activists in Poland, where senior members of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) have engaged in an increasingly ferocious campaign portraying so-called “LGBT ideology” as a menace akin to that of Soviet-imposed communism. In the run-up to parliamentary elections this month, which PiS narrowly won, the “LGBT issue” emerged as one of the main campaign grounds. [...]

In Hungary, where the church is less powerful than in Poland, there is less deep-rooted homophobia. Budapest was one of the first cities in the region to have pride marches. But in recent months the ruling Fidesz party of the far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has begun what appears to be a coordinated homophobic campaign. [...]

n the Czech Republic, attitudes are even more progressive, with a recent survey showing 61% of people supported a bill currently under consideration that would legally enshrine gay marriage. But here too, conservative politicians are rallying part of their base with homophobic rhetoric disguised as a promotion of “traditional values”.

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Politico: Conservatives rebel against Merkel’s EU top jobs plan

Among the national leaders to speak out against the proposal were Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar. That opposition, along with Poland, Romania and other countries that had already voiced resistance to Timmermans, was enough to make the Osaka plan a political nonstarter. [...]

“As EPP, we haven’t agreed to the package that was negotiated in Osaka. I think it’s fair to say there’s a lot opposition to the proposal that was made in Osaka from the EPP’s point of view," Varadkar said, arriving at the Council's Europa building. "The vast majority of the EPP prime ministers don’t believe that we should give up the presidency of the Commission quite so easily, without a fight.” [...]

Rangel noted that the EPP had officially tapped two other prime ministers, Plenković and Latvian Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš, as its official negotiators in the leadership deliberations. “Mr. Plenković and Mr. Karins,” Rangel said. “They speak on behalf of the EPP.”

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EURACTIV: Orban lost in the European wilderness

Moreover, Orbán’s illiberal rhetoric and cultural war elevated to the European level contributed to the rise of liberals at home as well as in Europe. In Hungary, the party of the former Socialist prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, led by the energetic Klara Dobrev (Gyurcsány’s wife) came second with 16% of the votes. The young, Western educated liberals Momentum secured third place with 10%, giving a sign of hope for the opposition.

In the EU, the new political division lines are climate change and illiberalism – and less so on migration or particularly economic governance that European voters are actually unhappy about. Representing two different angles of behaviour but the same neoliberal economics, Orbán needs French President Macron to maintain his position as much as Macron needs him. [...]

However, Hungary was in a different situation when he took over in 2010. The economy was in tatters, the country needed an almost $26 billion bailout in 2008 after years of high deficit, unsustainable debt levels, very low social spending, and mismanagement by the socialist-liberal government coalitions. For the majority of Hungarians Orbán is managing the economy better, what is the main reason behind Fidesz`s continuous popularity. Meanwhile, the opposition is oversaturated with previously discredited political figures.

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The Guardian: Aung San Suu Kyi finds common ground with Orbán over Islam

In a rare trip to Europe, state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize laureate who was once the figurehead of the fight for democracy in Myanmar, met Orbán in Budapest. There, the two leaders found common ground on the subject of immigration and Islam. 

“The two leaders highlighted that one of the greatest challenges at present for both countries and their respective regions – south-east Asia and Europe – is migration,” read a statement released after their meeting.

“They noted that both regions have seen the emergence of the issue of co-existence with continuously growing Muslim populations.” [...]

Aung San Suu Kyi has increasingly spoken out against the imposition of western ideas and principles in Myanmar, a view which was reflected by Orbán in the statement released after their meeting, where he emphasised his rejection of the “export of democracy” from other western countries.

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Politico: Europe’s populists can’t be defeated — but they can be contained

Containment is about separating our assessment of the political reality from the outcome we morally desire. Today, the facts speak for themselves: Populists have seized more than a quarter of seats in the European Parliament and run governments representing more than a quarter of the (post-Brexit) EU population.

Support for populists is also far from fleeting. Hungary has had an illiberal government for almost a decade now. In France, Marine Le Pen’s nationalists, who came out ahead of the beleaguered French President Emmanuel Macron’s liberals, have posed a serious threat since the 2002 presidential election. Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which took power in 2015, trounced the opposition this weekend, with over 40 percent of the vote. And, one year into its government, Italy’s League is successfully eating up the support of the relatively more moderate 5Star movement and shows no signs of slowing down. [...]

In practice, we should waste no opportunity to up the cost of illiberal politics, but we need to do so selectively and proportionally. The EU’s decision to open Article 7 proceedings against Poland and Hungary for breaches in the rule of law set a positive example. To be sure, the Commission may not have the votes in the European Council to enforce sanctions against either government. But that does not render these measures meaningless. The proceedings have sent a clear signal to Hungarian and Polish societies and weakened the legitimacy of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the leader of Poland’s ruling party, Jarosław Kaczyński. [...]

There are signs that the paradoxes inherent in right-wing populism are even more startling than those of Soviet communism. You cannot “keep migrants out” and pay for the growing number of pensioners. As a mid-sized nation-state, you cannot both “take back control” and strengthen your position in the global economy. You cannot make government more accountable to “the people” at the same time as you destroy independent institutions. And you cannot build an innovative economy while stifling critical thinking.

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Social Europe: The Euro-elections in microcosm: Macron versus Le Pen

Macron himself made of his campaign an existential struggle between his La République en Marche (LREM) party and Marine Le Pen’s nationalist and Eurosceptic Rassemblement National (RN).

Towards the end of the campaign, he raised the stakes by personally getting engaged and emphasising how important this election was for him. In an interview with regional media, Macron said: ‘The transformation project I am leading for the country does not go ahead without a new stage in the European project. The French people elected me for that.’ For him, these European elections could be summed up in one question: ‘Do we want division when facing the United States and China, or do we prefer unity to build our European future?’ [...]

European elections are very often used to protest against parties in government and it is not a surprise when these come in second or third in European polls. Considering the gilets jaunes movement, the weekly protests and the drop in Macron’s ratings in recent months, LREM is probably glad that it maintained this level of support. In fact, the Élysée has already suggested that it does not intend to backtrack on its policies and that it will enter the ‘second act’ of Macron’s term with the same determination.

Third place went to the Greens’ list, with 13.5 per cent. Domestically, the results show a consolidation of the changes to the French political landscape that emerged in 2017. The system now focuses on LREM and RN, rather than the centre-right Republicans and centre-left Socialists—they ended in fourth and sixth place respectively.

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The Economist: Why Europe's nationalist parties all sound alike

Nationalist parties in the European Union are gaining momentum. At a time when the EU is increasingly fractured, they are united on many issues. What are they? [...]

And that’s weird because one belief that unites these nationalist populist European leaders is that the European Union should be less united. Since the euro crisis of 2009 and the migrant crisis of 2015 these right-wing populist movements have grown in strength and in number. [...]

Every European country has its own version. Tomio Okamura is a Czech-nationalist politician born in Japan who wants a zero-tolerance policy on immigration. It’s not clear what this means but it plays into European fears of what they call an invasion. In other words… immigration.

They all accuse Brussels of behaving like a dictatorship. Which is ironic given that they’re all running in democratic elections for the EU parliament. They often speak of a supposed plot by mainstream leaders like Angela Merkel to replace Europeans with lower-paid migrants.

openDemocracy: A pan-European radical right – contradiction in terms?

Although Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has confirmed it is sending a representative, Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front has said she will not be attending. Le Pen herself hosted a similar meeting in Nice in 2018, at which Geert Wilders from the Dutch Party for Freedom and several other influential radical right speakers were present, an event which indicated how hard it has been to create a pan-European radical right bloc. [...]

As David Barnes recently wrote here, narratives of European civilization have been both common and hard to sustain; Oswald Mosley’s post-World War II argument in favour of ‘Europe – A Nation’, which shares many similarities with today’s anti-immigrant discourses promoted by the likes of Salvini, found few takers, despite the fact that a notion of Europe having a homogeneous racial and cultural background was widely held across the continent’s radical right movements. [...]

Even if Europe’s radical right leaders share certain fundamental ideas, however, such as a belief in the need to defend the ‘white race’, a hatred of Islam, a desire to stop immigration, and a basic ultra-nationalist position, it is hard to see how the clash of nationalisms that conferences such as Salvini’s will expose can survive the experience. [...]

There may have been a sharing of ideas – a transnational fascism – but there was really no ‘fascist international’. Attempts to appeal to a basic ‘Europeanism’, centred on racial belonging and conspiratorial antisemitism, have historically proved insufficient to mobilise and maintain coherence across the continent, with nationalism proving far more powerful as an identity-building cohesive force. Perhaps the National Socialists came closest with their transnational membership of the SS (although this was not huge) and a racial ideology which found supporters in all European countries. Yet ultimately, as Bauerkämper and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe write, ‘the vision of a fascist Europe proved to be a chimera. Fascists clearly espoused different versions of European unity.’

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