why is the far right so popular in Europe I asked the question for a very good reason as many viewers will know last weekend the afd party in Germany which is Neo fascist in my opinion and far right in the opinion of others and I don't think the difference is worth arguing about one one of the regional elections in that country There are 16 regions in Germany and most of those in what was once East Germany are now swinging towards the afd now in this case they actually won the vote for the first time ever
since 1945 taking 33% of the popular vote with the chance therefore that they will be the biggest party in the local Parliament although not necessarily guaranteeing them power because it is not at all clear that other parties will actually wish to go into Coalition with them but the point is that they won and in another of the German regions they came very close to winning and this is a pattern that we are seeing replicated across Europe we know it's happening in Sweden we know that it happened in France and it was only by some fairly
drastic action in the second round of their general election in June that the far right were prevented from winning and we've seen it in other countries not least in the UK reform is a farri party in the sense that it is definitely beyond the Tories and they are without doubt as right-wing as they have been in generations and therefore we're seeing this pattern replicated all over the place so what is the appeal of these parties and my answer to that question is really very straightforward it is that lots of people feel as though they have
suffered badly under neoliberal governments in the case of Germany for example from the Christian democrats and from the SPD the social Democrats with a bit of green thrown in every now and again because they unfortunately in Germany seem to be pretty neoliberal as well in the case of the UK the Tories and labor but actually frankly as well most of the liberal Democrats and quite a lot of the SNP have also been pretty neoliberal too in the case of France there is mcon who is refusing to even appoint a left-wing prime minister even though they
won the election and he's certainly not appointing a right we one because his Center group aligned with the left to keep the right wing out we have an apparent hegemony of power being maintained by these Centrist neoliberal parties across Europe to exclude anyone on the left we're also seeing that in Ireland by the way as well where the two parties that spent a century opposing each other have now gone into coalition to hold out Shimp Fane who are genuinely more leftwing than either of them are and we seeing that in other places as well so
we're seeing the Centrist parties trying to cling on to power at all cost and maintain neoliberalism but what people know is that neoliberalism has failed them working people know that there has been a decline in benefits they have not seen an improvement in their well-being as a consequence of neoliberalism for the whole of this Century at least most people in most countries in Europe who are working on what we might call average earnings have basically seen their pay stagnate and they're fed up with that they're fed up with it because what they are definitely seeing
is that those with wealth and those on high earnings are having their position improve the wealth of the wealthiest people in the UK Rose substantially in the decade from 2010 to 2020 but the worth of ordinary people didn't change at all so there is a backlash and the backlash is against that neoliberal system that seems to exist to wholly benefit a few in society a cost to most now is it very surprising that in a democracy we see a reaction after all democracies are there to represent the views of the majority the majority are losing
out and they want to find a way to express their frustration with that brexit was a very clear way in which that happened in the UK at considerable cost to us all I think but it's happening now in in general elections as well and my point is a very simple one the right are the only people who are really standing up against neoliberalism in most countries the left and I include in this the labor party in the UK and the German social Democrats and the traditional left in France have moved towards being decidedly neoliberal themselves
K is further to the right in my opinion than David Cameron was when he became prime minister he's further to the right than Tony Blair was when he was prime minister and I will call Tony Blair an arch neoliberal so my point is very simple the left has disappeared from the political stage in most European countries or where it remains it is very much the underdog and it's not attracting attention because it doesn't know how to put forward ideas that will represent Ordinary People it hasn't got the support of trade unions or isn't shouting enough
about the support for wages and working conditions and social housing and everything else that people want and feel they're being deprived of by the neoliberal system until it does that until it is willing to stand up for those people and challenge the economics of neoliberalism then the only people who are are the populists who are claiming all sorts of things that aren't true I mean Nigel Farah just claims about what he would do if he actually got power are complete nonsense and likewise what the afd says in Germany is a great deal of stuff that
is utterly undeliverable in practice but the appeal is there and we can see it in the USA as well of course it is nonsense that Trump SPS all the time but the far right are at least saying something which is not neoliberal so if we are to get rid of the far right and I most certainly want to because I hate their misogyny and their racism and their discrimination and all the other things that they promote we have to have a viable left of center ideology in the sense of parties committed to change that will
put the people of the country at the center of their thinking we haven't got that in the UK right now Labor's been elected and some of us had hopes even I had somewhere deep down a sort of naive hope that we might genuinely see a labor party of the sort that I knew when I was young emerged from the wreckage of st's election campaign and that we discover he really was a Social Democrat after all but we haven't we haven't seen that at all we've seen him confirm that he's committed to child poverty we've seen
him take on pensions and cause them positive harm and we've heard that he's going to inflict pain on ordinary working people and why all to keep financial markets happy if that is what the supposed Center left of politics is offering there can be no surpris that people are moving to the far right we have to have viable alternative economic policies that support Ordinary People if we are to get rid of the curse of the far right that's what I'm working on that's what these videos are all going to be about and that's why I'm working
with Danny blanch flow we call ourselves the Myan Road economists precisely because the mland road is where Ordinary People live outside the city walls of London we need to beat the far right but to do it we have to to succeed on the left [Music] [Music]
