EUROPE | ADVOCACY & POLICY | VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN | LGBTQ+
Part II - A Spectre is Haunting Europe: Please Turn Right at the Junction
The second of a three-part series into the rise of right-wing youth in Europe.
WORDS BY JOSHUA EDWICKER | EDWICKER@PROXYBYIWI.COM | 5 APRIL 2024
At the end of my previous article, I asked why this young generation, borne from the instability of the Financial Crisis and its subsequent mismanagement, turned to the right rather than to left. One would assume, as is historically the norm, that failings in the status quo, falling quality of welfare and rising inequality, would lead the youth to call for more progressive policies aimed at financial redistribution.
I alluded to the rise of the far-right youth vote as being unsurprising and a symptom of the Financial Crisis. There are three core reasons for this: first, the nature of the Financial Crisis, second, the failure of the left to accurately vocalise the discontent of their core voters, and third, the right’s ability to simplify arguments, harness frustration and channel it effectively.
What made the Financial Crisis and the conditions it created so valuable to right-wing politics and populism? The Financial Crisis, in layman’s terms and eloquently explained in the Big Short, began with the banking crisis in America as millions of people defaulted on their mortgages. The ramifications for the global economy was severe and the economic shockwaves rippled through the European financial system. What my generation and I remembered was a series of Government-led bank bailouts. In my own country, it is estimated that £137 billion was spent on saving banks such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, and Northern Rock.
Across the rest of Europe, the picture was even bleaker. The Financial Crisis created what has become known as the European debt crisis where Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus required the European Central Bank or the International Monetary Fund to bail out their economies and over-indebted banks. The economic and political effect of these bailouts reverberated around the European Union due to the shared currency of the Euro, which in essence meant that for countries such as Germany or France, the crises in Greece or Spain could devalue their own currency. In essence, many countries in the European Union felt that they were being punished for the economic mismanagement of their peers, and were being forced into supporting bail-out policies with their native tax-payers’ money. Added to this concoction of resentment was the inevitable constriction in the job market across Europe, with stagnant growth and falling living standards.
The 2008 Financial Crisis was hence fertile ground for right-wing politics. For many, it was caused by the internationalist policies encouraged by left-wing parties domestically and within the EU. And the bail-outs, whilst I think safe to argue not inherently left-wing, were symbolic of Governments who, in the eyes of the public, spent too much of their hard-earned money for the benefit of the few. The Financial Crisis ripped the stiches from the wound of globalisation which had been festering in European society since the collapse of traditional working-class industries and de-industrialisation. The Financial Crisis highlighted, not just the flagrant inequality within countries, but also the pitfalls of an overly integrated global system.
The result of this open wound was anger, disenchantment, and a deep desire for change. The Financial Crisis for many symbolised the problems inherent in their society: governments in cahoots with banker friends, international elites who spent working-class taxpayer money on a cosmopolitan dream so detached from the reality of the collapsing job market and infrastructures they could see around them.
In this malaise of anger and disenchantment, it has been the right rather than left wing parties which have been able to vocalise beliefs of those who feel left behind by globalisation and ignored by the socially liberal elites. Whilst I am a passionate defender and advocate for programmes of extensive social justice, what the left forgot was that such intellectualisations of politics are a privilege. If I cannot feed my children, if I cannot be sure if I will be evicted from my house at the end of the month and if I cannot get adequate health care if I fall ill, do I have the time or mental bandwidth to be able to fully engage with issues based on gender, sexuality or to understand complex economic policies?
The right-wing, whilst I absolutely disagree with their politics, are a savvy political machine. Helped in a large part by their domination of media ownership and the privileged nature of those able to take up politics, the right-wing play the game of politics very effectively. In the last decade they have been able to harness the anger within the youth of European society, that desperate feeling of hopelessness at a lack of opportunity.
How has this the right wing manifested and presented this anger? The right-wing youth today are so troubling because they have been convinced by an ideology which has placed the blame for their woes, not at the feet of the banks who played poker over a bottle of sherry, but with the other, with the immigrant fleeing persecution or war, or the foreigner who has lived in their country for 20 years and works in a care-home. The right-wing has weaponised the legitimate anger of the youth of Europe today and channelled that anger into a poisonous slew of xenophobia, racism, and nationalism, whilst concurrently being a part of the very elite they promise to bring to heel.
It seems true then, that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he does not exist. But what are the consequences for Europe for falling for this trick?