London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, May 09, 2025

New book explains why the mainstream right is doomed

New book explains why the mainstream right is doomed

‘Riding the Populist Wave’ shows how the far right is dictating the counter-argument to progressives in areas such as immigration and EU integration – with the result that the mainstream right is now facing an existential crisis.
The European Union’s former Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, is a big beast in politics, but his withdrawal last week from the race to represent Les Républicains (LR) in next year’s French presidential battle is tacit acknowledgement of a new reality: the mainstream right across Europe is in a death spiral.

Changing an LR candidate is as futile as rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. With President Emmanuel Macron occupying the centre-liberal position with La République En Marche! and Marine Le Pen with the Rassemblement National on the far right, the mainstream right has struggled for some time to find policies, votes and power. Barnier clearly decided it was better to cut and run than go down the gurgler with this whole sorry mess.

The mainstream right – including conservative, Christian democrat and liberal parties – is facing an existential crisis, explored with fascinating insight in the recently published ‘Riding the Populist Wave: Europe’s Mainstream Right in Crisis’, edited by Tim Bale and Christobal Rovira Kaltwasser.

Running the rule over eight European nations – Austria, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK – the team of authors all reach the same conclusion. And that is the far right is dragging the mainstream into assuming much tougher positions in four key areas: immigration, EU integration, moral issues and welfare. Maybe for good.

If further proof were needed of the mainstream right’s demise, look to Germany, where, after spending 57 of the last 72 years in power, the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union government has capitulated to a coalition of progressives featuring formerly unlikely bedfellows in the form of the Social Democrats, Greens and business-friendly Free Democrats.

How, after 16 years of Angela Merkel, could the right lose its grip on power to such a hotch-potch alliance of progressives?

The answer lies in revolution. The ‘silent revolution’ and ‘silent counter-revolution’ are ideas that first took hold in the early 1990s. The silent revolution describes the situation in Western democracies where affluence has reached such a point that society looks for post-material concerns to occupy itself in the political arena. These are the matters that now occupy the minds of the left and of progressives, not workers’ rights or the ills of capitalism. And the silent counter-revolution is the response to that, which has emerged not from the mainstream right – it finds itself conflicted over such things – but from the new populist radical right (PRR).

The problem that the mainstream right has in addressing these issues is that it risks alienating its core voters by taking a tougher line. For instance, with its support for business, the mainstream right needs immigration to help grow the economy. Affluent, middle-class mainstream voters want immigration because it provides cheap plumbers and nannies for their children. The concerns of the PRR – that cheap labour causes wage compression and drives down salaries – fly in the face of those, so they’ve been left alone by the mainstream right, and their support has haemorrhaged as a result.

Look south to Italy, where the mainstream right imploded nearly 30 years ago and never resurfaced – Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia was more of a vanity project than a serious ideological programme. Now the Italian right is totally dominated by two PRR players, La Lega Nord and Fratelli d’Italia.

Or consider Austria, where the currently beleaguered Austrian Peoples’ Party – nominally a Christian Democrat party – shifted hard to the right under Sebastian Kurz in a bid to nudge the far-right Freedom Party of Austria off the ball. In the Netherlands, the liberals of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy have made the same move in a bid to nullify the gains made by Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom and Therry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy.

Even in Sweden, where liberal values have been trumpeted for longer than most can remember, the far-right Swedish Democrats have put immigration and cultural integration high up on the political agenda, no longer to be brushed aside by moderate conservatives seeking to exclude them from the top table for daring to suggest the country has a migrant problem.

In European democracies, where alliances and coalition are the currency of government, any electoral gains, no matter how small, can be leveraged into power and this has meant that political positions once considered beyond the pale – outside the ‘cordon sanitaire’ – are no longer so.

In the UK, meanwhile, the liberal conservatism espoused by former PM David Cameron is rarely discussed by a Boris Johnson government that has adopted hardline positions on those very subjects so central to the ‘silent counter-revolution’ – immigration, EU integration, moral issues and welfare.

In ‘Riding the Populist Wave’, Richard Hayton, the author of the UK viewpoint, suggests that this “neo-conservative cultural mood” was actually a Thatcherite by-product, although traditional conservatives were too engaged in infighting over issues such as the EU and same-sex marriage to track the shift in public feeling. That left the field open to parties such as the UK Independence Party and then the Brexit Party, and we all know what happened there.

Events in Germany and France this year show that this drift to the far right and the ‘silent counter-revolution’ are not going away. Despite the fact that almost 50% of those questioned in a 2019 Bertelsmann Foundation survey for the European Parliament found the far right an unpalatable idea, its ranks and reach continue to grow.

This gives Bale and Kaltwasser some cause for concern, and they reach the conclusion that, “If mainstream-right and far-right parties become increasingly similar and eager to join forces, we may very well see the formation of a strong right-wing bloc bent on bold reform that could shift the post-war West European consensus on what democracy actually means.”

That’s a stark warning about an increasing polarisation in European politics, but, as the pair declare, “a necessary one all the same”.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Historic Papal Conclave Set to Commence in Rome
Huge Copper, Gold, and Silver Discovery in Argentina and Chile — But the Profits Go Abroad
Prince Harry is pleading for reconciliation — but the royals are just as sick of his victimhood as everyone else
The Road to Freedom: She Protested Putin, Escaped House Arrest, and Survived a 2,800-Kilometer Journey
OpenAI's Flip-Flop: No Longer Going Commercial, Back to Nonprofit, After Musk Lawsuit and Backlash
“Trump Supporter” Aims to Bring a MAGA-Style Shift to Romania
First From China: Zhao Xintong Wins the Snooker World Championship
Nvidia Faces Billion-Dollar Losses – Warns: China Is on Its Way to Becoming an AI Superpower
Trump Rules Out Third Term, Names JD Vance and Marco Rubio as Potential Successors
Mexico Says ‘No’ to U.S. Troops: President Sheinbaum Rejects Trump’s Offer to Fight Cartels
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Storms the Map, Wrecking the Two-Party Monopoly
DOGE: Reimagining Government Operations with AI
Common Sense Returns to Britain's Legal System: UK Supreme Court Declares a Woman Is… a Woman
Beijing Says U.S. Is ‘Reaching Out’ for Tariff Talks Amid Soaring Trade Tensions
U.K. Court Rejects Prince Harry’s Final Appeal Over Police Security
Prince Harry’s Heartfelt Outburst Rocks the Royal Family
Trump Shares AI-Generated Image of Himself as… Pope, Prompting Outrage Reaction
Transgender Swimmer Secures Five Gold Medals at U.S. Masters Championship
Prince Harry: “I Want Reconciliation with My Family”
Germany's Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party has now been officially labeled “right-wing extremist” by the federal office for the so-called “protection of the constitution.”
Amazon Launches Satellite Internet Service Amidst Competition with SpaceX
Transformative Changes in Women's Wrestling: The Rise of WWE Superstars
The Rush to the White Gold: Global Investment Surge in Natural Hydrogen Exploration
This is a day in Spain without electricity and internet
Reform UK Surprises in British Elections, Challenging Traditional Two-Party System
180-Year-Old Christian University in South Carolina Announces Closure Due to Unmet $6 Million Fundraising Goal
Brazilian Woman Jailed for Fourteen Years for Writing “You Lost, Idiot” on Statue During Protest
Trump Administration Removes National Security Adviser Mike Waltz Amid Signal Chat Controversy
Dutch Politician Eva Vlaardingerbroek Receives Spyware Threat Alert from Apple
Paramount Board Considers Settlement in Trump’s $20 Billion Lawsuit Over "60 Minutes" Interview
U.S. Economy Shrink in Trump’s First Quarter as Tariff Policy Raises Questions
Deadline Looms for RTS Meter Replacement: Hundreds of Thousands at Risk of Heating Disruption
Sweden Grapples with Deadly Gun Violence: Suspect Arrested After Three Young Men Killed in Uppsala Hair Salon
Walz Reveals Why Harris Chose Him as Her Running Mate and Reflects on Democratic Losses
Spain Restores Power After Unprecedented Nationwide Blackout
Carney Secures Liberal Mandate in Canada’s Federal Election
Death Penalty Sought as Luigi Manion Pleads Not Guilty in CEO Murder Case
President Trump contacts Jeff Bezos after reports of Amazon considering listing tariff surcharges; company clarifies no such plan for main platform
Spain and Portugal Recover from Massive Blackout
Liverpool Clinches Record-Equalling 20th English League Title Under Arne Slot
Singapore Politicians Warn Against Foreign Interference in Election
Driver Ploughs into Vancouver Festival Crowd, Killing Nine
Depression, Fear of Defamation, and a Tragic End: New Details on Virginia Giuffre’s Suicide
“Sharia for UK, Allah Akbar!”
Massive Explosion at Iran's Bandar Abbas Port Linked to Suspicious Chemical Shipments
Incident Reflection: A Harsh Reality Check
Pakistani migrants to Danish man: “ “We have 5 children while you have 1 or 2. In 10 years, there will be more Pakistanis than Danes here.“
Clashes Erupt in London as Tensions Rise Between Indian and Pakistani Communities
Specialized anti-drone weapons deployed among security personnel Ahead of Papal Funeral
How do you fix this culture?
×