It's just a step to the right
There seems to be a shift in global politics at the moment. Everything seems to be shifting to the right and this is something we should probably be scared of.
UK
I guess there has always been a slant to the right (certainly reasserted itself in 2010) but things have gathered pace over the last few months. First of all there was the referendum that, in my opinion, should never have been which led to a vote for Britain to leave the EU. This was led by groups from the far right of the Tories and UKIP mostly. The main concerns are that there were some Labour strongholds that voted to leave too where voters cited concerns with immigration as a main factor in making a decision.
The big problem might be the rise of the right wing press in the UK. Papers like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, etc. all pushed for 'Brexit' (which to me sounds like the sort of thing an unimaginative teen would come up with when trying to 'ship' things together). These papers have a wide readership and the Daily Mail is one of the most visited online papers in the world. They scream from the rooftops about all the things we should fear such as immigration. They make out that immigrants are going to steal jobs, rape and pillage and take up valuable resources. The fact of the matter is that jobs have been lost to a rise in technology, which the UK will still have to use going forward whether they remain part of the EU or not. The fact that these papers were able to get away with delivering these scaremongering messages to the public unchecked is terrifying. It also proves that people will believe anything if it comes from the establishment (more of which later...)
All 'Brexit' has served to do is make things more expensive in the long run (see Phillip Hammond's Autumn statement today) and stir up racism. Following the vote on 23 June it turns out there will be a £122 billion black hole in Britain's finances and there has been a significant rise in hate crimes.
USA
Shortly after 'Brexit', the is he? or isn't he? leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, went and gave some horrid speeches on behalf of Donald Trump who was trying to be elected as President of the USA. That was a terrifying combination but people hoped that it would be short lived...wrong!
Earlier this month the USA voted for Trump to be President. The stupid and annoying thing is that Clinton got more public votes overall...but the system doesn't work like that. The votes equate to 'electoral colleges' who then go and cast a final vote in December to ensure that the President-elect really does get voted as President.
What caused the rise of the right in the USA? Well, put simply, people again believed the right wing press, but that isn't all. The voters truly believed Trump when he said he was there to fight for the people and be the anti-establishment candidate. That is to say that he would be the one to go against the 'corporate and liberal America' that had done people out of jobs, etc. The fact that the guy is a billionaire property tycoon obviously means he is a voice of the ordinary people...
Anyway, the trouble was that people got behind his messages of wall building and immigrant bashing and quoted their amendments about freedom of speech and all that jazz. The weekend just gone has seen the alt-right have a celebration of Trump's victory and there is video evidence of them giving the 'Hitler salute' while shouting 'heil Trump'! Seriously!
I could go in to a massive history lesson about how Hitler was obsessed with the ancient cultures and appropriated the hand gesture and saying from the Romans ('hail Caesar'). The problem with doing that is that the whole thing is so ingrained in our memory (living memory for some) as a symbol of hate. The guy was responsible for some of the worst genocide of the 20th Century and that can never be forgotten (those who forget history are condemned to repeat it and all that). Therefore we must feel uncomfortable when we see Trump's supporters doing the same.
The scariest thing was seeing Nigel Farage and Donald Trump celebrating in a gold plated lift at Trump Tower in New York. Remember...they are apparently the anti-establishment (again, more of this in a minute).
France
Could 'Brexit' have had a knock on effect in Europe. Yes, I rather believe it could have. There have been stirrings from the far right throughout Europe in recent years though and it could have been that 'Brexit' was a catalyst for everything to happen.
In France there are Presidential elections coming up. Everyone is expecting a repeat of the US elections where the far right get their way. Marine Le Pen is currently favourite to be President and she is about as far right as it gets. To be fair I guess her father was more right wing than she is...but then it was a different time and we must look at context I suppose.
France has had more than it's fair share of terrorist attacks in the last couple of years and people are scared. They also have the camp at Calais, which is the last stop for a lot of people trying to get in to Britain and beyond when they are seeking asylum.
Le Pen is selling her election campaign on the idea that Britain left the EU so they can too.
Germany
This is where some of the first stirrings came from a couple of years ago. If Germany were to go to the far right then we should really panic as they have so much power and influence in the world it would be a terrifying thing.
Angela Merkle has said she will run again but the far right are trying to use the anti-establishment excuse against her. I will go in to this as I keep saying but this could be a big thing against Merkle as she has been there for so long now that she is the establishment.
What is this anti-establishment thingy?
Well the problem is that people are genuinely fed up with seeing the same thing everywhere in politics.
In the USA people who voted for Trump feel like they have been left behind. They come from areas that decades ago had manufacturing and jobs and when that got replaced with technology and other things the areas were left to rot. A lot of these areas have high unemployment and issues with substance abuse. If someone comes along and promises change then these people will listen. They are losing hope but Trump said everything they wanted to hear. They believe that the 'establishment' took away their chances for jobs and they haven't been listened to. They feel like immigrants have come along and taken their opportunities (even if this isn't true, it is what they feel from what they are told). They feel like liberals have deliberately left them behind.
In the UK people see the idea of free movement as an opportunity for Eastern Europeans to come in and work for less money that the British would. Interestingly Northern Ireland and Scotland voted entirely to stay in the EU as they could see the benefits of trade and travel. It was England and Wales that went against this. So if two parts of the UK could see the benefits of EU membership, what makes the other two parts so anti-Europe? Some of the stories going around were that the EU was dictating our laws to us and telling us to take in more refugees from Syria as well as being a drain on our funds that could go in to things like the NHS. Apparently the EU is full of unelected officials who sit around and drain our resources. The reality is that we get more financially out of the EU than we put in, MEPs are elected by the people (if you bother to vote regularly then you would know this to be true) and there is no dictating anything as our Parliament comes up with our laws and uses the EU as a guideline only. In fact, Britain currently has the power of veto over everything in the EU but if it leaves and tries to re-join would actually lose that power.
Anti-establishment is also seen in the UK by the left too. People have voted twice now to have Jeremy Corbyn as leader of Labour because people are fed up of the Blairite clones who have moved the party too centre in politics. You couldn't tell if it was Labour, Tory or Lib Dem at one point.
The far right side comes with some nastiness to it though. Racism is up and people seem to want to point the finger at liberals and lefties. Well you can point your finger my way if you want because I know where this country that I do love is going. We are, essentially, broke. We have a bigger deficit than after the financial crash and a shit economy. None of this happened before 'Brexit' and there is no way we can cover this. The far right blame the previous Labour Governments and the current lot of Tories who they say don't understand the people.
Europe has the same problem. Everywhere you look the far right parties are spouting the same thing about being anti-establishment. After the financial crisis 8 years ago people feel let down everywhere. They want to try something different and the far right are jumping on this. If we look at history then the same thing has happened whenever the far right has got in to power (think about how Hitler got to be so popular in such as short amount of time - Germany was paying reparations after The Great War, there was a financial crash in the shape of the Wall Street Crash, etc. and Hitler played on this).
I don't pretend to know all the reasons for the rise of the far right but I do know this. I can see why things have turned out the way they have. You can't blame just one thing. People have fears and the media will play on those fears. You can't just assume that people will 'see sense' any more and you have to work harder to counter those fears, especially where they are based on lies.
Don't think for one second that we couldn't see the far right in positions of power again. It might have been nearly 100 years now since we have seen that in Europe but it could so easily happen again in the next few years and this will spread (or already has spread) across the globe. We live in scary times, but not for the reasons the far right would have us believe.
UK
I guess there has always been a slant to the right (certainly reasserted itself in 2010) but things have gathered pace over the last few months. First of all there was the referendum that, in my opinion, should never have been which led to a vote for Britain to leave the EU. This was led by groups from the far right of the Tories and UKIP mostly. The main concerns are that there were some Labour strongholds that voted to leave too where voters cited concerns with immigration as a main factor in making a decision.
The big problem might be the rise of the right wing press in the UK. Papers like the Daily Mail, Daily Express, etc. all pushed for 'Brexit' (which to me sounds like the sort of thing an unimaginative teen would come up with when trying to 'ship' things together). These papers have a wide readership and the Daily Mail is one of the most visited online papers in the world. They scream from the rooftops about all the things we should fear such as immigration. They make out that immigrants are going to steal jobs, rape and pillage and take up valuable resources. The fact of the matter is that jobs have been lost to a rise in technology, which the UK will still have to use going forward whether they remain part of the EU or not. The fact that these papers were able to get away with delivering these scaremongering messages to the public unchecked is terrifying. It also proves that people will believe anything if it comes from the establishment (more of which later...)
All 'Brexit' has served to do is make things more expensive in the long run (see Phillip Hammond's Autumn statement today) and stir up racism. Following the vote on 23 June it turns out there will be a £122 billion black hole in Britain's finances and there has been a significant rise in hate crimes.
USA
Shortly after 'Brexit', the is he? or isn't he? leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, went and gave some horrid speeches on behalf of Donald Trump who was trying to be elected as President of the USA. That was a terrifying combination but people hoped that it would be short lived...wrong!
Earlier this month the USA voted for Trump to be President. The stupid and annoying thing is that Clinton got more public votes overall...but the system doesn't work like that. The votes equate to 'electoral colleges' who then go and cast a final vote in December to ensure that the President-elect really does get voted as President.
What caused the rise of the right in the USA? Well, put simply, people again believed the right wing press, but that isn't all. The voters truly believed Trump when he said he was there to fight for the people and be the anti-establishment candidate. That is to say that he would be the one to go against the 'corporate and liberal America' that had done people out of jobs, etc. The fact that the guy is a billionaire property tycoon obviously means he is a voice of the ordinary people...
Anyway, the trouble was that people got behind his messages of wall building and immigrant bashing and quoted their amendments about freedom of speech and all that jazz. The weekend just gone has seen the alt-right have a celebration of Trump's victory and there is video evidence of them giving the 'Hitler salute' while shouting 'heil Trump'! Seriously!
I could go in to a massive history lesson about how Hitler was obsessed with the ancient cultures and appropriated the hand gesture and saying from the Romans ('hail Caesar'). The problem with doing that is that the whole thing is so ingrained in our memory (living memory for some) as a symbol of hate. The guy was responsible for some of the worst genocide of the 20th Century and that can never be forgotten (those who forget history are condemned to repeat it and all that). Therefore we must feel uncomfortable when we see Trump's supporters doing the same.
The scariest thing was seeing Nigel Farage and Donald Trump celebrating in a gold plated lift at Trump Tower in New York. Remember...they are apparently the anti-establishment (again, more of this in a minute).
France
Could 'Brexit' have had a knock on effect in Europe. Yes, I rather believe it could have. There have been stirrings from the far right throughout Europe in recent years though and it could have been that 'Brexit' was a catalyst for everything to happen.
In France there are Presidential elections coming up. Everyone is expecting a repeat of the US elections where the far right get their way. Marine Le Pen is currently favourite to be President and she is about as far right as it gets. To be fair I guess her father was more right wing than she is...but then it was a different time and we must look at context I suppose.
France has had more than it's fair share of terrorist attacks in the last couple of years and people are scared. They also have the camp at Calais, which is the last stop for a lot of people trying to get in to Britain and beyond when they are seeking asylum.
Le Pen is selling her election campaign on the idea that Britain left the EU so they can too.
Germany
This is where some of the first stirrings came from a couple of years ago. If Germany were to go to the far right then we should really panic as they have so much power and influence in the world it would be a terrifying thing.
Angela Merkle has said she will run again but the far right are trying to use the anti-establishment excuse against her. I will go in to this as I keep saying but this could be a big thing against Merkle as she has been there for so long now that she is the establishment.
What is this anti-establishment thingy?
Well the problem is that people are genuinely fed up with seeing the same thing everywhere in politics.
In the USA people who voted for Trump feel like they have been left behind. They come from areas that decades ago had manufacturing and jobs and when that got replaced with technology and other things the areas were left to rot. A lot of these areas have high unemployment and issues with substance abuse. If someone comes along and promises change then these people will listen. They are losing hope but Trump said everything they wanted to hear. They believe that the 'establishment' took away their chances for jobs and they haven't been listened to. They feel like immigrants have come along and taken their opportunities (even if this isn't true, it is what they feel from what they are told). They feel like liberals have deliberately left them behind.
In the UK people see the idea of free movement as an opportunity for Eastern Europeans to come in and work for less money that the British would. Interestingly Northern Ireland and Scotland voted entirely to stay in the EU as they could see the benefits of trade and travel. It was England and Wales that went against this. So if two parts of the UK could see the benefits of EU membership, what makes the other two parts so anti-Europe? Some of the stories going around were that the EU was dictating our laws to us and telling us to take in more refugees from Syria as well as being a drain on our funds that could go in to things like the NHS. Apparently the EU is full of unelected officials who sit around and drain our resources. The reality is that we get more financially out of the EU than we put in, MEPs are elected by the people (if you bother to vote regularly then you would know this to be true) and there is no dictating anything as our Parliament comes up with our laws and uses the EU as a guideline only. In fact, Britain currently has the power of veto over everything in the EU but if it leaves and tries to re-join would actually lose that power.
Anti-establishment is also seen in the UK by the left too. People have voted twice now to have Jeremy Corbyn as leader of Labour because people are fed up of the Blairite clones who have moved the party too centre in politics. You couldn't tell if it was Labour, Tory or Lib Dem at one point.
The far right side comes with some nastiness to it though. Racism is up and people seem to want to point the finger at liberals and lefties. Well you can point your finger my way if you want because I know where this country that I do love is going. We are, essentially, broke. We have a bigger deficit than after the financial crash and a shit economy. None of this happened before 'Brexit' and there is no way we can cover this. The far right blame the previous Labour Governments and the current lot of Tories who they say don't understand the people.
Europe has the same problem. Everywhere you look the far right parties are spouting the same thing about being anti-establishment. After the financial crisis 8 years ago people feel let down everywhere. They want to try something different and the far right are jumping on this. If we look at history then the same thing has happened whenever the far right has got in to power (think about how Hitler got to be so popular in such as short amount of time - Germany was paying reparations after The Great War, there was a financial crash in the shape of the Wall Street Crash, etc. and Hitler played on this).
I don't pretend to know all the reasons for the rise of the far right but I do know this. I can see why things have turned out the way they have. You can't blame just one thing. People have fears and the media will play on those fears. You can't just assume that people will 'see sense' any more and you have to work harder to counter those fears, especially where they are based on lies.
Don't think for one second that we couldn't see the far right in positions of power again. It might have been nearly 100 years now since we have seen that in Europe but it could so easily happen again in the next few years and this will spread (or already has spread) across the globe. We live in scary times, but not for the reasons the far right would have us believe.
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