As is usual with trends of all kinds, some recent electoral successes for far-right parties in Europe have been extrapolated into a narrative in which the rise of the far-right is just about unstoppable.
That narrative took a blow with the recent Spanish elections in which the far-right Vox party performed poorly and its coalition with the traditional conservative Popular Party failed to secure a majority. Possibly as a result, the leader of the German CDU backed away from a suggestion that his party might go into a similar coalition with the AfD. And a similar coalition government in Finland appears to be on the verge of collapse.
From the other side of the world, it’s hard to know what to make of all this, but important to try to understand it. So, I’ll toss out some thoughts and invite readers closer to the action to set me straight.
As I wrote a few years ago, the rise of a Trump-style far right has been driven by the collapse of the neoliberal consensus that dominated politics throughout the capitalist world from the 1970s, with power alternating between hard neoliberalism (represented by traditional conservative parties) and soft neoliberalism (represented by formerly socialist and social democratic parties). As the failures of neoliberalism became undeniable, there was no longer enough support to sustain two neoliberal parties, and alternatives began to emerge on both left and right.
The most dramatic manifestation of this process on the right has been Donald Trump’s takeover of the US Republican party, which is now well to the right of any of the European far-right parties (with the possible exception of Fidesz in Hungary), and still commands around 50 per cent electoral support.
In Europe, though the more common party has been the rise of a far-right party commanding around 20 per cent of the vote. In most cases, this doesn’t look to me like an upsurge in the popularity of rightwing ideas. Rather, this 20 per cent has always been there, waiting for the circumstances in which views that are normally unacceptable can gain political expression.
In my own home state of Queensland, for example, the racist One Nation party scored more than 20 per cent of the votes in a state election in 1998, before fading back into single digits.
A 20 per cent vote for the far-right enough to make it difficult for traditional conservatives to win government in their own right, but usually not enough for the far-right to lead a government of their own. Hence, the contortions mentioned above.
A lot of attention has been focused on the neo-fascist origins of some of the far right parties. But some parties with fascist roots seem to have shifted towards the centre as they got closer to office. By contrast, Fidesz and AfD, which started out as ordinary centre-right parties, are now thoroughly anti-democratic and look more like old-style fascists.
What is needed is a convincing left alternative, which is far from being evident. Marxism has proved to be a dead end. The traditional centre-left parties have yet to recover from their embrace of soft neoliberalism. Greens have more appealing ideas, but have yet to break through in most places. Perhaps the need to respond to the climate disaster will finally generate some real change. We can only hope.
John Quiggin 
