The Growth of Right-Wing Populism in Europe
At its best, conservatism can be a stabilising political force, working to integrate traditional and reformist tendencies in any society, in the context of a changing world. This is borne out in modern Europe, for after 1945 parties of the moderate Right (Conservative, Republican, and Christian Democrat) helped to anchor the continent after the upheavals of the Second World War. But looking at Europe today, we see right-wing forces fragmenting, and parties of a more populist character, some of them with ‘far-right’ characteristics, gaining ground.
A good example of this is the National Rally party in France, headed by Jordan Bardella and Marine Le Pen, which is the modern incarnation of the far-right National Party founded in 1972 by Le Pen’s father, Marie. The National Front was long associated with a toxic form of French nationalism that included elements of anti-semitism. But National Rally has made efforts to distance itself from this and expand its appeal, with some (but not all) believing it is now more of a mainstream party. In France’s fractured political landscape, where under President Macron it has become hard to form a stable government, National Rally has become a serious contender for power.
In Britain, the rise of Reform UK, headed by Nigel Farage, represents this populist tendency. Reform’s popularity in the polls – it might win a general election if one were held today – is partly down to its ability to mobilise a variety of grievances. In particular, its message that the “establishment” has failed to get a grip on immigration has resonated with many. But whether it is capable of transforming an essentially negative message about perceived government failure into a coherent vision for the country is unclear. To the right of Reform UK, and ‘far-right’ in a number of its features, is the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ movement led by activist Tommy Robinson, which promotes a kind of English or British nationalism while warning of the dangers of high levels of immigration.
Exactly what constitutes a ‘far-right’ party or policy position can be an emotive or complicated issue. This is the case in Italy, for example. Georgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister (since 2022) and head of the Brothers of Italy party, is often described as ‘far-right’, partly because the origins of Brothers of Italy can be traced back to the neo-fascist Italian Social Movement. Having said that, there is a case for describing Meloni’s politics as in practice more conservative or traditional than far-right in character, and some are crediting her with bringing a measure of political stability to Italy.
By contrast, there is little doubt about the far-right character of the Alternative for Germany party. Founded in 2013 to give Germany a moderate Eurosceptic alternative to the Christian Democrats, the AfG has moved further to the right over time. Following the federal elections in February 2025, it became the largest opposition party in the Bundestag, with particular strength in the regions of the country that once formed East Germany. Many commentators feel that the party has not distanced itself adequately from the Nazi past, and even the German domestic intelligence service has investigated the party for extremism.
Across all these parties, there is concern that immigration and multiculturalism are changing or diluting the essential identities of the host countries, or that some religious groups are not ready to assimilate. This is a big issue in France, for example. Following the end of French imperial rule in North Africa, and particularly the Algerian war (1954-62), many Muslims came to live in France, and this has led, in recent decades, to tensions around how to incorporate certain forms of Islam into a country with a strong tradition of separating church and state.
Concerns about the erosion of identity are also present in Germany. Back in 2016, the country’s then Chancellor Angela Merkel famously said, ‘We can manage’, when the country opened its doors to over a million asylum seekers, mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. These days, few politicians are eager to defend this, and the rise of the AfG is in part a reaction to it. But if some Germans are nervous about the influx of people from the Middle East, industry needs them to fill some of Germany’s many job vacancies. Indeed, throughout Europe, immigrants are sometimes willing to take jobs others would prefer not to do.
National identity is, of course, shaped by what people choose to remember. At the end of last month, Meloni’s government in Italy backed a bill reinstating October 4 as a yearly national holiday in honour of the country’s patron saint St Francis of Assisi, arguing that St Francis represented the ‘core of the nation’s identity’. In view of St Francis’s love for the whole of creation, as well as his engagement with Islam – through his famous meeting with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil of Egypt in 1219 during the Fifth Crusade – this could be a positive development.
Although immigration in general is a contentious question in the UK, illegal immigration is a particular concern: pictures on television of criminal gangs transporting migrants across the English Channel have left people with the impression that the government has lost control of the country’s borders. This issue is tied up with debate about Britain’s membership of the European Court of Human Rights. There have been growing calls for Britain to quit the ECHR, on the grounds that the way it interprets human rights law (particularly the European Convention on Human Rights) makes it difficult to deal properly with undeserving asylum applications. Keir Starmer’s government wants to see reform of the ECHR rather than Britain’s leaving it, and several countries inside the European Union take a similar line.
In general, we can see here how questions about the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers are intertwined with larger constitutional questions about how far European nations should be subject to international law.
The growth of right-wing populism in Europe is not only fuelled by the issue of immigration. Disillusionment with the status quo is fed by other factors too. Importantly, many countries are struggling with low economic growth and indebtedness, high levels of welfare dependency, and ageing populations. Then there are worries (sometimes understandably) that ‘hate crime’ legislation is being used to restrict freedom of speech on important issues, with debates about the nature of sex and gender, as well as religion and ethnicity, frequent causes of controversy. Wider issues can accentuate the sense of crisis – for example, the Ukraine war, the conflict in Gaza, Trump’s tariffs, and the threat of climate change. People fear that the world as they know it is imploding and that liberal democracies are not coping. Russia, seeking to undermine European opposition to its war aims in Ukraine, is eager to exploit these anxieties.
It would be a serious mistake to label all members of right-wing populist parties as extremists. Having said that, the history of the last century in Europe demonstrates that conservatives can get drawn into endorsing sinister ideologies if they are not careful – liberal conservatism can slip into authoritarianism. This sort of problem is not peculiar to the Right, of course. Moderate socialists, embracing a ‘no enemies on the Left’ outlook, have sometimes been blind to the totalitarian impulses present in radically Marxist and Trotskyist approaches.
What factors indicate that a healthy conservatism is changing into something more dangerous? One of them is when insurgent right-wing parties cite an ‘emergency’ of some kind as an excuse to suspend constitutional practices. It was French philosopher Montesquieu who famously argued (in his 1748 book The Spirit of Laws) for the separation of government functions into different branches, as a protection against tyranny, and this remains relevant today. Another danger is when leaders claiming to represent conservative values use organised intimidation and violence to achieve their aims. In the interwar period, many conservatives ended up lending their support to Mussolini and Hitler, overlooking their gangster-style methods, because of fear of the Left.
Ideological questions also deserve mention. An element of civic patriotism or nationalism is vital for democracies to function well. Extremism in Europe has often flourished in countries where people do not see a way out of what seems like a national malaise. But nationalism can become toxic when it is narrowly monocultural or ethnocentric, or when a mythic martial past is manufactured to bolster national self-esteem.
Ever since the French revolutionary wars (1792-1815), managing nationalism has been a challenge for Europe. The story of Europe since the fall of Napoleon can partly be read as one of trying to balance nationalism and internationalism – with the Congress system (c. 1815-22), the League of Nations (founded in 1920), and what is now the European Union all attempts to balance the differing interests of nation and continent.
Europe cannot return to the imperial age, when it imposed its cultures and political systems on others. Now, with people from across the world increasingly making their homes in Europe, it must imagine itself in a new way. Patience is needed. Leaders who approach issues in a spirit of goodwill, without stoking tensions for political advantage, can help steer a constructive course. Nation-building in a multicultural setting can be a challenge, particularly when social change is taking place rapidly and economies are struggling. But it is a challenge Europe must rise to.
