Once again, a spectre is haunting Europe. Yet the spectre is not communism, as Karl Marx wrongly predicted nearly 200 years ago. Far from it. The spectre today consists of multiple new drivers of national and regional insecurity. Together they threaten Europe’s – and Britain’s – long postwar years of general democratic stability and intermittent economic optimism. And Europe does not yet know what to do about it.
Last week’s success for Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom in the Netherlands’ general election is the latest of these many shocks. The vote for Wilders’ anti-migrant, anti-Islamic and Eurosceptic campaign has sent a jolt through all of Europe. It is too simplistic to call it part of a general shift to the right, partly because that may encourage simplistic responses. The far right has always been a problem in each country, and will continue to be so. But the increased vote for Wilders is also a sign of something altogether larger.
