Nigel Farage imagines he is a true Brit, the man who said what the establishment prohibited and so allowed Britain to shed noxious European influence. In truth, he is a true European, member of a fast-growing insurgent pan-European right, surfing the same anti-immigrant, anti-liberal, anti-democratic constitution tides as politicians of his ilk are doing across the EU. Almost every European country now has a Faragist making the political weather – with one key difference. None wants to repeat Britain’s disastrous experience and leave the EU. Unintentionally, Farage has done the European cause one great service.
Yet, as Spain’s Vox, with its roots in Franco’s fascism, hopes for success in the imminent elections, echoing what Giorgia Meloni, with her Brothers of Italy’s comparable roots in Mussolini’s fascism, achieved last year by becoming prime minister, mainstream European politics quivers. Liberals and the left are in retreat before parties that celebrate the primacy of family and faith, oppose same-sex marriage, want a crackdown on immigration and multiculturalism, do not believe in climate change, critique all things woke, and, above all, believe their nation is more special than any other. Parties in almost every country in Europe repeat the refrain, climb in the polls and are either in national or regional government (Finland, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Hungary) or soon could be (Germany, France, Holland, Spain).
