If you want to peer into the future of Europe, just look to recent events in Spain in the lead up to its general election on 23 July. A billboard on one of Madrid’s main streets demonising feminism, migration and the LGBTQ+ community – by showing their symbols being thrown violently into a bin – has been the latest shock tactic used by the far-right Vox party in its bid to drag the elections into the culture wars under the pretext of defending the traditional nation state.
The rhetoric escalated when Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, falsely claimed that almost 70% of gang rapes were committed by foreigners. These tactics are not new – during the 2016 Brexit referendum, Nigel Farage’s explosive “breaking point” poster depicted a horde of migrants heading towards Britain. It is no accident that exactly the same photograph was blazoned across Hungary’s election billboards by its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, under the headline “Stop”. Hungary is the European country with the lowest level of citizens born outside the country, but Orbán’s “copy and paste” campaign made the demand for walls to stop nonexistent “invaders” the election-winning issue.
