TIMES ONLINE: The far Right is notching up astonishing ballot box victories across Europe. The financial crisis has created a sense of victimhood and a need, it seems, for parties that use nationalist rhetoric to criticise globalisation — and which are prepared to offer up scapegoats.
From Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to Umberto Bossi in northern Italy; from Hungary’s Viktor Orban to Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front in France, strong personalities are coming foward to exploit the mood. They use terms that were once monopolised by the Left — community, social cohesion, solidarity — but, overwhelmingly, they are concerned with the politics of fear; fear of the outsider.
The far-Right grouping Jobbik did well in the Hungarian elections because it appealled to an almost tribal reflex. Hungarians were worried that funds were running out, that the welfare system was beginning to crack, that there was not enough to go round. Jobbik blamed the Gypsies and won seats in parliament. And its rhetorical drum beat, drawn from centuries of central European anti-Semitism, suggested that a cosmopolitan global plot was making nonsense of the toil of honest Hungarians. >>> Roger Boyes: Commentary | Saturday, April 24, 2010
