Contempt for Human Rights, Trashing Allies: The World’s Populists Are Rubbing Their Hands with Glee

THE OBSERVER: After Donald Trump’s victory, brute force will prevail over geopolitics as authoritarians are appeased from Russia to Israel to China

Feelings are not the usual focus of a world dominated by macho strongmen, complex geopolitical challenges, wars and disasters. Yet every rule has exceptions. Following Donald Trump’s unexpectedly decisive US election victory, dark storm clouds seeded with powerful emotions overshadow the international landscape.

Feelings of shock and anger that this lying conman again seduced enough voters to win the presidency roil America’s friends and allies. There is incredulity that so very many people collaborated in their own seduction. And there is puzzlement at exit polls that show 45% of female voters backed a serial sexual predator while Latino and black men helped a shameless racist to prevail.

Of all these emotions, fear is perhaps the most powerful. Fear for future generations who will suffer the consequences of Trump’s actions. Fear that millions of young people who care deeply about the planet may inherit a dying world of mass extinction and ever more lethal droughts, floods and heatwaves. Fear that Trump unbound – godless, corrupt, immoral and self-worshipping – will be all our undoing, ethically as well as politically. » | Simon Tisdall | Saturday, November 9, 2024

Are Populists Destroying Democracy? In Conversation

Oct 21, 2024 | In this conversation, Dr. Kristian Niemietz, Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, talks with Nils Karlson, Founding President & CEO of the Ratio Institute, about Karlson's new book "Reviving Classical Liberalism Against Populism." Karlson defines populism through three key characteristics: simplistic solutions to complex problems, a rhetorical style that divides society into "us vs. them," and an authoritarian tendency that challenges democratic institutions. He argues that populism poses a threat to liberal democracies and explores its philosophical roots in continental European thought.

The discussion covers strategies for countering populism, with Karlson advocating for a revival of classical liberal principles. He emphasises explaining populist tactics to the public, securing and developing liberal institutions, and creating narratives that highlight the benefits of a liberal society. Karlson also stresses the need for classical liberals to engage more actively in cultural and political spheres, forming coalitions and supporting politicians who can effectively promote liberal policies.

Karlson addresses questions from the audience on topics such as property rights, the role of democracy in liberal thought, and the importance of family values in classical liberalism. He analyses current political trends and provides ideas for revitalising classical liberal ideas in the face of rising populist movements. This conversation is relevant for anyone interested in the future of liberal democracy and the challenges it faces today.

Labour Must Deliver or Risk Populist Rise - Ministers

Read the accompanying BBC article here.

Andrew Neil on the National Rally, Macron's Demise and a Populist Europe | SpectatorTV

Jun 8, 2024 | Andrew Neil joins Freddy Gray to discuss the rise of Marine Le Pen in the lead up the EU elections; how the right now appeals to the working class voter base; and what the EU elections could mean for British politics.

Les Républicains leader says he wants alliance with France’s far-right National Rally: Éric Ciotti’s announcement welcomed by Marine Le Pen as ‘brave choice’ but seen as betrayal by members of mainstream right »

Chainsaw Politics: Cutting Down the Democratic Establishment? | To The Point

Dec 14, 2023

Die deutsche Version dieser Sendung kann man auch ansehen. Klicken Sie bitte hier. Der Name der Sendung heißt „Politik mit der Kettensäge: Wird das demokratische Establishment zerlegt?“

EU Veteran Tusk Heads into Final Week of Battle to Steer Poland from Populism

GUARDIAN EUROPE: Election is contest between Law and Justice party and politician it claims represents malevolent foreign forces

Donald Tusk speaks to residents of Rzeszów. Photograph: Darek Delmanowicz/EPA
“I want this message to reach everybody in Poland,” said Donald Tusk, speaking to a rally of supporters, gathered in a cavernous indoor sports arena in the city of Bydgoszcz. “This is really the last chance.”

As a vicious, bruising campaign comes to its climax ahead of parliamentary elections on 15 October, Tusk, a veteran of Polish and European politics, has sought to make this point with increasing urgency.

The rally was just one stop on a busy campaign trail for Tusk, whose Civic Coalition is seeking to prevent the nationalist, populist Law and Justice (PiS) government from winning a third term. » | Shaun Walker in Bydgoszcz | Saturday, October 7, 2023

Polish elections: who are the key players and what is at stake?: Tusk-led Civic Platform aims to unseat nationalist Law and Justice party in bitterly contested ballot »

The Rise of the Right: Populism in Germany - BBC News (2019)

May 8, 2019 | A new wave of far-right politics is sweeping across Europe, promising to smash the ruling elite, end migration and shake-up the EU. But are these parties fuelling hate?

The Nine’s Europe Correspondent Jean Mackenzie travels across the continent, to find out why these movements are surging - meeting the people celebrating their rise and those fighting to stop them.

The first in this series comes from Germany, where the far-right party the AfD is now Germany’s main opposition. We ask whether their place in Parliament is emboldening more extreme groups.

Reported by Jean Mackenzie
Produced by Sara Monetta
Filmed and Edited by Andy Smythe

Once Europe’s Liberal Hope, Macron Is Now Prey to France’s Toxic Populism

THE OBSERVER – OPINION: Racist contenders are stirring Islamophobic fears in their rush to take the presidency

Emmanuel Macron has found himself impossibly squeezed. Photograph: Eliot Blondet/Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock
France is both beautiful and brutally bleak. It is a country studded with towns and rural vistas that take your breath away, but pockmarked with districts of soulless, desolate concrete, especially in the suburbs of its cities, the banlieues. It’s as though French planners and architects, in their embrace of modernity, lost touch with what it means to be human. It has been an important trigger for a toxic brew of Islamophobia and wider cultural despair.

The political consequences, now playing themselves out, will ricochet around Europe and the west. The presidential elections this spring will be dominated by the right, overtly mouthing implacable opposition to immigration that even Nigel Farage, who shares similar sentiments, dares not use so openly in Britain.

French socialism has collapsed before the onslaught, while the mainstream right candidate – Valérie Pécresse – is compelled to shore up her position by echoing the same tropes.

The pace is being set by presidential candidate and TV celebrity Éric Zemmour, who burst on to the scene last autumn. He is a hardline Islamophobe who argues that France is about to be overrun by Islam, dignified as “the great replacement”. He is joined by the longstanding representative of the nativist right, Marine Le Pen, who has been saying similar things, echoing her father, for years. Extraordinarily, together they command just over 30% of opinion poll support.

President Emmanuel Macron, seen only five years ago as representing a new, self-confident majoritarian blend of liberal social democracy and liberal conservatism, is only just ahead of them both, polling around 24%. It is hardly a ringing endorsement of his years in office or his aim to transcend left and right. » | Will Hutton | Sunday, January 9, 2022

Violences intrafamiliales, harcèlement de rue, policiers sur le terrain... Emmanuel Macron annonce de nouvelles mesures pour lutter contre l'insécurité : Depuis le futur «Hôtel des polices» de la capitale azuréenne, le Président s'est dit «conscient» des nombreux «défis» qu'il lui reste pour 2022. Il prévoit ainsi d'augmenter de 15 milliards d'euros le budget de l'Intérieur sur cinq ans. »

Chuka Umunna Attacks PM for 'Following the Trump Playbook'

THE GUARDIAN: Boris Johnson epitomises new populist rightwing politics, says Lib Dem candidate

Chuka Umunna has warned that an election win for Boris Johnson would represent a further victory for populist rightwing nationalists such as Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán, saying the prime minister’s dishonesty and prejudice made him unfit for No 10.

Umunna, who speaks on foreign affairs for the Liberal Democrats, used a speech to liken Johnson to leaders also including Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, saying they shared “a certain type of politics – rightwing, conservative, nationalist and authoritarian”.

He also further acknowledged the Lib Dems’ position would be at least to prevent a Conservative majority, saying voters should bear in mind “the parliamentary arithmetic” of the next House of Commons over issues such as Brexit. » | Peter Walker, Political correspondent | Monday, November 25, 2019

Is Nationalism Killing the EU? | State of Europe

Since the last European parliamentary elections in 2014, nationalist right-wing parties have made significant gains in many European states. Does the growing influence of right-wing nationalism pose a threat to the ideal of European unity?

To understand what moves Europe's citizens, DW's Max Hofmann traveled around the continent seeking the perspectives of key players and those directly affected by the major issues of today. For example, how the migration drama on the southern coast of Italy originates and ends partly in eastern Germany. Or how right-wing populists in France try to lure in voters - and how comparable political forces in Poland have used similar tactics to gain seats in government. In investigating the topics of environment and climate protection, Hofmann visits the EU Climate Change Dossiers and the EU's largest per capita plastic waste producer: Ireland. Through each trip, Hofmann seeks to better understand the connections and centrifugal forces at play across Europe.

Will Europe's Populist Leaders Make a Breakthrough? | Inside Story

Mainstream politicians face a challenge from the far right as 400 million Europeans vote in this week's European Parliament elections. Elections for the European Parliament get underway on Thursday.

Immigration and the economy are dominating the political agenda, and the rise of the far-right is dominating the headlines.

On Saturday, right-wing leaders from nearly a dozen EU countries, including France, Germany and the Netherlands gathered for a rally in Milan to show their unity. The gathering was led by the Italian Deputy Prime Minister, Matteo Salvini, who wants to form a far-right block within the EU Parliament.

Some analysts believe that the future identity of European politics––and the EU itself––is at stake. So, how will voting shape the continent?

Presenter: Barbara Serra | Guests: Theofanis Exadaktylos, senior lecturer in European politics at the University of Surrey; Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative and a former special adviser to the House of Lords EU committee; Stefano Vergine who is an Italian journalist focussing on economics and foreign affairs

The Rise of the Right: Populism in Germany - BBC News

A new wave of far-right politics is sweeping across Europe, promising to smash the ruling elite, end migration and shake-up the EU. But are these parties fuelling hate?

The Nine’s Europe Correspondent Jean Mackenzie travels across the continent, to find out why these movements are surging - meeting the people celebrating their rise and those fighting to stop them.

The first in this series comes from Germany, where the far-right party the AfD is now Germany’s main opposition. We ask whether their place in Parliament is emboldening more extreme groups.

British PM Tony Blair: Brexit or Not, Britain Will Remain a Great Country | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Former British PM Tony Blair discusses the latest in Brexit, his best guess for what happens in October at the end of the extension, the rise of populism and why he says 'if a populism of the left fights a populism of the right, the right wins.'

Italy: Steve Bannon's Populist Academy in the Trisulti Monastery | Focus on Europe

Former advisor to US President Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and British right-wing founder of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute have transformed the medieval Trisulti monastery into an academy for nationalist and identitarian populism. Are they lookng to find a right-wing answer to George Soros' Open Society Foundation by emulating it?

Steve Bannon ‘Told Italy’s Populist Leader: Pope Francis Is the Enemy’

THE GUARDIAN: Trump’s ex-strategist advised Matteo Salvini ‘to target pontiff’s stance on plight of refugees’

Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon advised Italy’s interior minister Matteo Salvini to attack the pope over the issue of migration, according to sources close to the Italian far right.

During a meeting in Washington in April 2016, Bannon – who would within a few months take up his role as head of Trump’s presidential campaign – suggested the leader of Italy’s anti-immigration League party should start openly targeting Pope Francis, who has made the plight of refugees a cornerstone of his papacy.

“Bannon advised Salvini himself that the actual pope is a sort of enemy. He suggested for sure to attack, frontally,” said a senior League insider with knowledge of the meeting in an interview with the website SourceMaterial. » | Mark Townsend, Home affairs editor | Saturday, April 13, 2019

EU Faces Nationalist ‘Nightmare’ in Next Five Years, Says Verhofstadt

THE GUARDIAN: Leader of liberal MEPs says elections in May are ‘last chance’ to fight populism

The European Union risks a populist-nationalist “nightmare” by the middle of the next decade unless centrists can win greater public backing for the European cause, the liberal leader Guy Verhofstadt has said.

Elections this May could herald a big shake-up of the European parliament. The duopoly of centre-right and centre-left is expected to lose its majority for the first time in 40 years of direct elections although Emmanuel Macron’s La République En Marche (La REM) is expected to win seats for the first time, boosting liberal forces.

Verhofstadt, the leader of the European parliament’s Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) since 2009, said pro-European centrists had “a last chance” after the vote to wrest back ground from nationalists and populists before the next electoral contest in 2024.

In an interview with the Guardian and five continental papers, the former Belgian prime minister said the EU needed an overhaul – managing the eurozone, migration and common defence – if it was to gain greater public support.

“Nothing is eternal. Nothing. Not all political institutions are eternal. To reform is a duty that we have … and if if we fail, then the tragedy, the nightmare will become reality,” he said. » | Jennifer Rankin in Brussels | Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Switzerland: Cradle of Populism? – BBC Newsnight

Switzerland. Neutral, wealthy, and peaceful, the home of direct democracy. But is it also the birthplace of populism? When back in March, Steve Bannon embarked on his tour to unite Europe’s populist parties, he gave his first public address in Zurich. Switzerland is where the anti-globalist fightback began, he told his audience, when its people said no to joining the European Community in a referendum in 1992. Now it may retreat further still, as the Swiss prepare to scrap international treaties in favour of national laws. In the week Donald Trump laid out his stall at the UN General Assembly, Gabriel Gatehouse has the story of populism vs globalism, an epic battle for our age.

Former WTO Chief Pascal Lamy on Brexit and the Rise of Populism in Europe

Boris Johnson Burka Row: The Rise of Political Populism?

Pressure is mounting from senior Tories for the former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson to apologise - or even be kicked out of the party - after his remarks about women who wear burkas. One MP said if Mr Johnson ever became Tory leader - he'd quit the party himself in protest. Critics are accusing Mr Johnson of using the issue to further his own leadership ambitions - and trying to mine a Donald Trump style of political populism. Our political correspondent Michael Crick has been finding out if that resonates with the voters.

Tony Blair on Brexit, Labour, and Populism – BBC Newsnight

Evan Davis interviews former Prime Minister Tony Blair.