How the anti-politics mood fuels the far right

In the New Statesman's latest issue, political scientist Mark Leonard writes about the recent anti-establishment parties' surge: "The middle class stayed at home in last week’s European elections, he notes, allowing disgruntled voters to dominate", reports the magazine. As for Leonard, he believes that —

Two groups of voters showed up at polling stations in disproportionate numbers: urban voters from former industrial heartlands, who are at the sharp end of immigration, and rural voters put off by the liberal social values being adopted by mainstream parties of the centre left and right. It was their votes that sent tremors through the political system.

Insurgent parties, such as France's National Front, Italy's Lega Nord or British Ukip —

are recasting politics as a dispute between the elite and the people, and are rediscovering the forgotten roles of opposition and expression (rather than seeking to govern – in fact, some parties such as Syriza in Greece and the Dutch Party for Freedom have gone to great lengths to avoid going into government). […] Eventually, if they are successful in elections, insurgent parties are forced to grapple with the compromises of power. And even where they fail to take up power, their very success can drive the masses back to mainstream parties. Katwala has labelled this “the Farage paradox” – that the more support Nigel Farage gets for Ukip, the less support there is for its core idea of leaving the EU. As he explains: “Ukip is appealing intensely to those that are certain they want to get out of Europe, but it is putting the undecided off. Most people like complaining about Brussels but that doesn’t mean that they want to risk leaving the club, and certainly not on a ticket back to the 1950s.” It will take time for the insurgent parties to become the new establishment – and thereby destroy their own legitimacy. That is time the mainstream parties simply do not have.