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LESSONS FROM EUROPE: THE LEFT CAN’T WIN BY RUNNING TO THE RIGHT  
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Chris Mills Rodrigo
June 18, 2024
Foreign Policy in Focus
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_ The far right showed disturbing strength in the European Parliament
elections, but there’s nothing inevitable about a far right wave. To
win, the left needs to stick to principles — and stick together. _

Climate change protesters march in Paris streets, Jeanne Menjoulet
(CC BY-ND 2.0)

 

The recent European Parliamentary elections went poorly for the
region’s leftist parties, to say the least.

All across the continent, socialist, worker, and environmentalist
parties — many of which had risen from the ashes of the Eurozone
crisis — lost ground as far-right authoritarian parties picked up
new support.

The Greens, primary architects of the European Union’s ambitious
Green Deal, lost 19 seats of the 70 they had secured in a triumphant
2019 election. And while the Left coalition in parliament actually
gained two seats to control 39 of the 720 available, the
country-by-country results paint a darker picture.

In my native Spain, Podemos only managed a meager 3.3 percent of the
vote, down from over 10 percent at their apex in 2019. Syriza, which
briefly turned Greece into an epicenter of the European left, only
pulled in 14.7 percent support, a far cry from their first place
finish at nearly 24 percent in 2014.

And in France, Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National party beat the
field so badly that President Emanuel Macron called snap parliamentary
elections.

The overall results of the European Parliamentary elections — where
millions of citizens across the European Union’s 27 member states
voted to fill one of the bloc’s three legislative bodies —
actually went slightly better than some observers feared. The moderate
coalition of the conservative European People’s Party, the
Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, and the weakened
liberal Renew Europe party looks poised to maintain leadership,
although the far right’s influence over the body undoubtedly grew.

The two far right groups in parliament — Giorgia Meloni’s European
Conservatives and Reformists Party and Marine Le Pen’s more
eurosceptic Identity and Democracy party — gained a combined 16
seats. Although an alliance is not on the horizon as of now with the
two parties differing over the role of the EU, together their bloc
would nearly match the center left coalition.

And that’s not counting Alternative for Germany (AfD) which, despite
being kicked out of Le Pen’s coalition after a leader suggested that
Nazi SS officers were not necessarily criminals, placed second in
Germany ahead of Prime Minister Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social
Democrats.

After a setback of this magnitude, a period of reflection and
restrategizing will no doubt take place. But as they grapple with a
rising far right, the last thing Europe’s leftist parties should do
is shift to the right themselves.

How can leftists in Europe beat back the rise of the anti-immigrant,
ethnonationalist right and wrest power from centrist parties that are
already pledging
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weaken climate commitments? Present a unified front, energize new
voters, and resist the temptation to soften their positions.

PRESENTING A UNITED FRONT

The story of the left in Europe over the past decade is one headlined
by infighting and fragmentation.

Spain’s Podemos, the left wing faction borne out of the
anti-austerity “15-M protests” starting in 2011, has faced several
fractures since performing well enough to form part of the ruling
coalition. The split off
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Más Madrid, the marriage and subsequent divorce
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Izquierda Unida, and the formation of the new progressive coalition
Sumar have all resulted in Spanish voters not having a clear leftist
option at the ballot.

In Germany, former parliamentary co-speaker and representative from
the leftist Die Linke party Sahra Wagenknecht broke away to launch her
own party with a more nationalist-populist appeal. That left Die Linke
scrambling to survive and opened the door for the AfD to be one of the
only viable options for voters outside of the political mainstream.

There are often legitimate disagreements between leftist parties. But
working through those _without _breaking off into separate factions
will almost certainly put the left in a stronger position.

France provides a compelling example for that strategy. Following
Macron’s call for snap elections, the country’s Socialists,
Greens, Communists, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s progressive La France
Insoumise party have come together to form the Nouveau Front
Populaire, a coalition that despite internal differences has a common
program.

Early returns on that joint bid are promising — although Le Pen’s
party is polling in first place on around 31 percent, the new front is
only a few percentage points behind. Macron’s Renaissance party is
polling a distant 10 points behind.

The French case also shows that despite poor turnout in the European
elections — roughly 50 percent of the over 400 million eligible
voters in the continent cast ballots — people can still be motivated
to participate in politics when presented with compelling reasons.
Over a quarter million people — or closer to 700,000, according to
the labor unions — flooded the streets of France after the elections
to make their voices heard against the looming threat of the right.

As Sophie Binet, leader of the left-wing CGT union which helped lead
the protests, said [[link removed]],
“It’s our responsibility to build the popular wave that will block
the far right.”

STICKING TO PRINCIPLES

The left has historically had success mobilizing those that are
frustrated with the political system — and they should be unwilling
to cede those potential voters to the far right. But neither can
Europe’s leftist parties fall into the trap of shifting right
themselves to steal a handful of votes from other parties.

As Manon Aubry, the co-chair of the Left group in the European
Parliament, told
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spent too much time trying to protect ourselves from the reactionary
agenda. We should also be offensive.”

One issue that Aubry suggests leftists could make a bigger wedge out
of? Reining in out of control wealth concentration. A “tax the
rich” agenda, she explained in the same interview, can inspire
“most of the people who suffer from the increase of prices: the
superrich have never been so rich, this is time to say stop to
that.”

To the contrary, shifting to the right in the face of growing
authoritarianism can actually end up boosting that movement.

In a study
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in 2022, researchers found that accommodating the far right on an
issue like immigration — the unifying enemy of Europe’s right —
does nothing to tamper its rise and can even help it grow. “By
legitimizing a framing that is associated with the radical right,
mainstream politicians can end up contributing to its success,” the
researchers wrote
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the _Guardian_.

Even if triangulating could work in the short term, would it be worth
it? Seeing as the European Parliament’s center right party,
emboldened by the newly more conservative makeup of the body,
has already
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to do away with a key pillar of the European Green Deal — banning
the sale of combustion engines starting in 2035 — the answer seems
to be no.

There are several cases around Europe which show that sticking to
positions can pay off electorally.

Take a look at Denmark, where the Social Democrats led by current
prime minister Mette Frederiksen have adopted increasingly restrictive
immigration policies in the decade since the far-right Danish
People’s Party burst onto the scene. They finished behind the
first-place Socialist People’s Party in this month’s elections.

France again shows this dynamic of centrist parties tightening their
stances on immigration yet failing to break voters away from the far
right — the showing of Macron’s Renaissance party was more than
doubled up by Le Pen’s party despite Macron signing an immigration
bill almost copied from her.

One of the biggest surprises of the election came in Finland, where
the socialist Left Alliance pulled in 17.3 percent of the vote running
on a platform that party leader Li Andersson described 
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combining “ambitious environmental and climate policy with the
traditional themes of the Left: workers’ rights, investment in
welfare services, equal distribution of income.”

The electoral gains of the Workers Party of Belgium and Austrian
Communist Party in this election are further proof of the value of
focusing on core working-class issues.

THERE’S NOTHING INEVITABLE ABOUT THE FAR RIGHT

While the rise of the authoritarian right in Europe has been alarming,
it is by no means guaranteed. But if the centrist coalition that has
held down leadership of the bloc for decades keeps shifting rightward
on key issues like immigration and climate, it risks losing — or
else helping the far right achieve its goals without even having to
win itself.

Instead of accommodating the right, Europe’s leftist parties should
take their largely disappointing results this month as an opportunity
to refocus on the core issues that matter to the working class. By
doubling down on principles and putting aside minor differences to
present a unified front, the left can provide a tangible,
substantively different answer to the rise of facism on the continent.

* Popular Front
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* the Left
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* European Parliment
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* far right
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