By some measure the current tectonic shift toward anti-establishment politics began in Austria last April when neither candidate from the two main political parties made it through to the final round of the presidential election. That contest was instead between a liberal independent backed by the Green Party and a far-right politician whose Freedom Party makes little attempt to disguise its neo-Nazi credentials.
In May, the result of the run-off between Alexander Van der Bellen of the Greens and far right Norbert Hofer was declared void because of voting irregularities. So the contest, which had been won by a whisker by Van de Bellen, is being restaged on Sunday. Though the result is still considered too close to call, there is evidence that this time the neo-Nazis will win.
Few would have believed earlier in the year as the campaigning for the April election began that the neo-Nazis might be on the brink of power by the year-end, nor indeed that both the long-dominant Social Democratic and Austrian People’s parties would be defeated in the first round.
But since the flawed May second round, two important events have happened to make the victory of a far-right anti-immigrant, anti-EU party entirely credible. The first was the British vote in June to quit the EU. The refusal of British voters to support the line of liberal establishment was a shock to the EU and indeed the UK political systems from which neither has yet really recovered.
The British decision has been characterized as anti-immigrant and racist. It was, however, as much, if not more, to do with the conviction that the British parliament was losing its powers to unrepresentative and undemocratic Brussels Eurocrats.
The shock UK vote empowered anti-EU, anti-immigrant parties elsewhere in Europe, not least France’s National Front and Austria’s Freedom Party.
But then last month came the even bigger shock, the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the US political establishment’s carefully-groomed choice for the presidency. The Trump triumph has upturned virtually every long-standing political assumption in Europe, not least the conviction that EU voters could always be induced to support the vision of a steadily integrated EU, even though it was increasingly out of step with their more mundane, everyday concerns.
Brexit and Trump have, therefore, legitimized another anti-establishment vote, this time in Austria. And if Hofer wins and Italian premier Matteo Renzi loses in his reform referendum, also being held this Sunday, and carries out his resignation threat, the EU will be in crisis. The Italian banking system is on the verge of collapse along with state finances. The eurozone, meaning Germany, will have to reach deep into its pockets to prop up an Italy plunged into deep political uncertainty. The French National Front’s Marine Le Pen will be rubbing her hands with glee at this boost for
the drive for France to exit the EU.
As EU politicians bitterly fight their corner in the coming two years of elections, not least in France and Germany, there is a clear danger that the civilized and decent values on which the EU once prided itself will be pushed to one side. The key victims of unchallenged racism would be European Muslims along with refugees who have fled to Europe for safety.
