Departugal, Czechout: Far right fired up
Nationalist parties feel emboldened
• Emboldened by Britain’s decision to shrug off the European Union, a constellation of nationalists across the continent is daring to dream big: saying they, too, should have the chance for an up- down vote on the unloved bureaucracy in Brussels.
Nowhere could the possibility pose a greater threat to the European Union’s future than in France, where the far- right National Front party is surging in polls a year ahead of presidential elections.
National Front leader Marine Le Pen — a charismatic 47- year- old whose cigarette- weathered voice cuts through her nation’s sleepy political landscape like a bolt of lightning — has been jubilant in the aftermath of the British decision.
More than any other country save Germany, a French departure from the EU would call into question the viability of the alliance, shattering a project that has been a beacon of postwar stability and an important forum of western unity.
“The British people have brought to the peoples of Europe, but also to t he peoples of the whole world, a shining lesson in democracy,” Le Pen said after the result upended Britain.
The possibility that the European Union could uncoil has inspired some dark humour among pro-European advocates. One prognosis circulated by economist Justin Wolfers facetiously predicted new versions of Brexit: Departugal, Italeave and Czechout, among others.
Polling this month from the Pew Research Center showed that Britain was hardly alone in its Euroskepticism. Sixty- one per cent of French people see t he EU unfavourably — more than in Britain — and that view is shared by a majority of Greeks and a plurality of Spaniards, the polls found. The desire to take back some powers from Brussels is shared even more widely.
The Brexit decision has given far-right parties across Europe ammunition to ask their own national leaders why they don’t have the courage to put a similar question before their own people.
In the Netherlands, “the majority of the people want the Nexit, or at least a referendum about a possible Nexit,” said the Dutch farright leader Geert Wilders. “Today is the beginning of the end of the European Union.”
In Denmark, the Euroskeptic Danish People’s Party is the largest grouping in parliament, and immediately pressed its governing partners for a choice on the EU. Other Euroskeptic parties are gaining traction in Germany, Sweden and Italy.
“They are benefiting each day that goes by without it being clear what will happen next,” said Andreas Mauer, at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. “They profit as long as it doesn’t become clear that leaving the EU might have consequences.”