I'll keep an eye on the beer halls.

Meanwhile in the UK council elections the far right BNP have gone from holding 3 of 2400(ish) seats to 0 of 2400 seats. Rival far right group, The National Front, have done slightly better by avoiding losses and keeping their number of seats at a steady 0.

I used to think so... it was one of the more worrying things about the world. Now I think they might be a downturn hiccup.

What makes you think that?

It seems like as the euro crisis becomes more normal that they're going to stop freaking the fuck out over it.

Before it seemed like it was the beginning of Europe's slide back from modernity. Not so much anymore.

As I discovered who golden dawn was on thos very site and researched them some before, they have hardly slid back 6 years ago got less than 1% of the vote 7 % in last elections and polling at a national average of 15 now

From 8 election offices to 60 in less than a year that is not sliding back.

That's Greece, the biggest victim of the "you can't go under" crowd which is sadly getting poorer as we speak because of it. The rest of Europe is normalizing. And Jobbik is just enjoying the fact they have some seats although they are irrelevant.

Jobbik I know next to nothing about so I cant comment and only know of golden dawn due to a conversation with someone on this site about them

Who is this ukip party I keep hearing about?

I just did a quick search on poll results in hungary jobbik is polling 2nd the leading party appears to also be center right

Ive not looked at anything else but not sure of their polling history is 2nd where they have been for a while?

UKIP are a centre-right single issue party who campaign against the UK's EU membership.

Thats all they want?

Pretty much. Naturally, as with most single issue parties, they have a fair few members in their leadership who'd rather like them to evolve into a fully fledged party, but they haven't really made an effort to develop a manifesto worthy of the name.

They also want to reintroduce smoking in pubs. I completely disagree with this. I like going to pubs, I don't smoke. A healthy lung is a happy lung!

Don't vote UKIP!

They're not going to force pubs to allow smokers. They want to give pubs the option of allowing smokers if they want to. Imagine going into a pub and finding a potentially harmful drug! Sacred blue!

"It seems like as the euro crisis becomes more normal that they're going to stop freaking the fuck out over it.

Before it seemed like it was the beginning of Europe's slide back from modernity. Not so much anymore."


If the eurocrisis becomes "normal" then we should expect extreme parties to gain support, not lose it. Some European countries have youth unemployment rates above 30%. If this becomes permanent and we have a lost generation of angry twenty- and thirty-somethings who have no prospects of matching their parents' success or even being financially independent then these people will turn to populists on the left and right.

Melenchon and le Pen together got almost 30% of the vote in the first round of France's presidential election. That lunatic 5 Star Movement in Itay did even better just a few weeks ago. Even Germany (which, unlike Austria, has truly eradicated far-right politics) now has an explicitly anti-euro political party. Considering how the European idea has been inseprable from post-war German national identity this is an earthquake.


The longer people are suffering in economies bound by the straight-jacket of the eurozone the more likely illiberal parties will succeed in elections. Europe needs at least a banking union (probably a full-on confederation), or a regression into a free trade zone with national currencies. Stumbling on like this will only lead to societal rot, or even serious political instability.

Who can blame countries like Greece or Italy or Spain turning to the extreme left/right when the "moderates" are fucking them on the order of Berlin?

See what I mean?

Too right, it's a shame the UK doesn't have a far left for me to vote for.

The UK has several far left parties, including the Socialist Worker's Party and the UK Communist Party, but no one votes for them because they're shite. Much like our far right parties.

France's National Front gaining popularity is a concern, but it has only been achieved by them toning down the extreme nature of their policies quite considerably.

The 5 Star movement of Italy, in contrast, is a heart warming example of frustrated voters ignoring the far right and choosing a non-extreme protest. If anything this is evidence of the far right's failure.

There is also nothing extreme about a German anti-Euro party. In fact i see it as rather a positive development.