Europeans are rejecting the EU’s unworkable vision

The recent election in Poland has been presented by some as a triumph of liberalism over the dark forces of populism, but this is a misreading of events. It’s said that the Law and Justice party, which has ruled Poland for the past eight years, was trounced, but it won the largest share of votes (35 per cent) and the largest number of seats in parliament. It is nevertheless almost certain to lose power because three other parties – Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform (PO), the centre-right Third Way and the Left party – will likely form a coalition against it.

The result does little to reverse Europe’s rightward drift, and neither does it turn Poland back in the direction of the EU (Tusk is better known in Britain as the former president of the European Council).Tusk made a big issue of abortion rights, promising to reverse the near-complete ban introduced by the Law and Justice party. One of his first acts, he has said, will be to legalise abortion up to 12 weeks. But it is by no means certain that he will be able to get this measure through parliament, given that many MPs in his would-be coalition are unsupportive.

Poland remains a socially conservative country whose population is resistant to many of the prevailing values of western Europe. An arrogant assumption that Poles would change their minds explains why Law and Justice remains the most popular party.

The idea that Brexit revealed Britain to be a right-wing aberration on a continent otherwise committed to social democracy could not be more wrong. Only five EU countries can currently be said to have left-leaning governments. Moreover, one of them, Germany, has seen the right-wing AfD win local elections in recent months.