The EU ‘elections’ vindicate Brexit

If Britain had not left the European Union, we would be going to the polls this week as well as on 4 July. The European parliament elections have come round again and it is likely that there will be a mass revolt against the direction of the EU project.

Across the continent, voters disillusioned with the EU model of democracy are turning to the Eurosceptic right. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is on course to become the biggest single party in the European parliament. AfD is polling in second place in Germany. Geert Wilders’s Freedom party is comfortably ahead in the Netherlands. Chega, a new far-right party from Portugal, is expected to make big gains, as is the Freedom party in Austria and the Croatian Homeland movement. Greek Solution, a nationalist party created in 2016, has also been gaining momentum.

In recent years, insurgent centre-right Eurosceptic parties have been wrongly labelled ‘far-right’ by their opponents. Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, has brought stability to Italian politics, so much so that Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission, is trying to sign her up to the EU parliament’s centre-right bloc.

Parties that could loosely be described as populist already govern or share power in Croatia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia. Yet the EU prides itself on withstanding such democratic pressure. Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said that the Commission will only work with ‘traditional parties’.

This week, the UK saw the first TV debate between the party leaders, whose fates depend on votes cast on 4 July. Last month there was also a televised debate involving Von der Leyen and her four rivals for the European Commission presidency, as if they too were standing for election.