Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

The Spectator Podcast: who are the real far right?

Is Europe overrun by fascists? To read some mainstream coverage of election results in Italy, the government in Austria, and the main opposition party in Germany, you might very well think so. Matteo Salvini, Sebastian Kurz, and the AfD are all among politicians who have been dubbed ‘far right’; and indeed, Britain’s own Jacob Rees-Mogg has had the Nazi label thrown at him, by fellow MP David Lammy, no less. But are these politicians really in a league with Hitler and Mussolini? If not, what is the far right, today?

In this week’s cover article, Douglas Murray draws the red lines that should mark the true far right. There is no doubt, he argues, that the neo-Nazi Jobbik in Hungary and Golden Dawn in Greece, both of which oppose democratic institutions and are willing to use violence to get what they want, belong to the far right. But the dangers that they pose are watered down, hidden, when the slur of far right is also flung at Eurosceptic and nationalistic parties across the continent, like Ukip. On the podcast, Douglas is joined by someone who doesn’t quite agree – Anne McElvoy is senior editor at the Economist, and points out that it seems the tables have turned:

‘The media of the right… went banging on for years calling anybody who had redistributive policies ‘hard left’, or ‘far left’, or ‘loony left’. And The Spectator will not be able to entirely say it was not part of that…’

Ouch. We move swiftly on to our second topic of the week – No 10’s own anti-democratic power grab. In this week’s political column, Katy Balls reports

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