Daily Times

European politics and society have been going through turmoil and instability since the financial crash of 2008. The bloody crisis in Ukraine and Crimea in the east and the rise of ultra-right outfits in certain countries of Western Europe are a reflection of the turmoil and instability that have become a norm in Europe for the last five years. The recent elections for European parliament reflect the uncertainty, disillusionment and bewilderment that have engulfed Europe. In the UK, UKIP came first, pushing Labour into second position and the Tories into an embarrassing third. The Liberal Democrats were completely humiliated, left with just one MEP. In France, the governing Socialist Party suffered an even worse disaster, reduced to just 14 percent of the overall vote, with Marine Le Pen’s Front National (FN) claiming victory.

The BBC commented, “The revolt had been a long time brewing. The rising voices of discontent, the anti-austerity protests and the steady rise of Eurosceptic parties. Even so, the shock could not be disguised when a stridently anti-EU party topped the poll in France. Only a short while ago the far right National Front (FN) was placed on the extremist fringe of French politics.” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls did not try and explain away the result. He said it was “more than just a news alert…it is a shock, an earthquake. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that the victory of the NF sent a “severe” signal. “There is no doubt,” he said, “that many populist, Eurosceptic and even nationalistic parties are on the rise.” So, what has happened? Marine Le Pen has cleverly tapped into the frustration with globalisation and job insecurity. She plays on the fear of immigration, when nearly 26 million people are out of work in the EU. Abstentions helped inflate the size of the FN victory.

In Denmark, the far-right Danish People’s Party also won the biggest share of the vote, even in Germany. The alternative für Deutschland, a relatively new Eurosceptic party, gained seats for the first time in the EU parliament, alongside neo-fascist NPD and a number of small ‘protest’ parties. In Italy, the honeymoon period of new Prime Minister Matteo Renzi bucked the trend. That will change as his attacks on the working class are implemented.

So, what has happened? The vote is, of course, in part a protest. The so-called recovery from the recession — some would say ‘deep slump’ — has been shaky and it has seen no dent in the mountain of the jobless, particularly that of the youth. According to serious bourgeois analysts, it is not a recovery at all and this probably will persist beyond 2018. European capitalism is now being sustained by dismantling the social welfare system for which it was so glorified. Mass resentment has been erupting in the form of general strikes and mass protests. However, this widespread revulsion has yet to express in a revolutionary political formation. What is being trumpeted in the media is that ultra rightist and neo fascist parties have become a force. This is an outrageous exaggeration.

However, where the working class had the alternative of voting for a mass left or workers’ party like the Socialist Party (SP) in the Netherlands, the advance of Geert Wilders’ far-right ‘Party for Freedom’ was repulsed. The SP, despite shortcomings in its programme, nevertheless acted as a pole of attraction for workers, managing to cut into the expected vote of the far right. This was also the case in Portugal and Spain. In Portugal, the country’s opposition Socialist party topped the poll with around 31.5 percent — leaving the ruling Social Democratic Party in second place. An electorate clearly registering its objection to austerity measures introduced by the ruling party. In Spain, the two dominant political parties (People’s Party and Socialist Party) lost five million votes compared to their 2009 performance. Meanwhile, the protest party, Podemos (‘we can’), took nearly eight percent of the vote and five seats. Podemos was formed only four months ago, having grown out of the Spanish indignados movement that camped out in Madrid’s Puerto del Sol Square in 2011. “It is the hour of the people. This is only the beginning,” Podemos’s leader, Pablo Iglesias, tweeted, “Clearly, we can.”

In Greece, Syriza, the radical left party topped the poll with 28 percent. Its campaign was built around opposition to austerity and the bailouts, which it argued had caused a social catastrophe. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, said the “European leadership turned us into the guinea pigs of the crisis”. The Greek economy has shrunk 26 percent in five years. Syriza should probably have done better and the win is unlikely to threaten the governing coalition. The neo-fascist Golden Dawn got over nine percent of the vote and has entered the European parliament for the first time. The neo-fascists would have been undermined even further if Syriza and its leader, Tsipras, had not watered down some of its most radical demands, such as the cancellation of the debt and the nationalisation of the banks, in the fallacious belief that a more ‘moderate statesman like’ approach would boost its popularity.

What the recent elections clearly expose is that Europe is restless, impatient for growth and jobs. The general moods in society are taking wide swings to the right and the left. Voters, frustrated by rotten alliances all implementing cuts and presiding over regimes of so-called austerity, have become sick of the old parties and have cast their votes for whoever seems like they will cause the biggest upset. The traditional workers’ parties, the social democrats, and the ‘communist’ parties’ leaderships, due to their capitulation to capitalism, have gone on a right wing binge and their socio-economic policies are hardly distinguishable from those of the right wing parties. This has intensified mass apathy.

What are the conclusions to be drawn from this round of elections? First, the results of the national, local and European elections represent a revolt against the whole of the capitalist establishment, including the leaders of the workers’ parties in Portugal, Greece, Spain, France, the UK etc. This shows the generalised scepticism and even cynicism towards the whole political superstructure of ‘old Europe’ being questioned and discredited in the eyes of the masses. There have been unprecedented strikes in Greece and other countries. There has been one wave of class struggle after another but without any real outcome. Without a Marxist party that is prepared to go all the way and show the European youth and workers a way out of this severe and chronic crisis, the process of European revolution will be a protracted one. Revolutionary currents will be alternated with reactionary moods but there will be a continuum of instability and turmoil. Capitalism cannot develop and move society forward. The present polarisation between the left and right is the knell of a new epoch in history. The European masses can only come out of this capitalist coercion by overthrowing it.

The writer is the editor of Asian Marxist Review and international secretary of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign. He can be reached at ptudc@hotmail.com