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Populists Surging
Le Pen Triumphs Over Macron in EU Election Exit Poll, Calls for Fresh National Elections
Populist leader Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National (National Rally, or RN) have triumphed over sitting French president Emmanuel Macron in the European Parliament elections, according to exit polls.
Ms Le Pen declared victory following exit polls showing the RN winning around 24 per cent of the vote, compared to Macron’s La Republique En Marche! (LREM) who, according to projections, has come in second with 22.5 percent of the vote, French newspaper Le Figaro reports.
Declaring victory, the RN leader said, “The trust we have been given by the French in designating us as the first party in France but especially as that of the future alternation is an immense honour.”
The Brexit Party has won nine of the first 10 regions to declare its results in the European elections – the North East, North West, East of England, Wales, West Midlands, East Midlands, Yorkshire & Humber, the South West and South East. In the process they have acquired 28 of the first 64 UK seats to be awarded.
In the North East Nigel Farage’s party recorded 39% of the vote, while they achieved 38% of the vote in the East of England, West Midlands and East Midlands, and 36% in Yorkshire & Humber.
The Conservatives have lost a huge share of the vote across all regions, down 18% in the North East. The party is in fifth place, and on course for its lowest vote share in a national election since they formed in 1834.
In London, the Liberal Democrats, who have performed well in all regions so far declared, topped the poll.
Austria’s Kurz triumphs with the vote, the opposition still calls for his head
VIENNA (Reuters) – Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz strengthened his hand in his fight to save his job as his conservative party came far ahead of rivals in Sunday’s European election, but the main opposition party said it would seek to depose him on Monday anyway.
The Latest: Salvini says populists will control 150 EU seats
The leader of Italy’s right-wing League Party, Matteo Salvini, calculates that populist and nationalist parties will control at least 150 seats in the new 751-seat European Parliament.
Now for the Coup de gras, “WTO and GO, Brexit!”
Regards,
Jim
Published in General
Losing parties are already playing with the numbers and calling for a whole new voting system. Leftists never seek to change minds, just the rules.
The wet blanket is the big success of the green parties. They did well with the under 30 crowd and are worse than the Euro-centrist MEP they are replacing. The under 30 crowd have been duped by the climate hoax throughout the West. That people have lived 30 years hearing they are 10 years from catastrophe the whole time and still believe they are 10 years from catastrophe seems like a willful choice. A choice that means that freedom-loving people have a lot of work to do.
Don,
An election can give us a real indication of the will of the people or it might also serve as a checkup with your Doctor to find out if anything is wrong. Dr. Don has come back with an Xray that has an ugly spot on it. Mr. Delingpole’s watermelon syndrome no doubt. As you point out Don, they don’t bother to understand the data that is available to them from their own lives but rather choose the idiot narrative.
I would prescribe as treatment a serious wack over the head with hard data at regular intervals.
Regards,
Jim
The interesting thing to look at is the break-down country by country and region by region. That the Netherlands went left was a surprise to nearly everyone. Here in Germany we have the problem that the Greens are now the second-strongest party in the country with the SPD in the cellar (they are going after their party leader with the long knives right now). The AfD is now the second or third strongest party in most states in another big shift. That’s how the European Parliamentary Election is shaking the landscape here. The CSU still hopes to put Manfred Weber in the chair as President of the European Commission, but we will have to wait and see. He will need support from other right-of-center parties and he may not be able to get it.
Too bad Sir James Goldsmith isn’t alive to help spearhead Brexit. He fought Britain’s involvement in the EU, predicting a loss of national sovereignty and saw the handwriting on the wall, particularly with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 which defined a united Europe. His Referendum Party of 23 years ago is the mother of Brexit. In 1996 he said, “The sovereignty of this nation belongs to its people and not to a group of career politicians. It is the people and they alone who must decide, after a full debate and a public vote, whether Britain should remain an independent nation or whether her future will be better served as part of a new country – the single European super-state, also known as a federal Europe. Already laws passed in Westminster are no longer supreme. As British judges have confirmed, the supreme law of this land is now European law. Already we have signed away the right to run our economy for the benefit of our own people.”
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I fear we’re getting some good results because the left is so horrible, but that’s where the kids are, which is the future if we don’t do something. Are schools as controlled by the idiot left in Europe and UK as in the US? How about the press? Of course the governing elites are remote and working the populations and institutions but we have a chance here to change some of that and must. It seems populations will follow in spite of the embedded elites if we lead, but we must return schools to actual education.
So what does any of this actually mean, I thought the EU Parliament was mostly for show. I also find it strange that anyone can claim a mandate with less than a fourth of the total vote, talk about spin.
The vote was meaningless since the EU’s power rests with the Executive, the ECB and the direction of the bureaucracy. Germany has been and still is in control. To change the EU, you have to change Germany or make the debt so horrendous in so many other countries while sticking it to Germany that Germany will want to end its imperial project.
Val,
As the resident skeptic, you are quite correct to ask this. It’s a long and bumpy road. However, it is important to realize the level of the arrogant mindless europhile globalists. They are more than happy to make it obvious they despise the citizens of the so-called United States of Europe. One also wonders about the so-called “Paper of Record”. Happy to promote hatred of the United States and Israel.
Eurocrat Attacks ‘Stupid Nationalists in Love with Their Own Countries’
New York Times Blames Netanyahu, Trump for Antisemitism in Europe
Sitting in Brussels or Manhattan and living the high life on the largess of a free capitalist democratic nation-state world, one must construct elaborate fantasies to defend your perverse obsession with top-down controlled world centralization. As an example, when migrant Muslims in Europe are polled they confirm immense prejudice against Jews & Christians. That they are chiefly responsible for the rise of antisemitism in Europe and that they are egged on by the left wing Israel bashers is self-evident. Left-wing anti-religious fantasies, left-wing anti-capitalist fantasies, and left-wing environmental catastrophe fantasies, all converge into an anti-democratic obsession that wishes to destroy nation states and any ability of citizens to exercise their democratic veto power of voting.
The Euroskeptic movement is a breath of fresh air in the stale claustrophobic world of Brussels & the New York Times. At a minimum, the combined Euroskeptic force will start to massively disrupt the debate in Brussels. The EU propaganda monopoly challenged only by the one-man show of Nigel Farage is coming to an end. Either the EU reforms or disintegrates. The first order of reform would be to make the executive directly elected by the citizens of the EU and to give the parliament real legislative power.
It’s going to be a hot summer in Brussels.
Regards,
Jim
I’m not sure you’ve answered my question James. I love your enthusiasm though. Is there really an agenda for these Populist Parties to take to the EU Parliament, and while there can they actually pass legislation that matters? As a would be Europhile Globalist to me the problem of the EU is a lack of seriousness about the EU parliament and governance shown by the people of Europe in general. Where most people don’t bother to vote in these election because they don’t matter and so it gives an outsized voice to weirdo parties looking for a sinecure. The other real issue is that because there are so many little parties of varying degrees of seriousness not getting anything done is the real agenda if not just the likely outcome.
Europe needs a true federalist government, either federate for real or forever be stuck in this half-life of being partly in and partly out. America figured this out after a few years of the Articles of Confederation.
First off, Americans are united in history and language, so you are comparing apples to oranges. Secondly, to espouse one European country across all national borders, is to deny different cultures, languages and history. Hitler tried to do it, and was soundly defeated.
Val,
It is OK for Europe to take its own path not to mention a couple of extra centuries. However, I will reiterate that the two most pressing concerns are a lack of direct citizen election of the executive and a lack of actual legislative control by the parliament. Without direct election of the chief executive claiming that your system is “democratic” is a bad joke. If you won’t give the people a chance every so often to take a poke at its supreme government then you are just massaging the public’s ego. My principle is that you must give the public at least a direct “veto” over its government leadership or the rest is going to mean nothing. This is why & how someone as lame as Juncker can be in charge of the EU. Second, of course, is allowing the legislature to legislate. Going back in time to England in the 1600s Parliament had to fight its way into sharing power with the executive by securing its power of the purse and a few other powers. (see Petition of Right) The EU Parliament must fight with the bureaucracy to secure it as the true legislative power. Actually, as Dr. Epstein is so kind to point out we have quite a problem of our own with a heavy-handed bureaucracy sucking up legislative power and screwing up the constitutional balancing act. The new makeup of the SCOTUS may be able to start providing remedies.
Allowing the EU to go forward without these two corrections is the prejudice of low expectations. Well, you know, they’re Europeans so they can’t really be trusted with full democracy or self-government. In this, the new populist nationalists are a welcome breath of fresh air. This will be a debate worth having.
Regards,
Jim
Europe is a geographical term and only in a few deluded minds a political term.
Germany likes being half-in, half-out. It results in lots and lots of benefits. Currency value is lower than it would be with D Mark only which is beneficial to a mercantilist country such as Germany. Germany does not have responsibility for other countries’ debts. If it were all in, Germany would as part of a collective be responsible for those debts. Germany writes regulations other countries have to follow and result in a German advantage. Just ask Poland.
Well the problem in the US is the expansion of the executive branch which controls the bureaucracy (or aught to). The remedy is to cut down the executive branch to a more reasonable level or to separate out its functions into separately elected executives like we do at the State level.
I agree entirely about the EU needing more democracy, hence my call for a real Federal Government directly elected by the people of Europe and with sole legislative authority kind of like the US. Right now they are just a bureaucracy without oversight, relying on the compliance of the individual state governments.
Culture, languages, and history… all malleable. European culture has been rather uniformly similar for many centuries now, all the nations of the EU have roughly similar government forms, all ascribe to the same liberal philosophical customs of Humanist Enlightenment sentiments, mostly materialistic and scientific, their cultural elites are nigh indistinguishable in fact, and honestly you are telling me you can tell the difference between a Frenchman and German without any of them speaking? Language is trickier, but they would hardly be the only multilingual Federal Republic in existence (India anyone?) plus all their languages are Indo-European and break down into either Latin or Germanic families with maybe a few odd balls Slavic and Hungarian. Over time you can replace the languages with a new Creole. As for History, well that is just a matter of interpretation. They all have one history of living on the same land mass and they would hardly be the first nation with long sorted history of internal conflict. Rome unified Europe and it was the best of times. The height of European civilization until maybe the 1600’s. Everything Europe did up to the Enlightenment was trying to recapture the glory of Rome.
Val,
Very well put. They will wobble back and forth between chaos and tyranny depending on whether they can throttle the state governments or everybody just does what they want. This comes from an underlying lack of legitimacy. Aren’t interested in the consent of the governed? Then you are setting yourself up for anarchy when the people have had enough.
Regards,
Jim
Hungarian isn’t Indo-European. Neither is Finnish (why does everybody forget Finland?) Neither is Estonian.
And Greek and Irish are not Latin or Germanic.
According to Roman historians.
But you are also conceding the Imperial nature of the EU. And that is its fundamental weakness and what will be the reason for its downfall. It is being expressed through elections that do not matter for a European Parliament. And when it becomes clear that it doesn’t matter, other actions will result and they will be violent.
Yah but, I’m right within an order of magnitude. So close enough, they can all be subsumed into the wonderful bastard tounge that will emerge from a United Europe. Look how great English has done with it’s mix of Latin Germanic and Celtic languages. Best darn European language out there. Give it 500 years though.
Yah, Imperial in nature so what? Empires are great if they are your empire, plus there is a long history of multi ethnic Empires as vehicles for stability and trade. Why look at Cyrus the Great. Thanks to the multi ethnic Perssian Empire the Jews got their homeland back and could rebuild their Temple. Who will protect you from the foreign barbarians but a strong centralized government with an effective millitary? Plus a centralized Europe will finally allow us Catholics to once again secretly exert our control again. We took over the Roman Empire, we can take the EU too. But first we just need it to be worth taking over. Then with one continent under, one government, with the one True Religion we conquer the world! For peace of course.
Okay sorry, I’m getting silly there. But, Rome was a kind of high water mark for European Civilizations. This we can not deny, and the dream of reestablishing a New Rome has always lingered in the backs of all European. It just makes sense, out of many one. Nice and tidy and neat. I mean, has being all separate really worked out so well for the Europeans? Massive wars, constantly shifting borders, a continuous need to suppress ethnic minorities lest their desires for ethnic self rule destroy your nation state. All I’m saying is that if you can have calls for illiberal democracy from nationalists it is time to have calls for a liberal autocracy from globalists.
Val,
You are getting lost in the weeds. Why not go back to the wisdom of the Federalist Papers. Small states v. large states is a fundamental problem that must be addressed. Our Federal system is set up to balance the power between the two. The EU is dominated by two large states, France & Germany. These two have simply accepted their inherent power to bully the smaller states and if not challenged will just go on misbehaving. Although the current split is framed as a contest between globalists v nationalists, I think the fundamental Federalist Paper analysis of large state v small state may be having a much greater underlying effect than assumed.
BTW, the ridiculously privileged attitude of France & Germany becomes so very apparent in their attitude towards NATO. It is NATO’s job to go on providing security to Europe chiefly as the responsibility of one member, the USA who isn’t even European! However, when France & Germany are requested to make their 2% GDP commitment they act as if they are deaf. Trump has exposed their complete lack of responsibility and their major response is to thumb their nose at Trump. Again the populists are a breath of fresh air here.
Regards,
Jim
Funny how my alt-right guide to Americaness keeps stressing how European America is. A low down and unsubstantiated insult I say.
Clearly we just need to combine France and Germany into one nation again like they were under Charlemagne the last legitimate leader in Europe.
Val,
Now you’re really lost in the weeds. Oh hell, I give up.
Regards,
Jim
I don’t know what the “populists” are or how to define them. The American “populists” who voted for Williams Jenning Bryan had a fairly specific policy agenda in mind.
The current “populists” mostly seem to be people who are saying:
People try to paint voter rebellions as presaging a move to the right or left. But people mostly want competence and the reassurance of shared values. The current “populists” everywhere would, for example,probably be happy with either a largely privatised health care system or total single payer so long as it worked.
They would also accept a large dose of immigration if (a) the immigrants endorsed and sought to join the host culture rather than bring their own failed culture and arrive pursuant to law and (b) host citizens were not accused of hate crimes by being unenthused about the presence of people who don’t clearly respect the host nation, its laws, traditions or people.
Our rulers could get probably away with imposing their hypersecular values if their policies delivered the goods. But the combination of incompetence, arrogance, entitlement and open contempt for the common man’s viewpoint does not fly.
OldB,
So simple but so profoundly true. The most ordinary practical political common sense is being systematically attacked by lunatic hyper-secular fools.
Regards,
Jim