Populism, not popularity, defines the EU now
Support for the European Union is rising outside of Britain, according to the European Parliament’s latest survey of what people think across the Continent. Just released, it has found that a striking 68 per cent of people in the EU think their country has benefited from membership, the highest result since 1983. Perhaps the chaos of Brexit has prompted Europeans to suddenly realise what a wonderful club it was all along and fall back in love with the entire project? This is a very seductive argument, not least for the anti-Brexiteers who argue that Britain is on the wrong side of history and cheerily welcome the arrival of any negative news for our country. The only problem is that it is incorrect.
The EU faces serious challenges on multiple fronts: legal disputes with Hungary and Poland; an unresolved crisis in Catalonia; a surge of national populism, from Austria to Sweden and from Italy to Germany; and fragmenting party systems that are seeing the mainstream squeezed and a host of smaller parties feasting on their leftovers. The Continent is being slowly ripped apart: jarring values and contrasting identities demarcate East and West; North and South are, economically speaking, different planets; there is still no unified response to the refugee crisis; nor any coherent strategy for budget reform and boosting productivity in response to ageing and depopulating societies. This all makes the idea that Europeans are strongly enthusiastic about the EU project seem questionable.
These suspicions are confirmed when you take a closer look at the findings of the European Parliament’s survey. The belief that EU membership has been a “good thing” is almost unanimous in places like Luxembourg, Ireland and Germany, but it is endorsed by less than half of people in places like Austria, Italy and the Czech Republic, which have all witnessed considerable political churn in recent years. Italy in particular looks volatile. Aside from being run by inexperienced and radical populists, and the looming showdowns between Brussels and Rome over the budget and refugee crisis, only 44 per cent of Italians say they would vote to remain in the EU at a referendum. Those who live in what is the Eurozone’s third-biggest economy are also the least likely of all to think that their country has benefited from EU membership. The report also gives a glimpse of the scale of democratic disillusionment. More than half of Greeks, Spaniards and Italians are dissatisfied with how democracy works in the EU.
It is these views that explain why, since the vote for Brexit, far from retreating, populist forces have gained momentum across the EU. Whether in Austria, Germany, Italy or Sweden, movements that are sceptical if not openly hostile toward the EU are moving from the margins to the mainstream, picking up votes from a coalition of (often young) traditional conservatives, blue-collar workers and the self-employed. They are not successful everywhere, as is evident in Ireland and Spain, but the awkward reality both for the EU and those who dream of a new centrist force in Britain is that Emmanuel Macron increasingly looks like an outlier. Europe is shifting right and increasingly populist.
This helps to explain why so few Leavers have changed their minds. What Remainers never grasped was that Leavers were thinking not so much about the domestic risk of Brexit as the external risks that come with being in the EU – distant institutions, a refugee crisis, Islamist terrorism, freedom of movement, divided governments, populist forces, a sluggish and ageing economy, and no real political vision. Let’s not kid ourselves: as Europe heads toward 2019 many of the risks that worried Leavers remain on full display.
Last week, at Sir David Butler’s
The Continent is being ripped apart: jarring values and contrasting identities demarcate East and West
As Europe heads to 2019, many of the risks that worried Leave voters remain on full display
94th birthday party, I was reminded of his remark after our first referendum in 1975, when two thirds of British voters had chosen to stay in the European Community; that support was wide but “never deep”. Today, support is just as shallow, but the pool of enthusiasts is narrowing. That’s a dangerous place for the EU to be in.
Matthew Goodwin is co-author of “National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy”