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November 15, 2024 - 2:00pm
A dangerous trend is emerging across Western Europe. Conventions and rules that are absolutely critical to the proper functioning of a democracy are being bent, a development that is progressively eroding popular trust in governments.
Europeans have been reminded of this trend in recent days, as a French prosecutor has demanded jail time and ban on political activities for Marine Le Pen of the National Rally (RN). Currently on trial alongside 24 others for embezzling EU funds, Le Pen is widely considered to be in a good position to win France’s 2027 presidential election. If she is found guilty of these charges, however, she will not be allowed to run.
Le Pen is alleged to have hired assistants for roles in the European Parliament who ended up doing political work for the RN. The economic damage was reportedly around €3 million, of which the party has already returned €1 million, while also claiming that this should not be seen as an admission of wrongful conduct.
Similar treatment is being meted out to Right-wing parties and politicians across the continent. In the case of Austria, it came with the suspension of an 80-year-old informal rule dictating that the party which receives the most votes is allowed to form a government, after the Right-wing Freedom Party won elections last month. Meanwhile in Germany, a debate has been revived about banning the Alternative for Germany (AfD) before federal elections in February. In other words: the exclusion of the second most popular party in the country from participating in the political process.
None of this bodes well for the future of democracy in Europe, because a system that tries to ban instead of engage with the substance of what surging populist parties are demanding is doomed to fail. After all, it is not the charismatic personalities of the AfD’s Alice Weidel or the RN’s Le Pen which explain their parties’ popularity. Instead, they are rising in the polls because they have dared to touch on the topics which the establishment parties have for decades refused to discuss: migration, cultural decline, and economic stagnation.
In Germany and France, we see parallel attempts to keep the most popular challengers to the status quo off the ballot, but there is significant risk that these attempts will backfire. The German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Marco Wanderwitz wants to submit a law banning the AfD before Christmas, in the hopes that it could still take effect before federal elections early next year.
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SubscribeHmm… our political so-called ‘elites’ seem to pride themselves on their cleverness, seeking to position themselves above their populations, i.e. their electorates; perhaps even seeking to position themselves beyond their electorates.
Given what’s just transpired in the US, have they been watching? Or if they have, has that made them even more desperate to push their popular oppositions out of the race, whilst they still think they have a chance?
It transpires that actually, our ‘elites’ are pretty stupid. They’re acting more and more like an Ancien Regime, and we know what happened there.
I have thought this for many years – they have to be thick to do the job. They can obviously read, they read about culture and maybe history. But they are so intellectually challenged that they believe what a book says – in theory – without considering alternative theories or the practicalities of implementing a theory. They are defeated by small practical problems. In my area, the Welsh Assembly is even worse than two-tier’s mob in Westminster.
Wonderful way to get your own way! Just pay the money and “prove” those you don’t agree with are acting illegally.
Will Lawfare come back to bite the Democrats in the States? No idea, yet, but after one side starts the shenanigans then the other side can have a go.
In the UK the Lawfare after Boris tried to prorogue Parliament was mad. Parliament had all the power they needed to stop/hinder/change this but that would have involved taking responsibility and resulted in a vote of no confidence in the Government. Not what “they” wanted.
These two cases in France and Germany, for me at least, seem to be part of the win at all costs mentality. But also abrogating responsibility for the democratically elected to state their case and then win or lose on a vote of the electorate.
I do think that “the State” is now more powerful than the various Parliaments and elected bodies. In the EU, UK and various European supposed democracies. The USA? Too early to tell what “legal” push back Trump will find himself facing. I don’t think that a nominal majority in the Senate and House will stop “Lawfare”.
Europe and Britain are in big trouble. I am very fearful of what will happen over the course of the next decade. You can’t keep implementing policies that harm your citizens and remove any democratic accountability for those decisions.
I am no longer sure what ‘democracy’ means. The Welsh Assembly is a good example. They had devolution, a few meetings and then they vote to call themselves the Senedd – the most pretentious thing I have ever heard. They are voted in repeated by a majority and then proceed to ignore that majority in favour of a never ending host of vociferous minority issues. Is that democracy?
Why does the majority keep voting for people who are trying to punish them precisely because they are the majority? Why is it evil to be a majority?
The Swiss system seems better but it would be argued that it was bad for minorities. Does it matter if the evil majority overrules the virtuous minorities?
It seems clear to me that any party which has a manifesto of 10 key issues and vows to govern in favour of the majority by implementing these priorities against a fixed timescale, would win any election.
What is democracy?
“What is democracy” you ask – a nuisance to be subverted and ignored seems to be an increasingly common view nowadays.
Good questions, but the oft-asked question is: why do these people keep getting voted in? Is it tradition, lack of – or fear of – alternatives, conformity to media output? Something else?
We’ve just seen what’s happened in the US. One could say: that’s democracy. Just look at the turnarounds in the way things are being reported since that outcome. So what’s stopping the Welsh (or Scots, or English) from voting in an alternative way of doing things; one that responds more directly to the needs and wishes of the majority?
Fear? Or caution!
The “WAG” is only interested in the opinions of NGOs, certainly not the electorate.