Belgium has a new government. All it took was seven months of negotiation — which by Belgian standards is breakneck speed. New Prime Minister Bart De Wever had previously served as mayor of Antwerp from 2013, besides leading his N-VA party for the last two decades. An experienced and formidable politician, it’s surprising it’s taken him this long to lead his country.
But perhaps that’s because he’s not overly keen on its continued existence. De Wever’s not just a Right-wing Eurosceptic, but also a Flemish nationalist. He’s reported as saying that “if I could die as a Southern Dutchman, I would die happier than as a Belgian.” Awkward.
Belgium is divided between Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia, plus the mostly Francophone Brussels region. Though the Flemings are in the majority, it is they who vote for separatist parties such as the N-VA. It’s only because the normally Left-leaning Walloons edged toward the centre-right last year that a De Wever-led coalition government became possible.
Thus the EU has another populist prime minister — in this case, one belonging to the same EU-wide alliance of parties as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. Other shades of national populist also rule in the neighbouring Netherlands, as well as Hungary and Slovakia.
In Austria, an establishment attempt to exclude the populist FPÖ, which won the 2024 general election, collapsed last month. FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl is likely to become Austrian chancellor later this year, putting a sixth EU country under a radical Right-wing leader and granting the populists another seat on the European Council.
In Romania, a bitter legal battle is raging over the participation of Călin Georgescu in the county’s presidential election. The attempt to disqualify him appears to have backfired, leading to a surge of voter support. Meanwhile, Czechia is due parliamentary elections this year with Andrej Babiš — whose party is now allied with Viktor Orbán — poised to win. In Germany, the firewall against the AfD is still holding despite a few cracks. In France, however, Marine Le Pen has what is essentially a 50:50 chance of becoming president in 2027 — or sooner, if Emmanuel Macron resigns.
Belgium can therefore be seen as a microcosm of the EU. Divided between a rich north and a poor south, it’s an artificial creation whose federal power structures stand in the way of effective decision-making. Unchecked immigration has led to an electoral rebellion against the liberal establishment, propelling Rightwing populists not only into parliaments but also into government.
A further parallel is the irony of populist leaders taking over the power structures they once wanted to quit or dismantle: the Belgian state in the case of Bart De Wever, the EU in other cases. If that seems inconsistent, it’s nothing compared to the spectacle of establishment parties cooperating with politicians they once condemned as extreme — or even agreeing to serve under them.
The Belgian politician best known to British audiences is outspoken anti-Brexiteer and former PM Guy Verhofstadt, who has always championed a united Europe as a bastion of liberalism and the antidote to nationalism. One wonders what he makes of recent developments in his own country. All those who thought the EU would stop the populist Right need to get real: the call is coming from inside the house.
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Subscribe“The Populist Right”: A derogatory euphemism for “Sane Governance”.
The “Populist Right” may, just in time, save Europe from destruction.
I think the most shocking fact in this article is Belgium having a government at all.
There’s a first for everything.
It usually gets one eventually.
best chuckle I’ve had today
It’s hard to know what to make of this, or how great the risks are in a shift to right wing populism. The only thing for sure is that mainstream parties should have seen the writing on the wall and developed policies more in line with the wishes of the electorate.
David. What is right wing populism? You are using the term so presumably you know.
You’re so correct! – I love this popular left-winger; I hate this populist right-winger. Is that it? And are all these populists so very right-wing?
I don’t think so. Maybe David will tell us what it is.
“Someone who’s unfortunately popular, but only because — excepting the members of the enlightened little clique I belong to — other voters are morons.”
If mainstream parties were to develop policies in line with the wishes of the electorate then they’d be ‘populist’ too. It’s a weasel word which implies we should defer to the wisdom of our betters, a notion directly contradicted by the disastrous events of the past thirty years.
If the mainstream parties were to develop “populist policies”, then I guess they would have become “populist parties”.
What is right wing populism?
Define your terms. Associate Editor Franklin.
I’n sick of the propaganda pap Unherd spews out.
Only Leftists talk about the populist smear.
Far Right, Populism. Define your terms or don’t use them.
We are paying for this rubbish.
Yes, we are all paying for it, but you are the only one who seems unhappy about that.
Let me explain to any non English here. Populism is a smear word. As ‘common’ used to. You say it whlle carefully ‘looking down your nose’.
I just can’t understand why people disagree with your statement. Why all those downticks? It is so obvious that the word ‘populist’ is used to mean the same as a bad smell. Yet UnHerd continues to approve of it and commenters just seem to think that it’s OK.
You have correctly discerned the meaning of the word “populist” as it is generally used, and you have correctly discerned that a lot of people on UnHerd are happy to use it in that way. What is your point?
My point is that I speak English, not American.
Unherd is one long exercise in the abuse of language. Starting with its stupid name.
Cottee is preparing his next article. Unherd means Herd and so you can’t get your money back.
FFS give it a rest. You’re like a broken record. If you have nothing original to say then spare us all your deranged ranting.
“The populist Right is taking over the EU”Er, no. It’s taking over the countries of the EU. Brussels? No.
Germany has never had a firewall. Key figures in the foundation of the Federal Republic, of NATO and of the EU had very recently been Nazi officers. One of the East German Bloc Parties, complete with reserved seats in the Volkskammer, was the NDPD, specifically for former Nazi Party members and supporters, although it was often observed that there were in fact more former Nazi Party members in the Communist Party than the entire membership of the NDPD. In 1968, long after East Germany professed to have eradicated all trace of Nazism, the new Constitution still felt the need to commit it to doing so. No one in West Germany even pretended, not really. The obituaries of Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl were as frank as they themselves had always been.
Five years after Brexit, give thanks that we are no longer subject to the legislative will of numerous such persons routinely and increasingly in the European Council of Ministers, and permanently in the European Parliament, where Patriots for Europe, the likes of the French National Rally and the Austrian Freedom Party, of Fidesz and Vox, are the third largest Group with 86 MEPs, with a further 26 in the Europe of Sovereign Nations Group, including 14 from the AfD. Another AfD member sits among the non-inscrits, alongside Niki, the Confederation of the Polish Crown, and S.O.S. Romania. Now to end the potential or actual subordination of our Armed Forces to officers who were ultimately subject to members of most of those parties, and of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s, by Brexiting NATO as well. That would also free our Forces at least from the direct influence of the Trump Administration, and specifically from that of the network of Far Right British émigrés in and around it.
Funnily enough, a lot of the DDR military uniforms were straight up “nazi-pattern”. I bought a hat in Berlin not long after the Wall came down. Apart from it having a hammer and sickle rather than a swastika on it, it could have been worn by a soldier in the Wehrmacht in the 1940s.
Incoherent nonsense. I tried Google translate but still couldn’t make any sense of it.
One wonders what he makes of recent developments in his own country. You could probably ask him. I don’t think he is dead.
Indeed , he’s still tweeting away like crazy. I submit below his latest cerebral thoughts on how to stave off the populist tide on X:
“Hit Trump’s oligarchs instead ! Ban X, Meta and Amazon till tariffs are reversed or break them up as required by competition law !”
Sometimes you just gotta smile.
Unherd is a microcosm of mainstream journalism. It employs the same pointless buzzwords as the rest. This hides the truth. Readers are reduced to words like Populism buzzing round their heads. It makes puppets of everyone.
Unherd should change its name to Shallow.
Have you tried ConWom? You might fit in well there.
A definition of populism might be of a political movement, often with a charismatic leader, which offers over-simplified and unrealistic solutions to perceived national problems in order to garner votes and gain power. In which case why don’t we ever hear of liberal populism? They’ve now spent three decades in Europe cranking up taxes and running up record national debts promising the electorate an economic and social utopia whilst delivering very little. The very definition of populism in my book. Is this supposed swing to ‘right wing populism’ just the reaction to the stark failures of liberal populism?
Populism is a smear word used by the Left. As you say Left wing populism is never used. It doesn’t exist as a concept.
Franklin is an editor at Unherd. Unherd! Of course you can spout your Starmer propaganda but then rewrite your Mission Statement and change your stupid name!
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to define Syriza, Podemos, BSW, Melenchon’s party and even Corbinism as ‘populist’ (and Left-wing)?
Only if you think that populism goes hand in hand with economic illiteracy, a phenomenon that’s largely exclusive to the left.
V good point!
My comments keep disappearing while nothing is done about Richard Littlewood, whose subscription should be cancelled.
Why?
If you hate it so much here, then why do you pay to be here?
I got trapped into paying for it. I believed their advertising.
Hmmm – not so smart as you think you are then, are you.
Just cancel the direct debit.
In fairness, while I wonder why Richard Littlewood is here, I don’t think his subscription should be cancelled.
I think this is just a snobbish, ‘I’m better than you’ comment. Luckily, your comments disappear.
If anyone asks Guy Verhofstadt, I bet he blames Brexit, Garage, Boris and the British in general.
The Dutch/Vlaams speakers were treated for the first century of Belgium’s existence as rubes and deplorables by the French speakers. Those Walloons also controlled the old industries (coal and steel) and sucked dry the African colonies (using Vlaams speakers as useful slavedrivers). Vlaams businesspeople who prospered as the old industries died spoke French. English and German whereas the French speakers would not deign to speak Vlaams. I knew one textile mill owner years ago who spoke the languages of every country he exported to – I remember it was 19.
On the very bad side A significant cadre of Vlaams nationalists supported Hi#ler (the enemy of my enemy).
Belgium should really have split up long ago.
Between 1941 and 1944, approximately 7,000 to 8,000 Walloons served in the Walloon Legion, which was part of the Waffen-SS
Most European countries had units in the Waffen SS. There were even some Muslim ones.
Even a British and Commonwealth one with 50 members.
The Populist Liberals – Blair, Rutte, Macron, Merkel all has their extended chances I suppose.
Verhofstadt I recall during the protracted Brexit negotiations asserted that is only people like he had been given airtime by and for Call Me Dave the EU referendum result would have been different.
Indeed it would. It would have been 60:40 so the work on leaving could have started immediately without Liberals everywhere trying to overturn it.
Oh, I don’t know. I always thought Verhofstadt looked like Elton John. Maybe he could have put out a version of “Candle in the Wind” as a Remain anthem.
Verhofstadt is the worst type of Eurocrat. A smug, arrogant virtue-signalling bully who believes in his divine right to lead European democracy, never mind what those stupid electorates think.
Giving him and his ilk airtime would have rendered the red bus obsolete.
Undoubtedly. And we might even have avoided the Clown Show as PM..
This is fantastic news.
Our continent is being strangled under piles of useless green nonsense and steaming heaps of red tape. Socialists love rules and controls … they are strangling all innovation. 2008 GDP was equal to the US. Today it’s 50%.
Every Islamist attack or migrant rape/ stabbing shows the open border, pro multiculturalism elite class up for what they are … virtue signalling, enemies of the European people.
No more third world asylum, no more Islam, no more third world migration.
Detain and deport.
“Europe must remain European for Europeans” as the Dalia Lama so wisely said! … we have nowhere else.
But the question is … what on earth is going on in the UK?