Abstract
Bearing in mind that the focus of all political parties remains the access to political power, they all not only attempt to acquire political power within government, but more importantly work towards its acquisition and maintenance. The paper examines the case of far right populism in three political parties in Greece, the Golden Dawn, LAOS and ANEL. Since 2007 different forms of far right populist parties have managed not only a successful parliamentary representation but also participation in coalition governments. With a realignment of the electorate away from the established political parties, far right populism, with rhetoric on nationalism, extremism, xenophobia and racism has achieved a strong impact. The analysis focuses on monitoring the thread that led to the support of such parties with a challenging level of legitimacy, and aims to propose a sense of a collective identity and a wider understanding of the popularised version of hate crimes in a profoundly entrapped country struggling to overcome a period of economic and socio-political crisis.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
MSI (Italian Social Movement).
- 2.
David Cameron told the 47th Munich Security Conference in 2011, attended by world leaders, that state multiculturalism had failed in the UK, echoing a similar argument put forward by Angela Merkel who in 2010 declared that attempts at creating a multicultural society in Germany had ‘utterly failed’.
- 3.
European Union electoral results for 2014: UKIP: 27.49 per cent, Labour: 25.40 per cent, Conservative: 23.93 per cent (see http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps/european_elections.html).
- 4.
BNP publicly promotes violence in order to gain ‘institutionalized power’ (Heitmeyer 2003: 406).
- 5.
As Hilary Pilkington writes in her blog (http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/when-is-a-kettle-not-a-kettle-when-it-is-on-slow-boil/), a few years ago, during an EDL demonstration in Walthamstow, East London, around 600 EDL demonstrators found themselves on the receiving end of a barrage of eggs thrown by counter-demonstrators; they were surrounded for hours by police without access to water, food or toilets and, before finally being released, they were arrested en masse under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice Act (breach of the peace), regardless of whether there was any evidence that individuals had participated in any public order offence. The result was that many demonstrators declared they would never again attend a demonstration.
- 6.
For more, see David Cameron, Age of Austerity, 2009: http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/04/The_age_of_austerity_speech_to_the_2009_Spring_Forum.aspx.
- 7.
Pilkington has conducted ethnographic research on EDL under the auspices of the MYPLACE project. For more information see https://myplacefp7.wordpress.com/.
- 8.
This is an international pan-Islamic political organisation founded in 1953. Their goal is for all Muslim countries to unify as an Islamic state ruled by sharia law.
- 9.
Its Facebook page describes it as ‘patriotic counter-jihad party for Christian civilisation, Western rights and freedoms, British culture, animal welfare and capitalism’.
- 10.
This is a terrorist organisation that was based in Britain and has been linked to international terrorism, homophobia and anti-Semitism. It was banned in 2005.
- 11.
BNP Youth—Real Version, Retrieved 2 May 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2snwxSGn-Y.
- 12.
A detailed analysis of xenophobia and immigration can be found in Betz (1994), Radical Right Wing Populism in Western Europe. New York: St. Martin’s Press. pp. 69–106.
- 13.
Germany: Ukrainian nationalists are being used by the EU—Nick Griffin. Retrieved May 2, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Ir2rWzkFk.
- 14.
This is an advocacy group, created in 2004, that campaigns to counter racism and fascism.
References
Abedi, A. (2004). Anti-political establishment parties: A comparative analysis. London: Routledge.
Albertazzi, D., & McDonnell, D. (2008). Introduction: The sceptre and the spectre. In D. Albertazzi & D. McDonnell (Eds.), Twenty-first century populism: The spectre of Western European democracy. Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, England, 1–11.
Anastasakis, O. (2000). Extreme right in Europe: A comparative study of recent trends (Discussion paper no. 3). London: The Hellenic Observatory, The European Institute London School of Economics and Political Science.
Barker, M. (1981). The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe. London. Junction Books.
Bale, T., Hampshire, J., & Partos, R. (2011). Having one’s cake and eating it too: Cameron’s conservatives and immigration. Political Quarterly, 82(3), 398–406.
Bartlett, J., & Littler, M. (2011). Inside the EDL. London: Demos.
BBC. (2013). UKIP is not a racist party, Lord Heseltine told. Retrieved October 3, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24385139
BBC News. (2006). Farage elected new UKIP leader. Retrieved May 4, 2015, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5336126.stm
BBC News. (2010b). EDL founder charged with Muslim poppy protest assault. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11744811
BBC News. (2013). EDL leader Tommy Robinson quits group. Retrieved October 15, 2013, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24442953
Bell, M. (2008). Racism and Equality in the European Union. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Betz, H. G. (1994). Radical Right Wing Populism in Western Europe (pp. 69–106). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Betz, H. G. (2007). ‘Against the ‘Green Totalitarianism’: Anti-Islamic Nativism in Contemporary Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe’. In Christina Schori Liang (Ed.), Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right. London: Ashgate.
BNP. (2005). Rebuilding British democracy. Retrieved March 13, 2015, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/BNP_uk_manifesto.pdf
BNP. (2015). ‘Securing our British Future’. Retrieved July 3, 2015 from https://www.bnp.org.uk/sites/default/files/bnp_manifesto-2015.pdf.
Cameron, D. (2011). Speech at Munich Security Conference. Retrieved April 11, 2015, from https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference
Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy. Political Studies, 47, 2–16.
Cantle, T. (2001). Community cohesion : A report of the independent review team (p. 79). London: Home Office. Retrieved June 1, 2015, from http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2001/12/11/communitycohesionreport.pdf
Carter, E. L. (2005). The extreme right in Western Europe: Success or failure? (p. xiv, 271). Manchester, England: Manchester University Press.
Clark, A., Bottom, K., & Copus, C. (2008). More similar than they’d like to admit? Ideology, policy and populism in the trajectories of the British National Party and Respect. British Politics, 3(4), 511–534.
Coleman, D. (2010). When Britain becomes ‘majority minority’. Retrieved May 2, 2015, from http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/when-britain-becomes-majority-minority
Cutts, D., Ford, R., & Goodwin, M. J. (2011). Anti-immigrant, politically disaffected or still racist after all? Examining the attitudinal drivers of extreme right support in Britain in the 2009 European elections. European Journal of Political Research, 50(3), 418–440.
Daniel, M. (2005). Cranks and Gadflies: The story of UKIP. London: Timewell Press.
de Beauvoir, S. (1971). The Second Sex. Random House. Alfred A. Knopf.
de Valette, J. (2015). The madness of equality: Same sex 'Marriage’. Retrieved May 3, 2015, from http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/national/madness-equality-same-sex-marriage
Demman, J., & McDonald, P. (1996). Unemployment statistics from 1881 to the present day. Retrieved April 3, 2015, from http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-trends--discontinued-/january-1996/unemployment-since-1881.pdf
Eatwell, R. (2000). ‘The rebirth of the Extreme Right in Western Europe?’, Parliamentary affairs, 53.
Eatwell, R., (2004). ‘The Extreme Right in Britain: The Long Road to ‘Modernization’’. In Eatwell & Mudde, (Eds.), Western Democracies and the New Extreme Right Challenge (pp. 62–81). London: Routledge.
Eatwell, R., & Goodwin, M. J. (2010). Introduction: The “new” extremism in twenty-first-century Britain. In R. Eatwell & M. J. Goodwin (Eds.), The new extremism in 21st century Britain (pp. 1–20). London: Routledge.
EDL’s Mission Statement. Retrieved May 11, 2015, from https://www.englishdefenceleague.org/?page_id=9
European Election Results for UK. Retrieved May 12, 2015, from http://www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps/european_elections.html
Farage, N. (2009). Nigel Farage, Ukip: ‘Other party leaders live in a PC world’. Retrieved May 11, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/jun/05/nigel-farage-ukip-interview
Fella, S., & Bozzini, E. (2013). Fighting racism in the UK. In S. Fella & C. Ruzza (Eds.), Anti-Racist movements in the EU (pp. 53–81). Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, England.
Fella, S., & Ruzza, C. (2009). Reinventing the Italian right: Territorial politics, populism and ‘Post-Fascism’. London: Routledge.
Fletcher, E. (2008). Changing support for asylum seekers : An analysis of legislation and parliamentary debates (Working paper No. 49). Sussex, England: University of Sussex.
Ford, R. (2010). Who might vote for the BNP? In R. Eatwell & M. J. Goodwin (Eds.), The new extremism in 21st century Britain. London: Routledge.
Ford, R., & Goodwin, M. J. (2014). Revolt on the right: Explaining support for the radical right in Britain. Abingdon, England: Routledge.
Ford, R., Goodwin, M. J., & Cutts, D. (2012). Strategic Eurosceptics and polite xenophobes: Support for the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2009 European Parliament elections. European Journal of Political Research, 51, 204–234.
Fryer, P. (2010). Staying Power: The history of black people in Britain. London. Pluto Press.
Gilroy, P. (2012). “My Britain is fuck all”: Zombie multiculturalism and the race politics of citizenship. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 19(4), 380–397.
Gillespie, A. (2006). Becoming other: from social interaction to self-reflection. New York: IAP -Information Age Publishing.
Goodwin, M. (2011). New British fascism. London: Routledge.
Hage, G. (2010). ‘The affective politics of racial mis-interpellation’. Theory, Culture & Society December 2010, 27 (7–8), 112–129.
Hainsworth, P. (2008). The extreme right in Western Europe. New York: Routledge.
Halikiopoulou, D., & Vasilopoulou, S. (2010). Towards a “civic” narrative: British national identity and the transformation of the British National Party. The Political Quarterly, 81(4), 583–592.
Heitmeyer W (2003). ‘Right-Wing Extremist Violence’ in International Handbook of Violence Research. Hagan J, Heitmeyer W (Eds); Dordrecht,Boston,London: Kluwer Academic Publishers: 399–436.
Hinsliff, G. (2004). It feels like the BNP - only in blazers. Guardian. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2004/may/30/otherparties.immigrationandpublicservices
Hope Not Hate. (2013). Overwhelming response. Retrieved March 1, 2013, from http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/2549/overwhelming-response
Jackson, P. (2011). ‘The EDL: Britain’s ‘New Far Right Social Movement’’ Radicalism and New Media group: Northampton. Retrieved March 2, 2015 from http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/6015/.
Jackson, P., & Gable, G. (2011). Far-Right.com: Nationalist Extremism on the Internet. London: Searchlight Magazine.
Jefferies, J. (2005). ‘The UK population: Past, present, future’ in focus on people and migration. Retrieved May 2, 2015, from http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/fertility-analysis/focus-on-people-and-migration/december-2005/focus-on-people-and-migration---focus-on-people-and-migration---chapter-1.pdf
John, P., Margetts, H., Rowland, D., & Weir, S. (2006). The BNP: The roots of its appeal. Colchester, England: Democratic Audit, Human Rights Centre.
Johnson, C. A., Patten, S., & Betz, H-G. (2005). Identitarian politics and populism in Canada and the antipodes. In J. Rydgren (Ed.), Movements of Ecclusion: Radical Right-Wing Populism in the Western World (pp. 85–100). Adelaide: Nova Science Publishers.
Khan, Z. (2000). Muslim presence in Europe: The British dimension—Identity, integration and community activism. Current Sociology, 48(4), 29–43.
Koopmans, R. (1996). Explaining the rise of racist and extreme right violence in Western Europe: Grievances or opportunities? European Journal of Political Research, 30(2), 185–216.
Laclau, E. (2005). On populist reason. London: Verso.
Lane, H. S. (2012). A study of the English Defence League: What draws people of faith to right-wing organisations and what effects does the EDL have on community cohesion and interfaith relations? Retrieved May 12, 2015, from http://faith-matters.org/images/stories/edl%20report.pdf
Lea, J. (2000). The Macpherson Report and the question of institutional racism. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 39(3), 219–233.
May, S., Moddod, T., & Squires, J. (2004). Ethnicity, nationalism and minority rights. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Migration Observatory. (2015). Retrieved April 21, 2015, from http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/
Minkenberg, M. (2002). ‘The Radical Right in Post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe: Comparative Observations and Interpretations’. East European Politics and Society, 335–362.
Moore, R., & Wallace, T. (1975). Slamming the door: Administration of immigration control. London: Wiley.
Moss, V. (2013). Ugly face of UKIP: Sunday Mirror exposes racist and homophobic views of party members. Mirror. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ugly-face-ukip-sunday-mirror-1531879
Moufahim, M. (2007). Interpreting Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Marketing of an Extreme Right Party. The Vlaams Blok/Vlaams Belang. Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Mudde, C. (2002). The Ideology of Extreme Right. Manchester and New York. Manchester University Press.
Mudde, C. (2004). The populist Zeitgeist. Governance and Opposition, 39(3), 541–563.
Mudde, C. (Ed.). (2005). Racist extremism in Central and Eastern Europe. Milton Park, England: Routledge.
National Front. (2015). National Front policy. Retrieved March 13, 2015, from http://www.britishnationalfront.net/policy.html
Norris, P. (2005). Radical Right: Voters and Parties in the Electoral Market. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Oakley, R. (2005). Policing racist crime and violence: A comparative analysis. Vienna, Austria: European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia.
Olechnowicz, A. (2005). Liberal anti-fascism in the 1930s the case of Sir Ernest Barker. Albion, 36, 636–660.
Painter, A. (2013). Democratic stress, the populist signal and extremist threat. London: Policy Network.
Pilkington, H. (2014) ‘Loud and proud’: Youth Activists in the English Defence League. XVIII ISA World Congress of Sociology. Facing an Unequal World: Challenges for Global Sociology. Yokohama, 13–19 July 2014. Retrieved May 30, 2015, from https://isaconf.confex.com/isaconf/wc2014/webprogram/Paper42549.html
Pink News. (2014). BNP Youth recruitment video: Militant homosexuals want gay marriage to destroy families. Retrieved May 2, 2015, from http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/05/13/bnp-youth-recruitment-video-militant-homosexuals-want-gay-marriage-to-destroy-families/
Powell, E. (1968). Rivers of blood speech. Retrieved April 16, 2015, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html
Ramalingam, V. (2012). Countering far-right extremism. London.
Readings, G. (2011). Too many on the Left are continuing to promote Islamist extremists. Left Foot Forward. Retrieved February 20, 2014, from http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/05/too-many-on-the-left-are-continuing-to-promote-islamist-extremists/
Richardson, J. E. (2011). Race and racial difference: The surface and depth of BNP ideology. In N. Copsey & G. Macklin (Eds.), British National Party: Contemporary perspectives (pp. 38–61). Abingdon, England: Routledge.
Rydgren, J. (2003). ‘Meso-level Reasons for Racism and Xenophobia: Some Converging and Diverging Effects of Radical Right Populism in France and Sweden’. European Journal of Social Theory 6(1):45–68.
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Pantheon.
Smith, J. (2008). Home Secretary’s speech at the Conference on Preventing Violent Extremism (H. Office, Ed.). Retrieved April 20, 2015, from http://tna.europarchive.org/20090120164241/http://press.homeoffice.gov.uk/Speeches/hs-speech-violent-extremism
Stanley, B. (2008). The thin ideology of populism. Journal of Political Ideologies, 13(1), 95–110.
Taggart, P. A. (2000). Populism. Buckingham, England: Open University Press.
UKIP. (2010). Manifesto. Retrieved May 15, 2015 from http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge10/man/parties/UKIPManifesto2010.pdf.
UKIP. (2012). The constitution. Retrieved May 4, 2015, from http://www.ukip.org/the_constitution
UKIP. (2013). What we stand for. Retrieved October 1, 2013, from http://www.ukip.org/issues/policy-pages/what-we-stand-for
UKIP. (2015). Believe in Britain: UKIP manifesto 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015, from http://www.ukip.org/manifesto2015#
Wallis, R., Bruce, S., & Taylor, D. (1986). ‘No surrender’: Paisleyism and the politics of ethnic identity in Northern Ireland. Belfast, Northern Ireland: Department of Social Studies, Queen’s University of Belfast.
Worley, C. (2005), ‘It’s not about Race, it’s about the community’: New Labour and ‘Community Cohesion’. Critical Social Policy 25(4), 483–496.
Zaslove, A. (2008). ‘Here to Stay? Populism as a New Party Type’. European Review, 16, 319–336.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lazaridis, G., Tsagkroni, V. (2016). Majority Identitarian Populism in Britain. In: Lazaridis, G., Campani, G., Benveniste, A. (eds) The Rise of the Far Right in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55679-0_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55679-0_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55678-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55679-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)