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If

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you like the indoor daily, you can follow us

0:32

on Apple, Spotify, or wherever

0:34

you get your podcasts. Today

0:37

on the Indo daily is

0:38

Ireland immune from the rise of the

0:40

far right? that I'm going today. I'm

0:44

going to be May making a

0:47

very big announcement on Tuesday,

0:50

November fifteen at

0:52

Mar a Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.

0:55

The

0:55

Sweden Democrat, who have neo

0:58

Nazi roots, have now made

1:00

it into mainstream politics. The

1:02

new Italian prime minister Georgi Ameloni,

1:05

has addressed parliament for the

1:07

first time, her government is credited

1:09

with being the most right wing in the country's

1:11

Republican history Three. Donald

1:13

Trump is tipped to announce his third

1:15

presidential run, and the success

1:18

of the Far East in Italy, Sweden,

1:20

Hungary, and Poland has taken the

1:22

EU both at the level of the

1:24

European Council and the European

1:26

Commission that Brussels has been asleep at

1:28

the wheel. but it can be a complex debate,

1:31

especially as these parties are gaining prominence

1:34

through the ballot box. When you label

1:36

a politician as far

1:38

right or fascist. You are also

1:41

labeling the people who voted for

1:43

her again. And what do you do? who

1:46

play into the very hands of that

1:48

politician. Up to now, Ireland has

1:50

withstood the far right, but are we

1:52

being complacent? I'm

1:55

Kevin Doyle, and today on the indoor daily,

1:57

I speak to John O'Brennan, Professor of

1:59

European Politics at Manute University.

2:02

and Larry Donnelly, Law lecturer at the

2:04

University of Norway, about the rise

2:06

of the far rise in Europe and the situation

2:09

here in Ireland.

2:13

John O'Brien, we often talk about

2:15

the rise of the far race

2:17

in Europe. But what do we mean by

2:20

the far right or even the right of politics

2:22

in the modern era

2:24

to modern incarnation? I think

2:26

there is a distinction to be made

2:28

given between the extreme

2:31

rights and

2:33

sometimes called

2:35

the radical rights and parties

2:38

that are right of center. One

2:40

important test, I think, is whether

2:42

a party

2:43

is accepting of the institutions

2:46

of the state or

2:48

whether they want to overturn those

2:50

institutions' entire And

2:53

I think the true definition of

2:55

an extreme right party is one that

2:58

just cannot tolerate checks

3:00

and balances. amongst the

3:02

institutions of the state. That's

3:04

a really important distinction. I

3:06

prefer the term nativist. because

3:09

there you're talking about ultra nationalist

3:12

parties and their emphasis is on

3:15

ethnicity. defining who

3:17

counts within the country or within

3:19

the nation. Whereas if you're

3:21

talking about the populist rights,

3:23

they tend to be anti elites.

3:26

So they base their kind of philosophy

3:28

on morals rather than

3:30

on ethnicity. But what you're describing

3:32

there is is someone that has a

3:34

very uncomfortable relationship

3:37

with the stage and the arms of stage.

3:39

But what we're seeing in places like Italy

3:41

and Sweden is being run through democracies.

3:44

I think there's a lot of sensation. There's

3:46

a better touch to this. It

3:48

is true. Georgia Maloney is

3:51

the first, not

3:52

just female prime minister, but

3:54

the first far right leader.

3:56

in Europe since nineteen forty

3:58

five. So we can't just

3:59

dismiss that as nothing. But

4:02

on the other hand, if you look at

4:04

the brothers of Italy as a

4:06

party.

4:07

What they've done really is

4:10

to replace the Labour, which will

4:12

be part of the new coalition, but

4:14

the brothers of Italy have kind of displaced

4:17

the LEGO. It's not that the vote

4:19

for the Fire Right has gone up that dramatically

4:22

in Italy. And we should also

4:24

remember that Europe has had

4:26

a far right presence

4:28

in Poland. So stretching

4:31

back many decades.

4:32

The biggest winner of election night

4:34

is Yimmy Atkinson, the leader of the

4:36

anti immigration Sweden Democrats

4:39

party. for the first time, they're

4:41

set to form a coalition with the moderates

4:43

after the center right party agreed to

4:45

cooperate with what was once considered

4:47

a pariah of Swedish politics.

4:49

and

4:49

over time when

4:52

we have elections like the Swedish

4:54

one in September or the Italian

4:57

election that followed we tend to

4:59

get shrieks of, oh my god,

5:01

we're

5:01

heading back to the dark days in the

5:03

nineteen thirties. feed into our

5:05

bible. But

5:06

if you act should we look at the

5:09

way these parties have behaved

5:11

in coalition? There is no

5:13

doubt that they have managed to

5:16

send the center of gravity of politics

5:18

in Europe further to the right of

5:20

the last order century, but

5:22

we haven't seen outright

5:25

fascism of the kind that we saw

5:27

in the

5:27

nineteen thirties. We haven't seen any

5:29

system tip it towards

5:31

that extreme.

5:34

Members of the European Parliament are

5:36

heavily criticizing Hungary's new

5:38

anti LG VTI legislation. The

5:41

low originally aimed at protecting

5:43

children from pedophilia was

5:45

amended, so it also

5:47

prohibits portraying homosexuality to

5:50

under aged people. What we're talking about

5:52

in Sweden and Italy are perhaps

5:55

more well established countries that we consider

5:57

in terms of economy and

5:59

politics and all the rest, but but this type

6:01

of thing has been well established in places

6:03

like Hungary. And I think the EU

6:05

has struggled with that a little bit. For example,

6:08

Victor Orban's party being part

6:10

of the European People's Party

6:12

in other words, sitting alongside our

6:14

own Finnigail. And

6:16

that's a really difficult place

6:18

for a party like Finnigail to sit, is it

6:20

not? You're absolutely right. The European

6:23

People's Party bears enormous responsibility

6:26

for allowing an authoritarian

6:29

regime to develop in Hungary.

6:31

And not only that, it's

6:33

a regime that relies almost

6:36

entirely in terms of investment from

6:38

European subvention. Hangri

6:40

gets about four percent of its GDP

6:42

directly in the form of EU

6:44

grant aid, and there's a lot of

6:46

evidence of corruption around

6:49

Orban's network of authority. So

6:52

both at the level of the European Council

6:54

and the European Commission, Brussels

6:56

has been sleep at the wheel. And

6:58

there should have been a much earlier

7:01

intervention in the case of both

7:03

Hungary and after twenty fifteen

7:05

Poland. because these were

7:08

countries that were now being led

7:10

by authoritarian parties

7:12

that were very deliberately

7:15

trampling on established norms

7:17

and checks and balances in politics.

7:19

European Union has recommended

7:22

suspending seven point five

7:24

billion euros in funds to

7:26

Hungary over corruption allegations. Hungarian

7:30

prime minister, Viktor Orban,

7:32

is accused of mismanaging EU

7:34

funds and dismantling democratic

7:36

institutions. there has been a

7:38

belated effort by the EU to

7:40

tackle the problem. So the EU, for example,

7:43

hasn't yet delivered

7:45

the European COVID recovery money

7:48

to Hungary and Poland. These

7:50

are huge sums of money. In the case of

7:52

Poland, about thirty billion case,

7:55

Hungary, about six and a half, seven billion.

7:57

But the commission has been holding

7:59

out

7:59

because it is trying to

8:01

get those parties to

8:03

change some of the things

8:06

that they have radically

8:08

altered over the last years, especially

8:10

the position of the judiciary

8:12

and criminal justice system. It

8:15

remains to be seen whether the Commission is

8:17

going to continue withholding,

8:19

but

8:19

you certainly have a point when you argued

8:22

that the European Union has been

8:24

part of the problem rather than the solution

8:26

here over many years. I want to bring

8:28

in Larry Donnelly Law Lecture at the University

8:30

of Goa and perhaps more important, Larry

8:33

Bostonian. It

8:35

was Donald Trump far

8:37

right. You know,

8:38

the the the labels of the thing

8:40

that I have a a little bit of

8:42

an issue with tariffs. And I

8:44

would have agreed with just about everything

8:46

John said in his analysis.

8:48

However, he's labelling

8:50

of of Georgia Maloney as

8:52

far right does give me pause.

8:55

Now one can be troubled

8:57

by her roots and indeed the roots

8:59

of her body, but

9:01

we have come to a way if you look at her

9:03

rhetoric around in this campaign. And

9:05

of course, there is the possibility that

9:07

she's a wolf and sheep's

9:09

clothing, But if we look at the rhetoric she's used,

9:11

I mean, they're pretty standard conservative

9:14

talking points. She has conservative points

9:16

of view for instance on abortion, for

9:18

instance, on the traditional family, for

9:20

instance, on curving immigration. One

9:22

can agree or disagree with those points

9:24

of view as they come. But I

9:26

do not think that they are inherently far

9:29

right on the political spectrum.

9:31

I think there's a distinction to be drawn there. And

9:33

one of the things that sort of frustrates me

9:36

in this debate is

9:39

the I suppose to move towards

9:41

labeling individual slice of

9:43

pound. Certainly, I think as John points out,

9:45

someone like Fekola Von, I think he's

9:47

more than earned the far right label at this

9:49

stage. but there is tendency to

9:51

rush to labels. And

9:54

anyone who says, hold on a second, all

9:56

of a sudden becomes this sort

9:58

of advocate for the far right of somebody who's

9:59

asleep at the wheel. And I think

10:02

that, you know, one of the what I'm much more

10:04

interested in is an analysis,

10:06

I suppose, both from within and

10:08

without as to why traditional center and

10:10

center left parties have

10:12

very clearly lost touch

10:14

with a lot of the people who once

10:16

would have four of them. I mean, for

10:18

instance, have they become cold

10:20

houses for traditionalists? Have

10:22

the, I suppose, globalist, free

10:24

trade kind of ideals that they typically

10:26

for Sue, which, well, may have won the audits

10:28

at one level, have they failed the

10:30

people on the ground?

10:33

I'm more interested in that sort

10:35

of analysis when you label

10:37

a politician as

10:39

far right or fascist. The

10:41

reality is, you're not in a way just

10:43

labeling her or him. You are

10:45

also labeling the people who

10:47

voted for her or him. And

10:49

when you do, you play into the

10:51

very hands of that politician in

10:53

the sense that they can say to these

10:55

people who are already agreed, who are

10:57

already angry, they wouldn't have made the choice that

10:59

the ballot that they did, if they weren't

11:01

already agreed and angry. They can say to

11:03

them, look at what the elites say

11:05

about you now. They say you're a

11:07

fascist. They say you're far right. You're

11:09

playing in to their hands. So I think that's

11:11

a mistake and a mood to economics. It

11:13

gives me cause for concern. And we

11:15

saw this very much with Donald

11:17

Trump, you know. And and again, Donald

11:19

Trump, I I wouldn't I would have argued against those

11:21

and said he was far right. I think at

11:23

this stage, I moved my

11:25

position on that. I think January sixth

11:27

played a very big role in that. I think

11:29

especially as John defines far right. I think

11:31

January sixth very much comports with that

11:33

definition.

11:34

ballot is up to congress to confront

11:37

this egregious assault

11:39

on our democracy. And

11:41

after this, we're gonna walk down and

11:43

I'll be there with you. We're gonna

11:45

walk down.

11:48

We're gonna walk down. anyone

11:50

you want, but I think right here, we're gonna

11:52

walk down to the capital.

11:54

But certainly, the very same

11:57

factors that led to the rise of these people

11:59

in Europe.

11:59

those are the very same factors that led to the rise of

12:02

Donald Trump units. But

12:04

John,

12:04

do you want to respond to that?

12:06

Very often, when we

12:08

talk about if I are right,

12:11

we kind of assume that there is

12:13

this ever upward trajectory

12:15

in Europe that the far

12:17

right is on the rise again.

12:20

And

12:20

I'm not

12:21

so sure that that's the case. There

12:23

are as as much as we can point to

12:25

Italy and Sweden, we could

12:27

also, for example, point to Denmark where

12:29

the Danish People's Party

12:31

has lost a huge amount of support

12:34

in recent years. In

12:36

Germany, the alternative for Deutschland

12:38

emerged during the Eurozone

12:40

crisis really made hay

12:42

out of the migration

12:44

issue in twenty fifteen, but

12:46

has lost around substantially in

12:48

recent times. Remember Golden

12:51

Dawn in Greece, parties like

12:53

that, which

12:54

looks like they were going to become

12:56

really important political and

12:58

then faded over time.

13:00

But it's very far from an

13:02

even picture. And as Larry also

13:04

rightly says about the brothers visually,

13:07

although the jury is out, we really

13:09

won't know how they how

13:11

they may be positioned within

13:14

the far right spectrum until we see

13:16

actual decisions emerging from that

13:18

government. But it is true to

13:20

say that Maloney's rhetoric

13:22

has moderated

13:24

over time in exactly the same

13:26

way that marine depends rat

13:28

rate moderated over time in

13:30

France. And that's part of the politics of

13:32

it. I I don't want to go negivist, Larry,

13:35

but you might bring us back to

13:37

what you're seeing here in

13:39

Ireland. We we see a lot of stuff on social

13:41

media that arguments

13:43

around FireEye, but we've never had

13:45

a situation like we have initially

13:47

Sweden where there's been

13:49

any sort of a breakthrough by further to

13:51

the right of central parties at

13:53

making any sort of breakthrough. So is

13:55

there a Is there room for

13:57

them here? I mean, if you look

13:59

at

13:59

their failures, now I would argue their

14:02

object failures at the at the ballot

14:04

box, it's

14:04

hard to see a root for them.

14:06

Now does that mean that we shouldn't be

14:08

vigilant about the potential for them

14:10

to rise No, it doesn't,

14:12

especially when we have a lot of challenges in

14:14

this country, which one would

14:16

think would be amenable to

14:18

somebody on the far right coming

14:20

through. All we have to do is look

14:22

at the housing shortage and the housing

14:24

prices as one potential

14:26

angle there. And again, one of the things

14:28

I've argued in the past about why this

14:30

hasn't come to pass is if you look at

14:32

the far right and again, this distinguishing

14:35

the far right from conservatism. The

14:37

far right, one of the things that, you know, that

14:39

lynchpin has always been to

14:41

play to racial hatred, to play to anti immigrant

14:44

sentiment. The reality is

14:46

because of this country's past,

14:48

I think that the people here

14:51

are inherently resistant

14:53

to that line of thinking. Again, people Irish

14:55

people have immigrated all over the world met

14:57

a lot of resistance at first met a lot of hostility

15:00

and discrimination and have done very

15:02

well. So I think that that inherently

15:04

makes us resistant, does

15:06

it make this country

15:08

immune to it? No, I don't

15:10

think so. But I think so,

15:12

again, I think it's a balance between remaining

15:14

vigilance on that front. But are a lot

15:16

of different realities submitting militate

15:19

against the rise of

15:21

the far right in this country. The

15:23

history of immigration is one big

15:25

one. the electoral system,

15:27

that certainly doesn't help

15:29

candidates on the far right who are

15:31

trying to get involved. So there are a host of

15:33

different reasons. I think we need to be bragge before.

15:35

The other thing I

15:38

just would point out is

15:40

that, you know, in terms of of the rise of

15:42

populism, of talk to us, parties. We know

15:44

now, Ocean Bank is the most popular political

15:46

party in Ireland. And to its

15:48

credit, it never really has played.

15:51

to anti immigrant or any of

15:53

those other sort of sentiments that are bubbling

15:55

out there. There's no question they are bubbling out

15:57

there. But there may be attention at

15:59

some state because if you

16:01

look at people, a lot of shooting bids

16:03

for a vote, and you look at their

16:05

answers to polling on questions around direct

16:07

provision and immigration more generally, They

16:09

tend to skew quite a bit

16:11

to the right and further to the

16:13

right of the centrist, big beasts

16:15

in Irish politics how that

16:18

tension is going to play itself out?

16:20

When should pain this in government

16:22

is going to be very, very interesting.

16:24

Why? Yeah. I

16:26

think champagne would traditionally have

16:28

been more towards a socialist party

16:30

than than than that

16:33

sort of thing. So is it a case,

16:35

Larry, maybe dash, people

16:37

Irish voters in the polls kind of

16:39

reflect this. they have somewhere to go

16:41

if they're angry, Shenvane, have never been

16:43

in power, the

16:46

issues around housing, things like

16:48

that. there is somewhere for angry

16:50

people to go. Is that part of the reason

16:52

maybe why some other parties haven't

16:54

gained traction in the way that they have in in

16:56

European countries? Yeah. I

16:58

think that's true. I think that's a big part

17:00

of it. There's also another

17:02

issue that I think is to the fore here in the

17:04

sense that one of the big ingredients

17:06

that the far right was able to has been able to

17:08

take advantage of is economic

17:10

displacement through the rise of

17:12

technology globalization. I understand this kind of

17:14

unique in the sense that, you know, we've always

17:16

had a small magnitude, a small

17:18

manufacturing sector. And

17:20

if anything, technology and

17:22

globalization have been boons to

17:24

those sectors and have been boons more

17:26

generally to the economy. So

17:28

you know, that again also, I

17:30

think, mutates against it, but that

17:33

tension within shipping will be fascinating

17:35

one. But the Twitter and Facebooks

17:37

and Googles of this world, Larry,

17:39

have been good to our economy. They have

17:41

also been good to those

17:43

whose opinions may not get reported

17:46

in the inverted commas mainstream

17:48

or establishment media, haven't they? And that

17:50

is where we see a lot of the angst

17:53

and the extreme views taking hold even here in

17:55

Ireland. Yeah. There's no question that social

17:57

media is a, you know, a vehicle

17:59

for for those kind of

18:02

messages groups around the world. I think

18:04

perhaps particularly in the United States, but

18:06

also in places like Germany and

18:08

elsewhere use these you know, these sites

18:10

to, I suppose, expand their

18:12

messages and expand their

18:14

audience and grow their memberships So

18:17

that's again going to be one of the

18:19

tricky things is, you know,

18:21

what's what's legitimate to have on

18:23

social media? How do those

18:25

various meetings police? the content that's

18:27

on there. And I suppose that's gonna be an

18:29

ongoing challenger. One of the things that that

18:31

surfaces in that, Kevin, is a real big

18:33

distinction between and again, these are

18:35

mostly American based technology

18:37

companies with social media sites

18:39

and a a view in terms

18:41

of what's acceptable to

18:43

feature on those sites versus what's

18:45

not acceptable. and there different

18:47

perspective on that in the United States because

18:49

of the first amendment versus

18:51

what's acceptable here in Europe. So again,

18:53

social media has been a blessing

18:56

in many respects to the far right. And John, I

18:58

know you're based in Bulgaria at

19:00

the moment. What do you see there?

19:03

And Are

19:04

we kind

19:06

of versus what you see, I suppose, in

19:08

in Eastern Europe versus what we see in Ireland?

19:10

Is are we could we be complacent?

19:12

Could it sleep in here in the way that

19:14

it has in many Eastern European countries.

19:16

Well, I I think, you

19:18

know, Austin, we're

19:21

guilty about thinking about Eastern

19:23

Europe as being a place apart.

19:25

Actually, it isn't in respect of the far

19:27

right, the most popular and

19:29

entrenched far right in

19:31

Europe are actually based in wealthy and

19:34

successful northern and western Europe. I'm

19:36

thinking of the national

19:38

rally in France, which has been

19:40

around for decades. Even

19:42

in countries like Switzerland,

19:44

the Swiss People's Party, again,

19:46

is a very big player in

19:48

politics, and we've mentioned Sweden and

19:50

Denmark and

19:51

elsewhere. In

19:54

Eastern Europe, there is certainly

19:56

a far right presence, but we've

19:58

also seen defeats in recent

19:59

times sport for

20:01

the far right

20:02

parties in Slovenia. In Bulgaria,

20:04

we had a far right party called Attakka,

20:07

which is virtually disappeared. We

20:09

now have another one that just got ten percent of the

20:12

vote in the recent election,

20:13

but they're a long, long

20:15

way from really having traction

20:18

at ballot box. But just to complete

20:20

something that Larry

20:23

said, Kevin, about social

20:26

media. I think a lot of people are terrified at

20:28

the prospect of Elon Musk

20:30

taking over Twitter. And the reason

20:32

for that is he seems to be

20:35

saying, well, anything goes where a free

20:37

speech is concerned. He's threatening

20:39

to hello Donald Trump back on

20:41

to Twitter. People will have

20:43

observed what he's had to say about

20:45

Ukraine and Russia in recent times,

20:47

the allegation that he was almost taking

20:50

instructions from Russia, which hasn't

20:52

been proved, but enough

20:54

evidence in the public domain to suggest

20:56

that Twitter might become a

20:58

a much bigger problem

21:00

for democracy and projects and balances

21:03

when

21:03

if and when Musk takes over the company.

21:05

Mike Hanks to John O'

21:07

Brennan and Larry Donnelly. I'm

21:10

Kevin Doyle, and today's episode of the

21:12

indoor daily was produced by Mary

21:14

Carol with sound by Gavin Hennessy.

21:16

Archive clips were from BBC,

21:18

Channel four, CNN, France twenty four,

21:20

an independent Dahi. If you enjoy

21:22

the indoor daily, don't forget to

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like follow, and leave us a review, and you can find

21:27

more of our award winning journalism at

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