'A Warning From Europe on Why Keir Starmer's 'Blue Labour' Strategy Is Such a Dangerous Dead End'
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"Nations depend on rules, fair rules. Sometimes they're written down, often they're not. But either way they give shape to our values, guide us to our rights of course, but also to our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to each other. Now in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them we risk becoming an island of strangers".
This speech, made by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month, marked the moment when it became clear that the Labour Party leadership believes Reform UK is now the main obstacle to its reelection in four years time. With the Conservatives as their main opponents, Labour could always point to 14 years of decline in order to see off criticism, but Reform have never held power, so the Government, reportedly acting on the advice of Morgan McSweeney, has decided to instead mimic Reform UK in an attempt to defeat it.
This predicament, of a mainstream political party panicking at vote losses to the radical right, is not new. Indeed it is a story that has been replicated across most of Europe over the last decade. Byline Times spoke to four European-based political experts to discuss what happened on the continent when other centrist politicians decided that the path to defeating the far right lay in copying them.
Reform-Led Kent Council Cancels Swathes of Meetings Amid Claims They 'Don't Know What They're Doing'
Nigel Farage's party accused of running a "decision-free" administration, after being forced to scrap a third of its upcoming scheduled meetings
Josiah Mortimer
France
Macronism was never particularly popular, achieving just 24% in the first round of the presidential election. For a long time French politics has been split between three blocs; left, "centre" and far right since 2017. This meant Macron's electoral strategy has been one of "en meme temps" (at the same time) as he put it during his 2017 campaign. According to Ugo Palheta, a lecturer at the University of Lille and author of the forthcoming Why Fascism is on the Rise in France, "In Macron's first campaign in 2017, he was pretty liberal - on immigration, but also on Islam and Muslims" he had not yet started using the far right language of 'islamo-leftism', 'immigrationism', 'de-civilisation' that he would go on to pick up later.
But, "in 2017 when he became president he understood that his electoral and social base […] was very narrow and to stabilise his power he would have to expand his electorate and go on the right wing. Because Francois Fillon, the candidate of the traditional right got 20% with very radical right positions".
This "post-Sarkozyist" turn for Macron was consistent with his program of cutting public spending. Palheta says that Macron has presided over a process of "fascistisation" and that his presidency has largely been characterised by a "hardening of the state", in "terms of police repression of [protests], preventing the National Assembly from voting on certain things notably about pensions, and a series of laws around immigration, Islam and Muslims' rights".
These laws include the ending of birthright citizenship in Mayotte, the French overseas territory (with a further hardening to come), the botched attempt to introduce national preference, meaning only French citizens could access certain forms of welfare - including non-emergency healthcare and the 'seperatism law' which gave the state significant power to dissolve religious organisations and civil society groups if they did not sufficiently "respect the principles of the republic". Critics such as the Human Rights League say the seperatism law has been used to dissolve and deprive of funds, groups that op...
For digital and print editions, packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, features, and columns….
SUBSCRIBE
"Nations depend on rules, fair rules. Sometimes they're written down, often they're not. But either way they give shape to our values, guide us to our rights of course, but also to our responsibilities, the obligations we owe to each other. Now in a diverse nation like ours, and I celebrate that, these rules become even more important. Without them we risk becoming an island of strangers".
This speech, made by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last month, marked the moment when it became clear that the Labour Party leadership believes Reform UK is now the main obstacle to its reelection in four years time. With the Conservatives as their main opponents, Labour could always point to 14 years of decline in order to see off criticism, but Reform have never held power, so the Government, reportedly acting on the advice of Morgan McSweeney, has decided to instead mimic Reform UK in an attempt to defeat it.
This predicament, of a mainstream political party panicking at vote losses to the radical right, is not new. Indeed it is a story that has been replicated across most of Europe over the last decade. Byline Times spoke to four European-based political experts to discuss what happened on the continent when other centrist politicians decided that the path to defeating the far right lay in copying them.
Reform-Led Kent Council Cancels Swathes of Meetings Amid Claims They 'Don't Know What They're Doing'
Nigel Farage's party accused of running a "decision-free" administration, after being forced to scrap a third of its upcoming scheduled meetings
Josiah Mortimer
France
Macronism was never particularly popular, achieving just 24% in the first round of the presidential election. For a long time French politics has been split between three blocs; left, "centre" and far right since 2017. This meant Macron's electoral strategy has been one of "en meme temps" (at the same time) as he put it during his 2017 campaign. According to Ugo Palheta, a lecturer at the University of Lille and author of the forthcoming Why Fascism is on the Rise in France, "In Macron's first campaign in 2017, he was pretty liberal - on immigration, but also on Islam and Muslims" he had not yet started using the far right language of 'islamo-leftism', 'immigrationism', 'de-civilisation' that he would go on to pick up later.
But, "in 2017 when he became president he understood that his electoral and social base […] was very narrow and to stabilise his power he would have to expand his electorate and go on the right wing. Because Francois Fillon, the candidate of the traditional right got 20% with very radical right positions".
This "post-Sarkozyist" turn for Macron was consistent with his program of cutting public spending. Palheta says that Macron has presided over a process of "fascistisation" and that his presidency has largely been characterised by a "hardening of the state", in "terms of police repression of [protests], preventing the National Assembly from voting on certain things notably about pensions, and a series of laws around immigration, Islam and Muslims' rights".
These laws include the ending of birthright citizenship in Mayotte, the French overseas territory (with a further hardening to come), the botched attempt to introduce national preference, meaning only French citizens could access certain forms of welfare - including non-emergency healthcare and the 'seperatism law' which gave the state significant power to dissolve religious organisations and civil society groups if they did not sufficiently "respect the principles of the republic". Critics such as the Human Rights League say the seperatism law has been used to dissolve and deprive of funds, groups that op...
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