right parties think they are on a roll. French, German, Dutch and other rightist parties from around the continent gathered on Saturday in the German city of Koblenz to spew their racist and Islamophobic bile. Their nationalism leads them all to condemn the European Union and to demand a return of large measures of political control from Brussels. This is little more than shorthand for taking back authority over their own borders, with the clear intention of banning further migrant movement. They have been inspired by Brexit and heartened by the overtly nationalist, "America First" policies of President Trump. Interestingly though, the British UK Independence party stayed away from the Koblenz gathering. UKIP exploited British despair at Brussels bureaucracy and diktats as much as fear over uncontrolled immigration. Indeed the UK has been far from generous in the number of refugees it has accepted from the Syrian conflict. Prime Minister Theresa May has since sought to move the emphasis from immigration to economic independence. Interestingly some of the racist Alternatif fur Deutschland activists also stayed away from the weekend meeting. Their reason was that they disapprove of the socialist policies of Marine Le Pen's National Front. Le Pen herself laughed this off by saying that France had always been a bit more socialist than Germany. However, this was to overlook that fact that the full name of Hitler's Nazi creation was the German National Socialist Workers Party. In as much as he did anything to the German economy other than prepare for war, Hitler slashed post-Depression unemployment with vast and costly infrastructure projects, which included the construction of the country's autobahn network. His economic advisers warned that the pace of investment was unsustainable, but the economic collapse of Nazi Germany never came about because instead the murderous regime was ultimately destroyed by war. The greater inspiration for the neo-Fascists comes from Donald Trump, who with characteristic bombast has made no secret of his contempt for the EU. This inspiration extended to turning on unfriendly media in the Trump manner. At Koblenz a number of reporters were banned for failing, in the words of the organizers, "to meet journalistic standards in past reporting". The weekend was characterized by hatred. But the hates clearly differed. Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders made a speech in which he described himself as a "friend of Israel". The silence that suddenly filled the meeting hall caused even the normally confident Wilders to miss a beat. The temptation to dismiss this collection of racist bigots as a joke is considerable but must be resisted. Certainly in France and possibly in the Netherlands, these people are dangerously close to power. They already form a vocal bloc in the European parliament calling themselves the ‘Europe of Nations and Freedoms Alliance'. They are riding the twin issues of immigration and economic decline. Germany may still be prospering but France remains in trouble having paid itself too much for doing too little for too long. Rowing back on ruinous health and welfare policies will cause real hardship and play into the political hands of the Le Pen's National Front. In Germany the migrant issue is to the fore with rightists using every terrorist or plain criminal attack to boost their Islamophobic rhetoric. Koblenz should be seen as a clear warning that ugly, dangerous forces are once again gathering in Europe.
