The paradox of the European Union could not be greater: instead of giving rise to a Europeanist politics, of cross-border tolerance and cosmopolitan liberal values, it has become a breeding ground for a visceral extreme right-wing nationalism.
But contrary to what one might think, this ultra-populist nationalism does not seek to correct the loss of parliamentary sovereignty of their respective nations implicit in the EU project, especially for countries within the euro zone. Quite the opposite. Aware that you cannot follow the path of British Brexit populism and leave the EU, the European nationalist right has focused its attacks on the so-called culture wars, superficial identity politics in areas such as gender, feminism and ethnic minority rights.
These are the ideas put forward in a new book being discussed at conferences across the UK, entitled "Taking control", by a group of academics from leading University of London institutions such as University College and the London School of Economics ( LSE).
They are all defenders of the possibilities created by Brexit to adopt alternative policies with a strong democratic mandate.
"Hard right populism prefers a culture war to challenging the EU and its treaties that encapsulate what could be termed neoliberal policies: free movement of capital, goods and labour," said Peter Ramsey, an expert in law from the LSE, in an interview after the book was launched at the Liverpool Athenaeum earlier this month. "They complain about the EU -'We are not going to accept it! Never!'-, they insist, but when it comes down to it, they accept the decision of the technocrats."
It is a perfectly acceptable arrangement for the EU project which, far from being the construction of a super-state capable of smoothing out the imbalances in the European economy, is limited to moving economic and social policy decisions away from national parliaments.
This fulfills the primary objective of the union: to advance economic liberalization to facilitate the movement of capital, goods and labor, according to the interests of powerful multinational corporations. If, in order to save this increasingly questioned neoliberal project, it is necessary to convert national politics into a space for culture wars, variegated with flags, so be it.
Hence, Ramsey and his co-authors portray an extremist and populist right that serves as an alibi for the EU's economic project of transferring sovereignty from national parliaments to Brussels and Frankfurt. "No matter how nationalistic they want to appear either in Madrid or in Budapest, they cannot act in defense of national economic priorities because that is strictly prohibited," says Ramsey.
Even in the area of immigration, xenophobia must be reconciled with the imperative of free movement of labor within the EU. In the UK, the Brexit debate touched on issues such as trade union rights for foreign workers and the importance of collective agreements in areas of free movement of labour. For the European nationalist right, all that remains is to promote the erection of walls on the borders of the EU.
"They talk about the nation and how it has been attacked by globalists, but they are not willing to build an agenda that defends national sovereignty and therefore end up targeting immigrants and minorities; culture war is a substitute for a claim to true national sovereignty," says Ramsey.
Since revisionist nostalgia for authoritarian regimes of the past is part of these culture wars in countries like Spain and Italy, the initial reasons for these countries joining the EU 30 or 40 years ago have been amazingly reversed: the consolidation of democracy.
Soon, the paradoxical culmination of this process may be reached, says Ramsey: "All European institutions may fall into the hands of the national populist right."
A European project led by the ultranationalism of the member countries is not as contradictory as it may seem, he continues: "The EU does not pretend to be a superstate; what it has done is move the place in which national governments make decisions from parliaments , where they must answer to the voters, to closed-door meetings of the councils of ministers".
In this sense, "it is just a mechanism so that the powers in the member states can bypass the democratic processes; if things go wrong, it is easy to blame Europe when in fact they themselves made the decisions in the council of ministers in closed-door rooms".
The misrepresentation of Brexit in the political debate in countries like Spain is another component of this unnatural but symbiotic relationship between the EU and the nationalist extreme right.
While in electoral campaigns in Europe, the left often points to Brexit as an example of the dangers of ultra nationalism, the reality is different, according to the authors of "Taking Control".
The UK's departure from the EU has created a favorable political environment for political forces that are willing to seize the opportunity to regain popular sovereignty in social and economic areas. This creates more opportunities for a party interested in deepening democracy and breaking with the already questioned neoliberal order than with the extreme right. "At the moment neither the Conservatives nor Labor want to seize the moment, but the opportunity exists," Ramsey said.
