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So EU parlimentary elections just finished.
a)Not much changes overall. Green losing, conservatives and far right gaining some but not much.
b)Snap elections in France as result of Macrons party loses.
c)Poland as always not sending their brightiest people. There are high chances our prosection office will ask to lift immunity of some MPs as they are investigated for corruption/fraud and only run away to EU for safety. Funninly enough (but not surprisingly) they are from the party which hates EU.
Results: https://results.elections.europa.eu/en/
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This was the first election, where placing my vote was actually a hard decision.
On the one hand, most of the austrian politicians were/are garbage. Personally, and message wise.
On the other hand, all they do is follow block voteing ditectives anyway, so you had to weigh the history of european votes aswell.
Made it an utter nightmare.
Of course in austria the far right party won the election by a few percent, which isnt surprising. Our government parties shat the bed last three years, and the remaining opposition was busy infighting. The far right being the only party to have a very clear and understandable position on eu (eu bad) collected all the low hanging fruit votes.
Sometimes if feels like the eu mandates are a parking spot for talented, but disliked by the party leadership, politcians.
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The snap french elections are going to be interesting, it'll be the moment to see if Macron's efforts to legitimize the far right and crush the left were successful. My guess is Glucksmann will side with Macron rather than the left so he has a good shot at achieving his goal, but it's also quite early in the process to be doing this, a lot could go wrong.
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On June 10 2024 19:27 Branch.AUT wrote:
This was the first election, where placing my vote was actually a hard decision.
On the one hand, most of the austrian politicians were/are garbage. Personally, and message wise.
On the other hand, all they do is follow block voteing ditectives anyway, so you had to weigh the history of european votes aswell.
Made it an utter nightmare.
Of course in austria the far right party won the election by a few percent, which isnt surprising. Our government parties shat the bed last three years, and the remaining opposition was busy infighting. The far right being the only party to have a very clear and understandable position on eu (eu bad) collected all the low hanging fruit votes.
Sometimes if feels like the eu mandates are a parking spot for talented, but disliked by the party leadership, politcians.
Or people who shit the bed back home  Irene Montero, the leader for Podemos, was the minister for equality in the previous government. She pushed through the "sólo sí es sí" law, which at face value made a lot of sense, and seemed like it'd be good legislation for gender equality. However, it allowed hundreds of convicted rapists (some quite high-profile violent serial rapists) to obtain significant sentence reductions. The immediate effect was rebellion within her own party, with Sumar splitting off (they were already unhappy with Podemos leadership for a variety of reasons, so this was more the proverbial straw than the only cause for this, but still, it was a straw). Podemos got decimated in national elections, and now their apparent solution is to send Irene Montero to Brussels and hope their next leader is more popular in Spain.
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On June 11 2024 01:45 Nebuchad wrote:
The snap french elections are going to be interesting, it'll be the moment to see if Macron's efforts to legitimize the far right and crush the left were successful. My guess is Glucksmann will side with Macron rather than the left so he has a good shot at achieving his goal, but it's also quite early in the process to be doing this, a lot could go wrong.
the ongoing trainwreck with Ciotti is entertaining at least, it was only a matter of time that LR would split between RN and Macron but the way it s happening is farcical. He locked the gate and the VP had to go look for the double and reopen the doors lol
PS vs NUPES and LFI "leadership" also a wreck, likely gonna end in a fractured 4 block parliament (new NUPES - PS not in NUPES, Marcon et al, RN/right of LR) and some independents here and there.
Overall very hard to call though and a huge mess
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I hope you all can forgive my ignorance, but as an outside observer, I have a question:
My impression loosely following Euro politics for the last few years is that "immigration" has been slowly changing from "just some right wing fear bait" to "more and more people view the current immigration situation as problematic". I can't really comment on whether or not the fears/concerns are legitimate or reasonable because I don't know enough about it. But as an outsider, my impression is that slowly but surely, more and more people are switching from "European immigration situation is ok" to "European immigration situation is not ok". It seems like the polls are only ever trending in one direction, against the current immigration policies in various European countries.
Every time I see some poll or event discussed in a European-focused Subreddit, like a European country etc, it appears as though people are largely saying stuff like "wow, a lot of people sure are idiots". Its like people in favor of existing immigration policies can't even imagine what dynamics are making more and more people skeptical of existing immigration policies.
To me, it feels like the left wing in Europe is making themselves vulnerable by "sticking to their guns" and not really addressing why many Europeans are getting more and more skeptical of immigration policies. I am assuming even if the events are rare, some events regarding immigrants end up scaring people and making them skeptical. And each time these happen, the left wing loses a few voters. So after this happening enough times, even if it isn't reasonable, the left is losing a lot of voters.
When I read interviews and whatnot, it feels like left wing politicians are not even willing to consider why people are getting skeptical/concerned regarding immigration. Its like a conscious decision to be principled rather than engage with the frustration. It feels disconnected and condescending. I don't want politicians to just pass xenophobic laws and pander to every racist in the world. By no means am I saying they should ignore their beliefs in favor of polls. But it feels like it goes further than that, where there isn't even really any engagement with the issue. I am having a hard time describing this dynamic, but hopefully those of you living in European countries recognize what I am trying to describe. So my question is: Even understanding Russia does their best to prop up far right Euro politicians, it feels like there must be some kinda actual trend going on with how much the polls have shifted over the years. Is there some kind of negative situation regarding immigration that is misunderstood or something? Or is it truly entirely fabricated?
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Most EU countries need more immigration to keep their economies going. They aren't as dynamic as those in the US.
There isn't any more immigration now than in the past. And it isn't causing actual real live problems for real people.
When people say 'immigration', they actually mean asylum seekers from war torn regions or very poor countries. Those arrive in Greece and Italy. And then want to flee to UK, Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavian countries. There is no solution here. These immigrants should be allowed to apply for immigration, and then be spread fairly across all EU countries. But countries like Poland and Hungary don't want them. And those people would rather not go to these countries either. So countries like France, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany feel they unfairly get immigrants that either should stay in Italy or Greece, or go to Poland & Hungary.
So everyone just tries to stop them. First at the external EU border. So these people try to cross the Mediterranean in boats. And then these don't apply for immigration there, but thy to go further, across the Balkans and the Alps. So politicians in those western countries try to make their immigration laws as strict as possible, so immigrants go to their neighboring country instead. And then countries like Greece get stuck with many of them anyway. So they order their border guards to shoot at the immigrants, or to push back their boats so they drown.
And then it turns out many of the immigrants do not come from war torn countries. But from poor countries in Africa. And those are supposed to return. But the country of origin doesn't want to take them back. Which is why you get this crazy plan that the UK had to house them in Rwanda.
In the mean time, far right politicians have voters hoodwinged into thinking that the houses they didn't build the last 10 years, because they decided to liberalize the housing market, or the prices that went up, which happened because of covid, or anything else, is caused by too many immigrants.
So no, it is not entirely fabricated. Because there is no functional immigration policy.
It is also not true that the left wing has never raised issues around immigration. They often have. Especially labour immigration. Which is what the right wing usually wants to fully allow.
The more chaos right wing parties can create around immigration, the more they can campaign on it, and the more voters they will get. So it is exactly the same as in the US.
Another difference is that Europeans are probably more racist than Americans. The immigrant-native distinction is extremely strong. Where in the US, almost everyone is a migrant. And the only question is how many generations ago their ancestors came over. Immigrants are expected to abandon most of the culture of their ancestors and to fully assimilate.
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Norway28678 Posts
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Immigration issues in US and Europe aren't really comparable, IMO. European nations allow a larger number of refugees & 'fake' refugees who often don't integrate particularly well nor even have any desire to integrate; it's not just a right-wing talking point that there exist entire communities of people from Middle East & Africa that have no real desire to learn the local language or get proper jobs etc and instead subsist on government handouts; it also isn't just a right-wing talking point that immigrants are responsible for a large chunk of crimes and general instability in certain places, like if you look at I don't know, Malmo in Sweden or Bradford in the UK, it's an objective fact that immigrants are responsible for some very serious issues in those cities.
Of course, the real solution to this would be providing better education / cultural assimilation programs, not shouting 'DoWn WiTh Da ImMiGrAnTz!!!' but it's absolutely true that there are serious deficiencies in immigration policy of the European Union that aren't easily solvable and frankly at times it don't even seem like there's any real will to solve those issues.
The US is comparatively more 'picky' into who they allow across the border, they barely take in any refugees, and the only significant stream of illegal immigration comes from Spanish-speaking Mexico where they are able to at least integrate with already existing majority-Hispanic enclaves in the US and thus don't have nearly as much of a destabilizing effect, plus 'the dream' for most of those illegals is to get their children legalized and into proper jobs / education eventually, rather than living in council housing receiving unemployment & child benefits forever, at least partly because unemployment & child benefits aren't exactly sufficient for a decent lifestyle there as opposed to the EU.
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A big part is that previously immigration was handled extremely poorly.
For anyone old enough to grow up in the 80s it's laughable to say that there hasn't been massive immigration over time. Demographics are very different from before.
But many of the previous immigration waves integrated well because of either coming for work or having shared political or cultural values and some education. Like south americans and iranians fleeing oppression or greeks/turks looking for work or war refuges from the balkans.
So there was an assumption that it just works if we only take them in.
But it turns out that most jobs for unqualified workers have been purposly eliminated (you need special education for working as a cleaner) and many middle eastern and north african refuges don't have any education at all.
Most were also just "dumped" in the same neighborhoods and combined with much bigger cultural differences that lead to a complete failure of integration. Which in turn leads to reliance on welfare and crime.
Much of this (but not all of it) were caused by left wing governments having abandonded their past policies on very strict immigration. And they still refuse to admit they made massive misstakes. So both older voters and new voters have problems with them (older generations don't recognize their prefered party anymore, new ones only associate them with problems).
I have lives in one area with massive mixed "good" immigration and one completely failed one and the difference is massive. Like drugs being sold openly and almost no kids having even passable grades compared to no problems and very good grades.
This is with a similar proportion of immigrants and still being a "poor" area in both cities.
Also the cultural resistance to integration is a thing and people are getting tried of people refusing to integrate at all after being citizens for 15 years (like still not speaking even a little of the language).
Or are less likely to overlook fundamental value differences like when you see women treated like property.
So basically left wind governments fucked up and still often refuse to take responsibility and people are tired now.
But yes, many people still live in a bubble and are unaffected but it's getting harder. People tend to move when their kids start school (before that you won't notice anything) and good places to "flee" are getting exspensive.
Also go work in a place that treats an even cut of the population (like healthcare) and you will see how it is, both the good and the bad.
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Well, yes there is definitely an issue about integration of people with migrant backgrounds. But that is an entirely different issue than immigration right now. Like 50 years ago, the first labor immigrants were expected to return. But they often stayed. And they had no education, sometimes couldn't even read and write. And just like in the US, people with the same cultural background often end up living in the same neighborhoods. And as a result, many European cities have poor neighborhoods with mostly people with a migrant background. There is a lot of segregation. And some cultural backgrounds do much better than others. The governments, be them left wing or right wing, never did anything to help these people.
So if you are a poor native, you try to earn enough money to move out of that neighborhood. In that way, you also get schools where almost all kids have an immigration background. And as a native European, you don't want your kid on a school that is more than 50% non-native Europeans.
Social mobility of people with a migratory background is probably way lower in Europe than in the US. But I am not sure if this is accurate. At least that is the perception. Best example is that of Asian-Americans doing quite well.
Then at some point this issue of immigration was raised, mostly by populist right wing politicians. And they framed it as it it was the fault of the social democrats. But in reality, it was the fault of the liberals and Christian conservatives as well.
Ever since, people have talked about government policies to help new immigrants. And basically that hasn't amounted to much.
But in reality the parts of Europe that are most anti-immigrant are the areas where most people are natives. With like zero immigrants from 50 to 30 years ago. And maybe a small number in the last 20 years.
In the end, it is a lot of racism. Watch people comment on how their country's football squat isn't truly theirs because it has too many coloured people in it. The English fans boo'ed their own squad for years over taking the knee in support of George Floyd & Kaepernick. These types of people are mad that when they go out in their own little city, they hear people speak languages they can't understand. And especially Muslim woman in veils upset people. What is probably even more upsetting to them is to see young coloured people be more financially successful than they are. Poor native people here are really bitter about say educated immigrants from say India. Or if they see the daughter of a Moroccan or Turkish immigrant, that wears lipstick & scarf and is a corporate lawyer or works in finance. These lower class natives feel there has been a left wing government that gave these immigrants free handouts aka their money.
The main difference with the US is that there are larger social safety nets aka welfare state. And immigrants get to use these too. Where the US has mostly very hard-working immigrants who can take care of themselves. Europe also has a lot of war refugees. From wars the US started. Thanks for that btw. You can imagine having traumatized uneducated people being much more of a burden. Which is why I actually do not understand why Europe doesn't want subSaharan Africans that are so desperate for a better life they literally risk themselves drowning, just to get to Europe and somehow live as an illegal immigrant.
But minimum wage is also a difference. The US has this tradition of very lowly paid jobs. Like someone packing your groceries into a plastic bag at the supermarket. Or some guy offering services in a high rise. In Europe, usually it is best to completely eliminate these jobs. There therefore is no real cheap labour. Which is both good and bad. I have lived in NA and you can definitely see the positive effect of having access to very cheap labour. But it was also odd to go to a supermarket, and watch 3 people very slowly restock the shelves, casually talking and having a big debate over how to do it. When in Europe, we use kids who earn below minimum wage doing that job. And they do it very quickly and efficiently.
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Young generations are getting screwed over, wage stagnation, inflation, growing wealth inequality, housing crisis, energy crisis, you name it. The far right convinces them its because of immigrants and grows and grows. And because existing political parties try to keep the far right out of government (often for good reason) they get to keep growing because they get to keep making promises they can't keep and don't have to deliver.
Then when they finally get big enough to take power they fail and voters leave for the next party.
There are certainly problems around illegal immigration, and to often those problems are ignored by the more left wing parties. But, imo, the main rise of the right isn't tied to immigration itself, but to the larger social and economic problems of late stage capitalism and the younger generations being affected by it looking for anything that promises to help them.
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There is a huge generational war in western Europe that people do not talk about at all. The older voters and the media keep pressuring politicians to take more money away from the younger generation, and give it to the old. It will be a huge problem soon. The younger generation is basically being eliminated from the voting process. We have Extinction Rebellion protests right now. But in 10 years or so, I wouldn't be surprised it gets violent. Like with the RAF days. Even if all young people vote, and they vote for a single party just there for their rights, they would still get screwed. The older generation is getting so selfish, the younger generation is literally being excluded from the political process.
But that's a different story.
Yes, right wing parties keep moving more to the right to try to keep the far right small. But it isn't working.
It is actually because the economy is so good that part of the electorate can afford to vote for the far right. Just like when the left is rich, they can vote on climate change, LGHBTQ+ rights and foreign policy. Instead of traditional working class themes like wages, employment rights, pensions, progressive taxation, social policies, etc. In the same way, when the economy is as good as it is right now, people on the right get to vote for racism. And these are exactly the people that would switch from social democrat straight away to the far right. They can now go on two airline holidays a year. So they get to vote on ideology. And then they vote anti-immigrant.
While neoliberalism and globalization has left some people behind, the anti-immigrant vote is actually one of luxury. If there is an economic crisis, you will see people starting to vote more conservative, to traditional parties that those voters believe are in their economic interests. If you have a hard time with table kitchen issues, you don't decide to throw a brick through the window of politics.
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The two posts above are perfect examples on why these parties are growing.
"I have a problem with immigration".
"No actually you don't, you have a problem with [long winded explanation that basically boils down to voters being idiots]."
There are a lot of different reasons to vote against immigration and most people have their own story behind it. The uniting factor is that other parties won't adress the issue seriously.
Also I wouldn't say these parties have no impact. Their succes alone have forced massive shifts in policies and politics within the entire EU.
Most people realise that the party you voted for doesn't have to be in power go change things. In fact many are probably happy about it since they don't agree with the right wing party on many other issues.
The election results are warning shot across the bow for other parties and it's seemingly very effective.
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If we are talking about problems on Polish-Belarussian border (and also Russo-Lithuaninan/Latvian/Estonian/Finish border) then Russian invasion of Ukraine changed perspective of many people and all European governments. They finnally realised this is part of hybrid warfare by Russia/Belarus and this changed both their perception and aproach.
This might be hard to understand to some but Poland has a war across its border. And illegal immigration is part of Russian/Belarussian efforts aimed at destabilization of Poland/EU. Belarussian government is involed in human trafficking. They are ferrying people from Minsk to border, their border guards are showing them way across the forests and helping avoiding detection.
Just a few days ago a polish soldier on the border died fataly stabbed by a trafficer. Few weeks ago a trafficer opened fire on border guards and then fled to Belarus, where he is safe and receiving help from FSB. MIgrants are making makeshift spears and trying to stab our border guards across the fence.
Since 2022 there are reports about FSB training spies and sabouters and hiding them among migrants. There are also rumours circulating about Kadyrovs men trying to cross border disguised as migrants.
Until Russia is defeted and war in Ukraine ends the situation on eastern EU border will be extremelly volatile.
The only party which support migration just suffered a crushing defeat in EU parlimentary election. Not suprsing really given the open Russian agression, spying, sabotage and state sponsored human trafficking.
We also have 4 milion Ukrainian migrants/refugees, skyrocketing prices of housing and living, draught and electricity production barelly able to fulfill demand. Not really a circumstances in which You want a lot of new people.
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On June 13 2024 20:30 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
The two posts above are perfect examples on why these parties are growing.
"I have a problem with immigration".
"No actually you don't, you have a problem with [long winded explanation that basically boils down to voters being idiots]."
I am saying the opposite. I am saying they are NOT idiots. When the economy is poor, they vote their economic interests. When the economy is good, they vote their values.
They are not idiots. They are racists.
Russia is pushing immigrants across the border because immigration makes voters vote for the far right. And the far right is proPutin. Because the war on woke and owning the libs is more important than anything else to them.
I actually think we need to start limiting immigration. Even if that hurts our economy. Because immigration is destroying our democracy. And not because we don't have housing, or can't afford the social services. No. We cannot take up this many immigrants because part of our electorate is simply too racist. They will support a fascist who promises to expel foreigners before they accept immigrants. And these may then come into power. And we only need fascists in power once to lose our democracy forever.
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I agree with CuddlyCuteKitten, trying to explain anti-immigrant sentiment like that is counterproductive and likely to strenghten the sentiment.
You don't need a separate reason to be against immigration. You can be against that even if it doesn't personally affect you and you didn't get poorer recently.
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I just want to add in response to Mohdoo specifically about the left's response because it is fascinating. It's basically about deflecting blame by saying that the (center) right was just as naive about immigration as they were and are as much to blame for the current situation (which no mainstream party denies is catastrophic). At the same time, they describe the populist right as enemies of democracy and as racists. The selling point is that if you vote for the social democrats, you will get the same strict anti-immigration policy as if you vote for the populist right. But they are not racists and they are not reckless and incompetent. In short, 90% of their strategy revolves around denigrating the populists while silently adopting their policies and it seems to be working quite well.
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I could be wrong, maybe I am looking for reasons to explain the move to the far right that doesn't end with "25-30% of people are just deeply racist"
Because what do you do about that?
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Sadly, many seem to be deeply racist and use the "they're taking our jobs and replace us and how can they ride around in these types of cars and are on average more violent/criminal and are benefiting from the welfare state way more than natives etc.." excuse to validate themselves.
This mostly comes from people that are from communities that are deeply shielded from other cultures other than their own, whatever their culture even means. If they see one brown person on the street they experience great discomfort.
The other day someone told me that 80% of a city (with the most immigrants) was immigrants. I had to bring this person down to reality, but overestimation fallacy/bias whatever it is, is a real and problematic thing.
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EPT
