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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
When WB Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” in 1919, he inadvertently performed a service for generations of journalists. Faced with a political crisis, commentators can always reach for the familiar quote: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”, before going on to note that: “The best lack all conviction; while the worst are full of passionate intensity”
I was dusting down those lines again, as I watched the rise of Europe’s radical right. But last week’s Dutch election complicates the story. In the Netherlands the centre not only held — it won. Admittedly the moderate, progressive D66 only narrowly came out on top. But D66 is likely to take the lead in forming the next Dutch government — while the far-right Freedom party looks set to lose its role in government. The Dutch election suggests that gloomy narratives about the inexorable rise of the far right across Europe are wide of the mark. The real story looks a bit different.
Across much of Europe, voters are angry and disillusioned — and so swift to vote out incumbents. If the incumbents are the traditional centre parties, then the radical fringes will scoop up the votes. But when the far right actually makes it into government, then voters can swiftly become disillusioned — and turn back to centrist parties at the next opportunity.
The Freedom party led by Geert Wilders got its chance to participate in government in 2023 because many Dutch voters had lost faith in the traditional centre parties. But — predictably — the Wilders party did not have easy solutions to the problems that vex voters; notably asylum-seeking migrants and a housing crisis.
So now the Dutch have turned to a fresh face in the form of Rob Jetten — the young, telegenic leader of D66. But let’s be realistic. It is quite likely that by the next election, the voters will be thoroughly sick of Jetten and will vote for change again. The far right might get another crack at government in the Netherlands.
Austria has already been through this cycle. Its populist rightwing Freedom party (FPÖ) was part of a governing coalition from 2017-19 before being engulfed by scandal. The FPÖ’s popularity dipped sharply. But the party revived under new leadership and won the largest number of seats in parliament in the 2024 election — although it has been unable to form a coalition.
If the emerging story of European politics is rotation between the centre and the far right, that has serious implications for Britain, France and Germany. In all three countries, a struggling centrist government has the anti-system right breathing down its neck.
The lessons of the Netherlands — as well as Austria, Poland, Italy, Hungary and Slovakia — are that the “unthinkable” does happen and far-right parties can win political power. But they may not necessarily keep it. Even Viktor Orbán, who has been in power in Hungary since 2010, is trailing in the polls ahead of elections next year.
In the big European countries where the centre still holds, it is France that is closest to the edge. The country has got through five prime ministers since the beginning of 2024 and the far-right Rassemblement National leads the polls for the presidential election that is due to be held in 18 months’ time. It is possible that the far right will finally make it to the Élysée in 2027.
In Germany, it is often said that the current coalition government led by Friedrich Merz is “the centre’s last chance”. If so, the centre has cause for concern. Merz has not yet completed a year in office but two-thirds of voters already disapprove of his coalition government — and the far-right Alternative for Germany is now topping some opinion polls.
In Britain, the two parties that have dominated the politics of the last century — the Conservatives and Labour — are now both languishing in the polls behind Reform, the populist right party. The 30 per cent or so of the vote that Reform regularly registers might not be enough to get it into government in a proportional system such as Germany’s. But in Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system, it could be enough to deliver a parliamentary majority. A general election is still more than three years away. But Nigel Farage, Reform’s leader, is currently the bookies’ favourite to be Britain’s next prime minister.
It will be treated as a political earthquake if the far right makes it into government in a big western European country. But — in fact — it has already happened.
Giorgia Meloni, whose political roots are in Italy’s postwar neo-fascist movement, became prime minister three years ago. Italy’s centre left remains deeply wary of Meloni. As prime minister, she has taken strongly conservative positions on immigration and social issues — but she has avoided the hardline nationalism and erosion of democratic institutions characteristic of Orbán or Donald Trump.
Meloni has also so far escaped the bitter anti-incumbent backlash visible in Britain and France. She looks likely to become only the second Italian prime minister since the second world war to serve a full five-year term.
In doing so, Meloni points to an unsettling possibility for European politics. Perhaps the future will not be a choice between the centre and the far right — but the gradual erasure of the distinction between the two camps.
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