Fascists gather in Budapest to mark so-called ‘Day of honour’
Each February hundreds of fascists, and neo-nazis from across Europe gather in Budapest in Hungary to commemorate the attempted breakout of German Nazi and Hungarian Arrow Cross troops from the Soviet Army’s siege of the Hungarian capital in 1945 (see below).
The nazis call this march the “Day of honour”. Their publicity called this year’s protest “Eruption: A celebration of Nazism.”
Around 600 assorted nazis attended: they included international groups from Bulgaria, France, Germany and Poland, as well as members of the notorious international neo-nazi group, Blood and Honour.
The march was awash with thugs carrying Nazi flags and wearing fascist insignia. The wearing of fascist insignia is a breach of Hungarian law, however, the police failed to arrest a single nazi.
Speakers at the protest openly praised Hitler and used anti-Semitism to whip up the crowd. One masked Hungarian speaker said: “Today, we remember our forefathers who fought to ensure Hungary was Jew free.” On a previous “Day of honour” protest, Matthias Deyda, from the German far right group Die Rechte told the crowd: “We have the same enemies today, like we did 75 years ago, the enemy isn’t named Muller or Mayer. No, our enemy is named Rothschild, Goldman, and Sachs.”
The “Day of honour” commemoration protest was followed by an overnight march (37 miles long) when several thousand people followed the route of the 1945 attempted Nazi breakout. Worryingly, this night march attracted significant numbers from outside the hard-core nazi ranks.
A European Parliamentary question (21/2/2024) noted: “The organisers of the demonstration, Homecoming Homeland Knowledge and Tourist Association (HHKTA) asked participants to wear black uniforms to ensure ‘a dignified appearance’ but, to respect the law, are banned from wearing masks, military uniforms, or symbols such as the Nazi swastika, and no Communist hammer and sickles.”
The HHKTA is a front for Légió Hungária (LH), a Hungarian far-right group. LH was founded in 2018, receiving international publicity when its supporters vandalised a Jewish community centre in Budapest after a protest commemorating the 1956 Hungarian uprising.
The group’s leader, Bela Incze, has been a key figure in the Hungarian far right since 2010. He was leader of the Hungarian section of Sixty-Four Counties Youth Movement (HVIM), a paramilitary organisation, several members of which have been found guilty of carrying out acts of terrorism. In 2015, he worked as a parliamentary assistant to a member of the far-right Jobbik party, but his contract was terminated because of an assault he allegedly carried out against a police officer.
It was also revealed by the European Parliament that HHKTA had received national grants worth 70 million Hungarian forints.
This raises serious questions about Hungarian public funds being used to support nazi demonstrations. Coupled with the fact that Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist Fidesz government refuses to ban this annual protest, this is further evidence that the Hungarian state is prepared to support the extreme right for its own ends.
Anti-fascist Ilaria Salis jailed
Shoes on the Danube Bank (left), Ilaria Salis (middle bottom) and fascist graffiti depicting her on a gibbet (top right)
The far-right celebration is opposed by anti-fascists such as Italian Ilaria Salis, currently held in a Hungarian jail. Fascist graffiti depicts her on a gibbet and calls for her death
The so-called “Day of honour” march on 10 February 2024 was opposed by over 300 anti-fascists who assembled close to the fascists and used drums, whistles and sirens to drown out the rally. The fascists responded by attacking the protestors and passers-by, two suffered minor injuries.
One of the main slogans on the counter protest was, “freedom for every anti-fascist” – it was a call to support a jailed Italian anti-fascist, Ilaria Salis.
The Hungarian police claim that a group of up to 15 members of Antifa had carried out attacks on two people believed to have attended the “Day of honour” march in February 2023. One German anti-fascist has been jailed by the Hungarian courts for three years after pleading guilty to the charges. A second defendant, Gabriele Marchesi, who had been detained in Italy under house arrest, was freed in Milan last month after an Italian appeals court rejected Hungary’s request to hand him over.
Ilaria Salis, a 39-year-old teacher, was arrested in Budapest in the aftermath of the demonstration and accused of being involved in the attack. She has been charged with three accounts of assault and belonging to an extreme left-wing organisation and has been in prison ever since. If found guilty, she could face up to 24 years in prison. There was an international outcry when she was led into court, handcuffed and her legs in chains, to attend her hearing in February 2024. The inference was clear to all, the Hungarian judiciary was presenting her as a danger to the public.
In a public statement Ilaria’s father, Roberto, stated: “My daughter has been detained by the Hungarian authorities for 13 months. She is innocent and completely rejects these charges. My daughter is being held in inhumane conditions and we are calling on the Hungarian government to put Ilaria under house arrest until her trial.”
Her lawyers have released a document that outlines the harsh conditions she faces. Her cell is infested with cockroaches, rats, and bugs. She has not been allowed to wash for days on end and there has been a lack of medical care. The human rights Hungarian Helsinki Committee said her case has “brought the state of Hungarian prisons to international attention” and noted that it was against European Union (EU) law and legal standards to regularly use restraints on defendants in court.
Roberto Salis’s call to allow his daughter to be put under house arrest, and in the event of being found guilty to serve her sentence in Italy, should be supported by all anti-fascists.
Some far-right groups on the social media site Telegram, are calling on their supporters to attack her. In Budapest. murals have gone up depicting her being lynched.
If that were not bad enough, the Hungarian government is using the Ilaria case as a bargaining chip with the Italian government. Ironically, it wants Giorgia Meloni, the fascist Italian Prime Minister, to oppose the EU’s attempts to further politically isolate Hungary.
Second, far-right Hungarian government officials and their supporters in the media are turning the case into a political show trial, one in which European anti-fascism is in the dock. The nazis are being normalised and portrayed as defenders of free speech, whereas anti-fascists are being labelled as the terrorists and extremists.
Ilaria’s fight for justice is every anti fascist’s fight.
For more information about the Free Ilaria Salis campaign go to: https://www.comitatoilariasalis.it/events
Slaughter of Jewish citizens in Budapest by Nazi collaborators
The “Day of honour” marchers celebrate the attempted Nazi break out of the “Siege of Budapest” in the last months of the Second World War.
The 50-day siege saw Soviet and Romanian troops encircle the city on 29 December 1944. Hitler was unable to resupply his forces trapped in Budapest and ordered the Nazis to fight to the last man.
Despite Hitler’s orders, over 28,000 German and Hungarian troops attempted a mass break out from the city on the night of 11 February. Only 600–700 German and Hungarian soldiers reached the main German lines.
When the city was liberated by the Soviet Army, it was discovered that, before they fled the city, the Nazi collaborators, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, had murdered over 15,000 Jewish people.
This is the “Day of honour” those nazis that march in Budapest every year wish to celebrate.
This article was first published in the Spring 2024 issue of Searchlight magazine
Against all expectations, Lois Perry has succeeded Neil ‘Liar and Cheat’ Hamilton as Leader of UKIP, once the UK’s principal and highly influential far right party, but now on life support. When the votes were counted it was announced that she had garnered some 77% to rival ‘Bungalow’ Bill Etheridge’s 21%.
First point of interest is that the actual number of votes has not been published by UKIP Chairman and Returning Officer Ben ‘rogue builder’ Walker. Given the state of decline into which the party has slipped this may not be surprising; what is a surprise, however, are the figures actually being bandied around internally as to how steep that decline has been: it is rumoured that only around 300 party members took part in the ballot.
Whatever the turnout, Perry has pulled off a bit of a coup. Etheridge was Walker’s favoured candidate (and that of other senior party veterans like Pat Bryant)) and has a pedigree as a former UKIP MEP. Perry, on the other hand, is an anti-net zero campaigner who presents as, well, a bit witless.
She may have other qualities, however, which will endear her to Walker, who is probably missing a female touch around the office. A number of charming, vivacious young females parachuted into HQ as Chairman’s appointments in the last couple of years haven’t lasted very long. Patrons Co-Ordinator (and clairvoyant) Joanna Grzesiak, and General Secretary Treasure Okwu each survived only a few months before packing up and slipping quietly away.
Treasure Okwu with Ben Walker in happier days
Former Patrons Co-ordinator, Joanna Grzesiak
Rebecca Jane, the former Deputy Leader also appointed by Walker, was the most prominent departure, and she used the occasion to fire off a salvo of allegations about Walker’s alleged libidinousness and his intentions towards her when he put her in post. She even suggested that Walker held a bit of a candle, so to speak, for Lois, but we are sure she knows how to look after herself.
Ironically, whereas Rebecca Jane was nicknamed ‘Barbie’ by some members and hated it, Perry has embraced the image with relish:
She may not be quite so pleased when she hears that the nickname quickly assigned to her by disgruntled Etheridge supporters is ‘Barbie fail…’
One of her first tasks as Leader, however, will be to quiz Walker about the mysterious Trust that he alone controls, and which now owns and controls the party, and why income from legacies and reportable donations seems recently to have fallen off a cliff.
Politically, Perry’s election will almost certainly herald UKIP disappearing further and faster down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Whereas Etheridge was an old school anti-immigration, anti-Europe traditionalist, Perry is right up there with the climate-denying, anti-ULEZ, anti-15-minute cities, anti-net zero conspiracy-obsessed nut jobs. Up till now she’s been running the pro-car lobby group Car26 and has said she’s not that bothered by immigration. In a previous incarnation she was the SE Representative of Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party and appears regularly on GB News. She also claimed that she “had a moment” with Boris Johnson; “something could have happened, but it didn’t…”
Maybe she’s in a minority and the low turnout allowed her to win through, or as seems more likely maybe the membership is now shorn of the traditionalist old guard and is up for a new era of conspiracy mongering.
There was, of course, one elephant trap awaiting them: stir up any press interest in the new leader and you might just expose them to difficult questions about Rebecca Jane’s allegations, or about the mysterious trust, or indeed, about the Chairman’s recent brush with the Ministry of Justice who fired him as a magistrate for not declaring his criminal convictions on his application. That eventuality was deftly avoided by announcing the result at the very media-unfriendly hour of 6.00 pm.
The newly appointed Deputy Leader is also interesting: it’s Nick Tenconi, till now the COO of Turning Point UK, and a chap of forthright views: two years ago, he posted a tweet describing himself as a “huge fan” of Kyle Rittenhouse, the US right winger who shot dead two people at a demonstration, was acquitted of murder in 2021, and has been a darling of the extreme right ever since. Tenconi was centrally involved in the anti-drag queen protests in south London last year and his mission, it seems, is to ‘crush communism’.
It’s all such a long, long way from forcing David Cameron to hold a referendum…
It was taken for granted by everyone, including Searchlight, that Bill Etheridge would win this week’s Ukip leadership election. With his pal Ben Walker both chairman of the party and returning officer in the election, what could possibly go wrong? We had our Bill and Ben storyline all mapped out – based on a 70-year-old BBC children’s series properly titled ‘The Flowerpot Men’.
Dropped jaws all round, then, when at the appointed time of 18:00 Monday night (carefully plotted, it seemed, to avoid making any of the key TV or radio early evening news slots) up on Kippervision, or the party’s official web site if you prefer, came the flash ‘Lois Perry elected’. WTF? Then almost instantly it was down again. Then back up 10 minutes later. Then down again. We had visions of the factions fighting for possession of the computer mouse, one side crying ‘Publish the result!’ and the other ‘Stop the steal!’
At something like 18:20 it finally came up and stayed there. What a shambles! So, the Ukip membership had unpredictably elected Little Weed! In the TV show, very old readers will recall, Bill and Ben were the two bizarre puppets who lived in flower pots, were permanently smirking and could only talk gibberish. “Gizzajobalob,” Bill would say. “Norraprobalob,” Ben would reply. The plot seemed perfect for a Ukip ruling duo. The only other regular character was the cheery little flower, who lived just behind or between the two flower pots and could only say “Weeeed!” Except when there was a petty mystery to solve, when she could sing in clear English “Was it Bill or was it Ben?”
The main mystery for Lois to solve, as new leader, is what’s going on with Ukip’s finances? And what happened to the large sums that expiring members left the party in bequests which have overnight dried up?
Football fans (other sports are also available) will know the feeling well. Where two clubs that you despise are up against each other, and you curse the impossibility of both teams reaching full time having been on the wrong end of a 5-0 trouncing. One point for a draw seems far too generous for either of them. Pesky Laws of the Game! And thus it is in the legal battle between former Tory Health Secretary Matt Hancock and the independent MP for North West Leicestershire, Andrew Bridgen.
“Whoa!” you cry, as well you might. “Unless I’ve suddenly gone prematurely sea lion, you told us a few months ago that Bridgen had defected to the Reclaim Party.” And you would be right – for the most part. Bridgen had already lost the Conservative whip by then, and therefore had nowhere to “defect” from. But he did indeed publicly nail his colours to the jury mast of Reclaim, becoming its first and only (and hopefully last) member of parliament.
But a few days after I wrote that piece, the Bridgen of Sighs performed a volte face and left the more than slightly foxed Reclaim to resume sitting as an independent.
He said in a prepared statement: “I have come to this decision purely because of a difference in the direction of the Party, I will still wholeheartedly support the policies and values of the Reclaim Party and wish them all of the best in their future endeavours. However, I need to make a very important decision with a general election pending … I need to put North West Leicestershire first, above any Party allegiance.”
It is an argument slightly lacking in clarity, is it not? If he still supports all of Reclaim’s policies and values, what can the “difference” that concerns him possibly be? It seems a reasonable guess that he has looked at Reclaim’s “direction” and concluded that it is downward.
It must be a trifle embarrassing for Reclaim’s sugar daddy Jeremy Hosking – who has poured millions into right-wing politics – to learn that Bridgen appears to think that he has a better chance of hanging on to his seat, running as an almost unfunded independent, than he would as a candidate with Hosking’s money and political machinery behind him, with the name Reclaim next to his name on the ballot form.
Considering that Bridgen’s parliamentary declarations of interest disclose that Hosking has lent him a staggering amount of money – close to £4.5m, interest free – he looks more than a touch disloyal.
Poll advantage
We are, though, not in any hurry to bet the house on Bridgen actually standing as an independent once the election has been called.
He will undoubtedly have noted that Reform UK (formerly the Brexit Party) is currently sitting in the teens in the opinion polls (in one YouGov poll just four points behind the sinking Conservatives), compared with Reclaim’s square root of bugger all, and that his fellow defenestrated Tory MP “30p” Lee Anderson has migrated to the Richard Tice-led party.
That it is widely assumed that Nigel Farage will jump ship from Reform to the Tories after the election (in a bid to become Conservative leader) may complicate Bridgen’s thinking. But a functioning party machine and a countrywide support of up to 15 per cent may look to him like a better platform than that offered by either Reclaim or independence. We will see.
Lies and libel
“Anyway,” you cry, “what about this stuff you started with – about Bridgen and Hancock?” Fair question. You may recall that it was Bridgen’s obsession with aspects of the pandemic that put him on course to be booted out of the Conservative Party. After a series of conspiracy-fuelled anti-vax comments, he tweeted in January 2023 that the Covid-19 vaccination programme was “the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust,” occasioning widespread outrage. It was the straw that broke the Sunak’s back.
Within hours of the Holocaust claim, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted “disgusting and dangerous antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories spouted by a sitting MP this morning are unacceptable and have absolutely no place in our society”.
Bridgen took umbrage at this, arguing that everyone who read the tweet would have no doubt that it was about him, that it was seriously defamatory and untrue, and that its purpose was to cause grievous harm to his reputation. He started a libel action, which eventually found its way to a preliminary court hearing in March this year, when Hancock’s lawyers applied to have the case thrown out.
Although the judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, did strike out parts of Bridgen’s case, she held back on throwing it out entirely, giving him an opportunity to “remedy the deficiencies” of his argument. So the case grinds on, for now. While we are no legal experts, if the case does go to a full hearing, Hancock’s lawyers will likely be allowed to raise the damaging fact that, in another civil case entirely, a High Court judge lambasted Bridgen for having “lied under oath and behaved in an abusive, arrogant and aggressive manner” in court, and to have been “an unreliable and combative witness who tried to conceal his own misconduct”. Ouch!
Without going into intricacies, there is a way that a defamation case can leave both parties worse off than when they started. Briefly, a plaintiff can succeed with their core claim, but be awarded derisory damages and have all or part of legal costs awarded against them – essentially for wasting the court’s time. This leaves the defendant branded a liar or something of the sort, but the plaintiff well out of pocket. (In a famous historical case, the painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler “won” the argument against art critic John Ruskin, but was awarded a farthing – just over one-thousandth of a pound – in damages, and ended up bankrupt.)
Indeed, as we were going to press Mrs Justice Steyn’s court sat again over Bridgen v Hancock for a preliminary costs hearing, where the judge ordered Bridgen to pay £40,300 of Hancock’s legal bills. And this is before the actual defamation case is even heard.
Courtroom dramas
So, unlike in our opening football analogy, it is possible for both sides to take a hammering in a defamation trial, and we may cross our fingers and cling to some small hope that both the disgraced Bridgen and the disgraced Hancock come out of the affair wishing they had never started it.
Bridgen will certainly be crossing his own fingers that his case is more successful than the recent courtroom efforts of his erstwhile Reclaim colleague, cracked actor Laurence Fox, who was found to have defamed two people whom he outrageously accused of being paedophiles, while also failing in bringing a countersuit over the same people describing him as a racist. Fox ache!
Meanwhile, Bridgen has been taking a larruping in the media from his second wife, Serbian opera singer Nevena Pavlovic, in what appears to be the opening salvo of a divorce battle. Pavlovic says that her husband has been captured by a vaccine conspiracy cult, which is using him as a foot soldier.
Matters came to a head, apparently, when Bridgen ignored their five-year-old son’s bout of ill health in order to go to Sweden to speak at an event hosted by potty anti-vax US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. When the boy’s condition worsened and he had to be admitted to hospital, Pavlovic says she phoned Bridgen and pleaded with him to come home – but he told her that he was too busy saving the world. The British press lapped it up – and who can blame them?
This article first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Searchlight
European Parliament, Brussels (Feb 2024) Photo: Matthias Berg/EPP Group
In the past few years, European far-right parties have climbed the polls, shaped the policies of mainstream right-wing parties, and even occupied ministerial roles in coalition governments.
The reasons for the rise of far-right and populist politics vary from country to country. In some cases, it is strongly linked to immigration, which has become a significant concern for some voters. In others, it is a response to economic challenges, and a sense of dissatisfaction with mainstream parties’ ability to address these issues.
This is being exploited by right-wing populists who promise simple solutions to complex problems and a strong stand on protecting national identity, sovereignty and traditional values. Given the particular grievances far-right groups seek to exploit, it is no surprise that they have been drawn to the farmers’ protests that have ripped across Europe since spring 2023.
Farmers’ groups have voiced objections to, for example, excessive regulation, cheap foreign imports (including low-priced agricultural products from Ukraine) and European Union (EU) environmental policies.
Spotting an opportunity, far-right groups have been positioning themselves as the farmers’ champion, exploiting their frustrations to further their own political agendas, posing challenges to mainstream political parties and potentially shaping the political landscape in upcoming elections.
The effect may last for many years to come. As the June EU parliamentary elections approach, new political alignments may be formed and potentially normalise far-right politics.
France
Some of the most dramatic protests by farmers in Europe have taken place in France, and with the explicit and vocal backing of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right political party, Rassemblement National (National Rally, previously the National Front).
Le Pen has consistently expressed support for the plight of the farmers, criticising government agricultural policies and EU regulations. In January, she joined a tractor rally that blocked eight routes into Paris and rode on a tractor for the benefit of the media.
The wave of protests began in mid-January when farmers blocked the centre of Toulouse in Southwest France and truckloads of manure were dumped on the streets outside government buildings. The A64 motorway between Toulouse and Tarbes was blocked by farmers and events quickly escalated into violence as a radical group of winemakers, the Comité Régional d’Action Viticole, bombed an administrative building in Carcassonne on the night of 18 January. Protests then spread with tractors blocking roads into Paris and other major routes nationwide.
Many of the blockades were lifted in early February after Prime Minister Gabriel Attal promised concessions, including financial assistance, and the easing of regulations and unfair competition. However, tractors made their way back into Paris on 23 February, with further protests held across the country to pressure the government to implement its promises. On 24 February a group of farmers stormed the Paris Agricultural Show ahead of a visit by President Emmanuel Macron.
At the heart of the farmers’ complaints is dwindling income, which has tragically led to a surge in suicides. Second, farmers are angry at environmental policies, EU regulations and what they perceive as unfair competition.
The significance of Le Pen’s involvement cannot be understated. It is part of a wider strategy to build her political base among rural voters. She has positioned herself as a defender of French agriculture, attacking Macron and, more broadly, the EU’s agricultural, environmental and immigration policies.
Although Le Pen’s racist and xenophobic party had been gaining popularity over the past decade, it has claimed a noticeable increase in followers since the January protests. The party’s position on immigration, economic patriotism and opposition to EU policies has resonated with many farmers who feel unrepresented by mainstream politicians.
Netherlands
There is a well-established link between right-wing groups and farmers’ protests in the Netherlands. Last year, the Farmer-Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB)) had a significant win in provincial elections, and the party that previously had no representatives in the Senate is now the largest group in the Upper House of Parliament.
BBB is a right-wing, populist party that was formed in 2019 following large-scale farmers’ protests against government environmental policies. Notably, the party counts Donald Trump and Le Pen among its supporters.
In October 2019, thousands of farmers, organised by the Farmers Defence Force (described by observers as a far-right group), drove their tractors to The Hague, causing over a thousand kilometres of traffic jams.
The protests were used by the far right as a springboard to build support. The Party for Freedom, founded by Dutch nationalist Geert Wilders, won a shocking victory in the November general election last year to emerge as the largest single party, although as yet it has been unable to find partners to form a government. Wilders stood on an anti-migrant, Eurosceptic platform and is known for his anti-Islam hate speech – he has called for the Quran to be banned and is virulently opposed to multiculturalism.
Protesters in the Netherlands, however, have largely been concerned with the government’s environmental policies which, they argue, would negatively impact the agricultural sector. They single out policies to cut nitrogen emissions by reducing livestock populations. Last June, in The Hague, the Farmers Defence Force protested against the breakdown in negotiations between farmers and government ministers on the future of agriculture in the country.
The ongoing farmers’ protests in Germany began in December last year in response to the abolition of tax breaks and other subsidies for farmers. Since then, protests have grown and the reasons behind them have broadened to include many of the concerns expressed by farmers across Europe, such as complicated or excessive regulations and competition from foreign imports.
Germany
Farmers blockade Berlin Photo: Matthias Berg/EPP Group
Arguably, Germany has seen the most worrying involvement from far-right and extremist groups in farmers’ protests. In January, the Free Saxons, an extremist, far-right, monarchist group which seeks to restore an independent Kingdom of Saxony, joined and spoke at a farmers’ protest in Dresden. At the same time, neo-nazi groups Dritte Weg (Third Way) and Die Heimat (The Homeland) infiltrated and participated in protests in Berlin alongside members of Alternative for Germany (AfD). Regional members of AfD were also reportedly in attendance at a demonstration in Stuttgart.
Unsurprisingly, many of the organisers of the farmers’ protests have tried to distance themselves from these groups, but it demonstrates how the far right view such protests – as hunting grounds for supporters, and useful platforms to reach larger audiences.
Belgium
Protestors blockade Brussels and set fires (Feb 2024) Photo: Matthias Berg/EPP Group
The EU has been the target of much of the farmers’ anger, which has focused on EU environmental policies, trade policies, the phasing out of tax breaks for the agricultural sectors, unequal distribution of subsidies and the complex regulatory system. So it is not surprising that Brussels has seen intense clashes between police and protesting farmers.
In February last year, farmers from Italy, Portugal and Spain joined their Belgian counterparts to demand action on cheap foreign imports into Europe, rising costs, falling prices and EU environmental rules. The protesters blocked Brussels with more than 900 tractors and clashed with police, spraying liquid manure and setting fires. Similar actions were held in January with the blockade of Zeebrugge Port and a week long demonstration near Antwerp.
The protests in Belgium have also found themselves to be popular with far-right and populist parties, and radical conspiracy theorists.
A protest on 1 February involving a blockade of Brussels by thousands of tractors saw the involvement of the Belgian far-right Vlaams Belang party. Protesters were pictured carrying flags with symbols of Flemish nationalist movements and banners with slogans of the most extremist Flemish militias.
Vlaams Belang, also known as Flemish Interest, is a far-right, populist party that focuses on Flemish nationalism and anti-immigration policies. Its predecessor, the Vlaams Blok, was banned in 2004 for violating anti-racism laws.
In March, Dries Van Langenhove, former Vlaams Belang politician and leader of the far-right, extremist youth group, Schild & Vrienden (Shield and Friends), was sentenced to over one year in prison on charges including racism, Holocaust denial and breaching a local gun law. He has used social media to voice support for protesting farmers and linked the protests to the debunked “Great Reset” conspiracy – that a global elite is using the pandemic to dismantle capitalism and enforce social change.
Elsewhere
Similar patterns of protesting farmers and opportunistic far-right groups can be seen throughout Europe.
Portugal’s populist Chega party has been supportive of the protests, gaining followers from the agricultural sector who are dissatisfied with mainstream politicians. In the general election in March the party increased its parliamentary seats fourfold to 48, its vote share climbing from 7.2% to 18.1%.
In Spain, the grievances of farmers have become a fertile environment for the growth of Vox, the far-right party established in 2013, which entered the national parliament with 24 out of 350 seats in April 2019.
Poland’s right-wing, populist party, Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice), has held large-scale protests in Warsaw in support of farmers. In February, around 100 farmers and 50 cars blocked the Medyka border crossing between Poland and Ukraine in protest at what they see as unfair competition from cheap agricultural imports from Ukraine.
An estimated 30,000 farmers and agricultural workers protested outside the parliament building in Warsaw in March. After the official event, the gathering turned violent as protestors clashed with police. Paving stones were thrown and fireworks set off, injuring several officers.
One of the main protest organisers, particularly of the Poland-Ukraine border blockades is Rafal Mekler, the pro-Russian leader of the regional branch of the far-right party, Confederation, Liberty and Independence (Confederation). He is also an activist for another far-right group, the National Movement. Confederation gained seats in the Polish parliament last October, with a 10% share of the vote.
Similar blockades took place at the Zahony crossing between Hungary and Ukraine. Protesting farmers in Hungary have received strong vocal support from its authoritarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, and his far-right Fidesz party.
In February, around 100 members of the Irish far right infiltrated a tractor protest in Athlone. However, the Irish Farmers’ Association has distanced itself from such groups. Support for far-right politics is growing in Ireland, with groups, such as the Irish Freedom Party and House the Irish First, claiming to have trebled their membership in recent months. Both groups are Irish nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-EU.
Closer to home, farmers’ protests in Wales are connected with a campaign called “No Farmers No Food”. It is run by right-wing pundit and conspiracy theorist James Melville, a climate-change sceptic who has circulated baseless narratives concerning the net-zero agenda. The presence of climate-denying extremists at these protests seemed acceptable enough for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to happily pose for pictures.
Crucial battleground
Agriculture is emerging as a crucial battleground in European politics. Governments are attempting to pacify farmers, while far-right groups work to capitalise on their discontent.
There is a perception that “the left” is, broadly, pro-EU and more concerned about the environment and environmental policies, while “the right” has positioned itself on the side of farmers and, on the whole, is anti-EU and against environmental regulation, which some farmers see as an existential threat.
EU leaders are worried that far-right support and Euroscepticism sentiment are growing in the agricultural sector. They are particularly concerned about the implications for the European Parliament elections in June. A European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) think-tank report indicates that the Parliament may move significantly to the right and anti-EU populist parties will gain seats across Europe. According to a recent poll by the ECFR, right-wing parties are leading in nine EU countries. A poll published by the ECFR suggests that the far-right Identity and Democracy Group, which includes the AfD and Rassemblement National, could go from being the fifth to the third largest bloc in the European Parliament.
In February, in an attempt to address protesters’ concerns, EU agricultural ministers met and urged the European Commission to commit to a targeted review of the Common Agricultural Policy, as well as trade agreements, the European Green Deal, and Ukrainian imports.
That said, many farmers and agricultural unions associated with the protests are not happy about far-right involvement and have distanced themselves from such groups. Some farmers have joined protests with anti-racist messages. Banners with the slogan “farming is colourful, not brown” were flown from tractors at demonstrations in Germany, “brown” being a reference to the Nazi brown shirts.
Farmers in Romania rejected calls by far-right senator Diana Șoșoacă to join a protest in Bucharest in January. As a result, only 20 individuals participated in the protest outside the parliament.
Farmers may be unhappy about EU legislation, but they are not inherently anti-environment. Many argue that it is the agro-industrial system and the constant pressure to increase yields and improve competitiveness that has caused the agricultural industry in Europe to become so environmentally damaging.
Rural sociologist Natalia Mamonova suggests that European leaders are trying to solve the continent’s environmental problems with the same mindset that created them in the first place: “Most of the green projects that aim to achieve sustainable development and zero-sum emissions follow the growth logic, or ‘green neoliberalism’ – they aim to expand and invigorate markets through the sustainability movement – are based solely on economic calculations, and place the heaviest burden on farmers.”
Indeed, many farmers might be open to progressive green policies aimed at tackling climate change if these attempted to dismantle the agro-industrial complex, structured by the likes of huge supermarket chains, and freed farmers from the cycle of scale enlargement and technologically driven intensification. A new development paradigm is required.
These arguments have been made by various movements of farmers, farmer activists and environmentalists in Europe, such as Les Soulèvements de la Terre in France, Nos Plantamos in Spain, and Arbeitsgemeinschaft bäuerliche Landwirtschaft in Germany. These groups have also been involved in the farmers’ protests in Europe to varying extents but distance themselves from far-right groups and proactively advocate for anti-racist farming movements.
The far-right has also used the farmers’ protests to promote attacks on climate policies. Farmers’ concerns with environmental regulations and perceived conflict between public demands for cheap food and climate-friendly processes have provided fertile ground for the far-right to push its climate-crisis-denying movements and rhetoric. This could hamper efforts to tackle climate change and could dismantle environmental policies, undermining the European Green Deal and wider climate policy.
This article first appeared in the Spring 2024 issue of Searchlight magazine
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