The far right of the streets and the ballot boxes
More than 110,000 people marched through central London on Saturday in the largest far-right demonstration the United Kingdom has seen in decades. The anti-immigration march, dubbed a "free speech festival," featured a surprise appearance by Elon Musk via video link to support Tommy Robinson, the controversial activist who organized the rally, accused of hate speech and deliberately spreading false content. The march and the speeches became a parade of conspiracy theories, racist rhetoric, and MAGA hats, and the constant reminder of political and social grievances, amplified from both sides of the Atlantic.
Musk focused his remarks on a new attack on British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the same week he is due to meet with President Donald Trump. But the tech mogul's warning to the crowd that "violence is coming" and that "either fight back or you die" further aggravated the clash between Musk and Downing Street. For now, the political year has begun with the umpteenth internal crisis within the government and a show of force by the far right in the streets.
In a United Kingdom that has already experienced a summer marked by the debate over the proliferation of flags in public spaces, Saturday's rally was an exaltation of the patriotic essentialism of a far right that now also has a Nigel Farage as its victor. Reform UK, the Brexit ideologue's party, has been gaining strength in local elections and is already pushing for an early general election, scheduled for 2027.
The polls also favor the German far right, which on Sunday increased its local power in the most populous state. Despite the strong results of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative CDU, support for the Alternative for Germany has tripled in the North Rhine-Westphalia state in just five years.
In France, the government crisis and the street protests also herald the beginning of a new era in the country, marked not only by the irreversible decline of Emmanuel Macron but by the opportunity this setback represents for Marine Le Pen and her National Rally, which is already the first party in the country.
This weekend's watered-down Vox summit in Madrid is just one anecdote in the victorious wave that maintains the far right as the decisive force holding power in much of the European Union. But it is also a symptom of another reality. Global far-right networks are as transnationalist as they are opportunistic.
The radical right practices a form of "selective transnationalism," and its leaders adapt the discourses that fit national contexts and avoid what differentiates them. Because despite these networks of flexible cooperation, borrowed slogans, and episodes of violence—such as the murder of MAGA movement leader Charlie Kirk—that interpellate and mobilize a significant portion of their electorate, the more far-right forces proliferate, the more heterogeneous they become.
But nevertheless, they have managed to drag the political center to the right. "It is the mainstream "what has become radicalized," summarizes Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde, who has been analyzing the rise of the far right for years.
The most direct effect of this transversality is the normalization of radical discourse, but also the consolidation of discourses and agendas that have ended up focusing political debate and blinding it.
Capitalizing on the growth of migratory flows and anti-immigration discourse is one of the factors fueling the popularity of the far right, according to the latest report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), which, once again, confirms how its political representation everywhere2 years. The study also confirms that Europe is the region where guarantees of the rule of law have fallen most noticeably this last year.
