Euronationalism

Euronationalism is the process of bringing far right parties to mainstream respectability.

A mirror of the Eurocommunism of the 1970s, this is a strategy used by far right parties to start winning elections by underplaying their radicalism and aim for a more respectable image. On the one side it has been used successfully by movements such as France's Front National and Italy's Alliance National, the latter of which is in government. In this guise it has transformed fascist influenced parties into mainstream, if hardline, Conservative parties.

Many far right parties like Vlaams Blok and Haiders[?] FPO[?], claim to be "respectable" political parties. However this is mostly propaganda, as the regular marches against the FPO in Vienna, and the fact that VB is banned from entering government anywhere in Belgium testify.

Other parties such as the Liga Nord in Italy and the late Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn seem to be pure products of Euronationalism.

The British National Party has been trying this strategy, with a measure of success, under the chairmanship of Nick Griffin. The magazine Right Now, the conservative pressure group the Conservative Democratic Alliance and the small Freedom Party are more self conscious attempts to create a euronationalist strain within British political thought. The fact that Britain has a large and powerful anti-Nazi movement(led by the Anti Nazi League which has members as high profile as cabinet member Peter Hain), has so far prevented it from being any more than a fringe movement.

The main themes of Euronationalism tend to be:

• Apparent rejection of extra-Parliamentary tactics, with a stress on winning elections. However it has to be noted that the BNP has links with the neo-Nazi thugs in Combat 18. This was exposed by the BBC and Searchlight magazine[?].
• Hostility to further immigration, although apparent "acceptance" of existing ethnic minority communities. But again the BNP would "like" to "repatriate" all existing visible minorities.
• Euroscepticism
• Homophobia and male chauvinism[?]
• Defence of traditional institutions such as the monarchy and the church
• Rejection of the free market(with the exception of the FPO) and a stress on concentrating on working class OR lower middle class[?] (Vlaams Blok's success with the latter is worth mentioning).
• A stress on "corruption" among the political classes
• Environmentalism

These can differ (for example the Vlaams Blok is republican, and Pim Fortuyn believed Muslim immigration was a threat to social liberalism) from country to country and group to group.