Right-wing authoritarianism has arrived in Britain. In recent weeks the government has unlawfully suspended parliament, announced it may ignore some of the laws passed through the Commons, and cemented a strategic political alliance with the Trump administration in the USA. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party government, without a majority in parliament, remains tied to and partially a hostage of Nigel Farage’s nationalist Brexit Party, whilst PM Boris Johnson wilfully uses language and posturing to inflame the passions of the far-right. Such events are new in British politics and are related to the particular events surrounding Brexit. However, especially when viewed from the vantage point of Central and Eastern Europe, Britain seems to be following an already well-trodden path.
Authoritarianism in Europe
The rise of authoritarian right-wing governments has tended to be viewed as a phenomenon confined to the countries on Europe’s eastern ‘peripheries’. This view is derived from an assumption that political authoritarianism is spreading westwards from eastern Europe, potentially destabilising the political democracies in the west. This account is erroneous in two ways. Firstly, countries such as Hungary and Poland have been integrated into the western economic and political order for over three decades. The shift towards conservative authoritarianism has not involved a break from this process, but is rather a consequence of the neo-liberal transition enacted in these countries. Secondly, examples of authoritarianism are not confined to the ‘peripheries’ of Europe. The locking up of politicians and activists in Catalonia or the brutality of the police against demonstrators in France, go further in their severity than the actions so far carried out by the governments in Budapest or Warsaw.
The locking up of politicians and activists in Catalonia or the brutality of the police against demonstrators in France, go further in their severity than the actions so far carried out by the governments in Budapest or Warsaw.
Such a perspective is made clearer when one considers the European Union’s own democratic deficit; its undemocratic imposition of austerity in countries like Greece; and the recent announcement that the European Union’s most senior official on migration would now be given the job title: ‘protecting our European way of life’. Britain is certainly not living in splendid isolation.
