For every asylum application that was accepted in the EU last year, two were rejected. Anti-migration rhetoric has become the lowest common denominator for rightwing populist politics in many of the 28 member states.
A shocking leaflet sent out in Tory/Labour battlegrounds has “racist undertones”. NHS workers and experts call it out as “bullshit” aimed at distracting people from the real reasons the NHS is struggling.
Today, the world is supposed to remember the victims of genocide. Tomorrow, Aung San Suu Kyi will confront the International Court of Justice over that same crime.
What these regimes have in common is the “man-made” nature of the Zeitgeist. Democracies are not dying in the world today; they are being killed by premeditated, deliberate acts on the part of the incumbent leaders.
The neoliberal fantasy of the world as a de-politicised marketplace has been decisive in the rise of the regressive nationalistic populism holding sway across so much of the world today.
