Can anyone stop Europe’s populist right?

FOR THE respectable men running western Europe’s three biggest countries, misery is heaped upon misery. All are presiding over stagnant living standards and declining global influence. In Britain and France their rivals from the populist right are itching to take power (even the Alternative for Germany, or the AfD, may win a couple of state elections next year). And America, their key ally, has just accused them of hastening Europe towards what it calls “civilisational erasure”.

Those three leaders also warn of a catastrophe—if the parties of the populist right should triumph. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, describes his government as centrism’s last chance. After his coalition lost European elections last year, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, spoke about the danger of civil war. This month Britain’s prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, told The Economist that Reform UK was a challenge to “the very essence of who we are as a nation”.

The doctrines of the populist right do indeed contain much to condemn. Yet talking about them in apocalyptic terms is doomed to fail. For their own sake, and for the good of their countries, mainstream politicians and their supporters urgently need a different approach.

For one thing, all this doom-mongering smacks of an attempt to draw attention away from their own failures. In Britain, after 14 stagnant years under the Conservatives, Sir Keir’s Labour government is spending more on welfare and will impose record taxes even as rapid growth eludes it. In France Mr Macron’s law raising the state pension age has been ditched, as his fifth prime minister in three years inches a budget through the National Assembly. In Germany Mr Merz’s plan for an “autumn of reforms” came to almost nothing. If the fate of Europe is at stake, why aren’t its leaders getting more done?

For another thing, their threats are not credible. Some populist-right administrations are dangerous, others are not. Giorgia Meloni has run Italy much as a conventional politician would. Reform councillors in Britain have so far been fairly normal. True, Viktor Orban’s party captured and milked Hungary’s institutions, but it may soon be booted out. That doesn’t sound like the death of democracy.

No wonder that predicting calamity is not working. As the populists’ strength in opinion polls makes clear, a huge number of European voters simply do not believe what they are being told. Meanwhile the elites, alive to the ebb and flow of power, are cosying up to the populists they once shunned. Jordan Bardella of National Rally has been quietly meeting French business leaders. Tory politicians are defecting to Reform, bringing Nigel Farage badly needed legislative and ministerial experience. Only in Germany does the mainstream rule out working with the AfD. Its MPs, the second-largest group in parliament, are even banned from Bundestag vice-presidencies.

All this helps explain why the strategy of demonisation is self-defeating. Mainstream politicians say they defend tolerance and working people, but when they dismiss a large part of the electorate as bigots, they come across as intolerant and smug. And when they warn that populism will destroy their vision of what Europe should be, it encourages those voters who are desperate to shake things up.

If demonisation is failing, what is the alternative? The answer starts with that impatience for change which the populist right harnesses so successfully—and which this newspaper shares. The next step is to scrutinise how likely the populists are to jolt Europe out of its complacency. Engagement can improve bad policies if populists are willing to change them—and if they refuse, it exposes their folly.

The most promising populist project is the economy. When National Rally, Reform and the AfD speak to businesses, they focus on deregulation at both the national level and, for France and Germany, in Brussels. They say they want leaner government and lower taxes. They look to the power of technology. And they complain that the state penalises initiative and risk-taking while spending too much on welfare.

All that is welcome, but it is only half the story. For Britain, France and Germany, European economic integration is the most obvious source of growth. Yet the populists are set on a collision course with the European Union, which would lead to growth-destroying degradation of the single market. The fiasco of Elon Musk’s DOGE shows how hard it is to shrink the state well. Mr Bardella wants a wealth tax and was opposed to raising the pension age. After criticism for fantastical spending pledges, Mr Farage now promises more realistic budgeting, but details remain elusive.

On other issues, populists latch onto discontent, but propose solutions that are foolish. Many Europeans worry about immigration, fearing that it will harm public services and change national cultures. But populists, and America’s warnings, are out of date: legal immigration has peaked and, with the exception of Britain, illegal immigration into Europe is half what it was in 2023. The populists are also cruel. Talk of mass deportation or language designed to make immigrants feel despised is xenophobic.

Most Europeans do not worry about geopolitics, but they should. At a time when America is ever-less willing to lead the collective defence of Europe, populists echo Donald Trump’s dangerous belief that the continent will be safer if it is less united, and if each state pursues its national interests. They also show a blinkered weakness for the autocrats in Russia and China. Vladimir Putin must be cheering them on.

National elections are 18 months away in France, due in March 2029 in Germany and as late as August 2029 in Britain. Much can change in that time. If mainstream politicians spend it shrilly demonising populists, they will doubtless make themselves feel better, but they will not help their countries. They would be wiser to subject governments-in-waiting to the democratic scrutiny they deserve. ■