Category Archives: The far right

MEPs back plans for ‘return hubs’, raising fears of ‘human rights black holes’

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European parliament votes in favour of sending refused asylum seekers to offshore hubs, in ‘historic setback for refugee rights’

People with no right to stay in the EU could be detained for up to two years or sent to offshore centres described by experts as possible “human rights black holes” under plans voted for by the European parliament on Thursday.

An alliance of mostly centre-right and far-right lawmakers voted for a proposal to increase returns of undocumented migrants to their home countries, in a further sign of strain on the grand coalition of centrist political forces that has traditionally driven EU lawmaking.

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Denmark’s prime minister given first chance at forming government after election

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Danish palace says it has asked Mette Frederiksen to try to form new majority with her Social Democrats and leftwing parties

Denmark’s outgoing prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has been given the first shot at forming another coalition government after an election which saw her leftwing bloc and the opposing rightwing parties fail to win a parliamentary majority.

A statement released by the Danish palace on Wednesday said Frederiksen had been asked to see if she could pull together a new majority involving her Social Democrats, who had their worst general election since 1903 but remain the biggest force in parliament.

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Could the continent’s far right be suffering from a Trumplash?

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France’s National Rally missed key targets in local elections ahead of next year’s seismic presidential vote – and the mainstream is doing OK elsewhere, too

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The Rassemblement National is not invincible. A year out from a make-or-break presidential vote, that might be the main lesson (though there are others, which may prove more significant) from last weekend’s local elections in France. What’s more, news elsewhere – Giorgia Meloni’s referendum defeat in Italy, Janez Janša beaten in Slovenia, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán in trouble, the left bloc largest in Denmark – might suggest the rest of Europe’s far right are not having it all their own way, either.

But let’s focus first on France – if only because while local elections are rarely a wholly accurate guide to future national outcomes, these ones seem to provide some pointers – and the stakes in the country’s next major election are vertiginously high.

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Trump lauds Viktor Orbán as Europe’s far-right leaders gather in Budapest

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US president’s backing comes as Hungary’s PM faces toughest election campaign of 16 years in office

Donald Trump has endorsed Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who faces his toughest electoral challenge next month since taking power 16 years ago, as Europe’s far-right leaders gather for a “grand assembly” in Budapest.

In a video message, the US president told the national-conservative Cpac Hungary conference in the capital on Saturday that Orbàn, who has been trailing in the polls behind a centre-right rival for more than a year, was a “fantastic guy”.

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Tory chief whip reposts AI video created by far-right figure who was jailed for hate crimes

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Exclusive: Rebecca Harris promotes latest Crewkerne Gazette skit, created by Joshua Bonehill-Paine who says he is Tory member

The Conservative party’s chief whip has been condemned for promoting AI-generated footage created by a notorious far-right figure who was jailed for hate crimes against Jewish people.

Rebecca Harris reposted the latest skit by the Crewkerne Gazette, which depicts Kemi Badenoch and her shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, as characters in the gangster film Scarface.

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Mayoral races in balance as voting opens in last round of French local elections

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Electoral alliances expected to play vital role in number of contests including Paris and Marseille

Voting is under way in France in the second round of local elections – seen as a bellwether for next year’s presidential race – with cities including Paris and Marseille in the balance and both the radical left and far right hoping for gains.

Most of France’s 35,000-odd communes elected their councils in the first round last Sunday, but in municipalities where the contest is tighter, including most large urban areas, the second round will be decisive, with electoral alliances playing a key role.

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First-round of French local elections sees strong showing for National Rally and LFI

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Far-right and radical left parties likely to increase their local presence in advance of next year’s presidential race

The first-round of the French municipal elections have seen a strong showing for Marine Le Pen’s far-right the National Rally (RN), as well as for Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s radical left, with both parties likely to increase their local presence ahead of next year’s French presidential race.

The French local elections, which now go to a final round runoff on 22 March, are seen as a crucial test of the political temperature before next year’s presidential election. Emmanuel Macron’s two terms in office come to an end in spring 2027 and there is uncertainty about who will next lead the EU’s second-largest economy.

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Most Reform members believe non-white UK citizens born abroad should be forced or encouraged to leave, poll finds

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Nigel Farage’s recent efforts to woo centre-ground voters may cause tension in party’s right flank, says Hope Not Hate

More than half of Reform UK members believe non-white British citizens born abroad should be deported or encouraged to leave, according to the first publicly available poll of those in Nigel Farage’s party.

The findings come as the Reform leader attempts to court centre-ground voters while facing pressure from his right flank, including a hardline new party launched by Rupert Lowe, who left Reform after falling out with Farage.

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France to summon US ambassador over comments on far-right activist’s death

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Official US social media accounts posted about rise of ‘violent radical leftism’ after killing of Quentin Deranque

The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, has said he will summon Charles Kushner, the US ambassador to France, over comments related to the killing of the French far-right activist Quentin Deranque.

Deranque was beaten to death in Lyon last week during a fight with allegedly hard-left activists.

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Texas congressional candidate with extremist views backed by hard-right donors

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After tech billionaire Peter Thiel and others donated to Jace Yarbrough’s campaign, Donald Trump endorsed him

A rookie congressional candidate in a nine-way Texas primary has received the imprimatur of wealthy hard-right donors including tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Claremont Institute board chair Thomas Klingenstein and Charles Haywood, who once expressed a desire to be a “warlord”, according to new Federal Election Commission filings showing early donations to his campaign.

In a recent candidate forum, Jace Yarbrough unapologetically staked out a series of extremist positions, saying that critics may call his approach to politics “bigoted and backward and oppressive and Nazi-ish”, but that he is “past trying to placate that in any way, shape or form”.

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‘An insult to our name’: AfD urged to stop using Simson mopeds at events

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Descendants of Jewish brothers forced to sell company to Nazis say appropriation by German far right is ‘repulsive’

The Jewish descendants of a German motorbike manufacturer that was forced by the Nazis to be relinquished have voiced their repulsion at the appropriation of the vehicle by far-right populists.

Members of the family, whose ancestors were forced to flee Germany in the 1930s, say they consider the use of the bike’s name by the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as a “mockery of our history”.

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Suspected members of neo-Nazi terror group arrested in Spain

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Three people are accused of belonging to the Base, an ‘accelerationist’ white power organisation founded in the US

Police in Spain have arrested three people on suspicion of belonging to the Base, a global neo-Nazi terrorist group that incites and trains members in techniques to overthrow governments and bring about a race war.

The group, which has been designated a terrorist organisation by the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is part of a worldwide “accelerationist” white power movement that prepares its cells to carry out violent and destabilising attacks.

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Jair Bolsonaro arrested after tampering with ankle tag ‘out of curiosity’

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Brazilian ex-president says he used soldering iron on device and is now in custody over fears he was going to abscond

Brazil’s former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has claimed he tried to damage his electronic ankle monitor “out of curiosity” after he was arrested at his villa owing to suspicions he was poised to abscond.

In a video released by the supreme court, Bolsonaro – who was recently sentenced to 27 years in prison for masterminding a military coup – can be heard admitting to a security official that he had used a soldering iron to tamper with the black tag.

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German far right setting agenda as opponents amplify its ideas, study finds

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Normalisation of far-right stances likely to affect success of such parties at ballot boxes across Europe, say researchers

Mainstream parties are increasingly allowing the far right to set the agenda, researchers in Germany have found, describing it as a shortcoming that had unwittingly helped the far right by legitimising their ideas and disseminating them more widely.

The findings, published in the European Journal of Political Research, were based on an automated text analysis of 520,408 articles from six German newspapers over the span of more than two decades.

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Broken promises and political crises: how Emmanuel Macron fell from French favour

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The president is seen to have accelerated the financial crisis, social inequalities and the rise of the far right

Three French governments have collapsed in less than a year, and the political crisis looks likely to continue, overshadowing Emmanuel Macron’s last 18 months in power and his domestic legacy.

This week, the latest minority government narrowly survived its first vote of no-confidence. But it remains the weakest cabinet in decades and could be toppled at any moment if opposition parties join together to oust it. France now faces a brutal two-month battle in parliament to achieve what once seemed the most basic element of governance: passing a budget.

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Catalonia’s Socialist president: tackling inequality can blunt separatist and far-right voices

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In an interview, Salvador Illa tells of ‘pragmatic approach’ as he seeks to persuade voters about benefits of coexistence with Madrid

Catalonia’s Socialist president has said his party’s focus on tackling inequality can win over voters who are tempted by pro-independence and far-right voices as he seeks to persuade Catalans of the benefits of coexistence with the central government in Madrid after years of turmoil.

Salvador Illa, a close ally of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been in the post since August 2024 and leads the first Catalan parliament in 44 years without a pro-independence majority.

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Candace Owens: Australia’s high court backs minister’s decision to deny visa to US rightwinger

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Home affairs minister’s 2024 decision to reject visa application for planned speaking tour on character grounds upheld

Australia’s high court has unanimously backed the government’s 2024 decision to refuse the rightwing provocateur Candace Owens a visa to enter the country.

The full bench of the court ruled on Wednesday that the minister’s denial did not infringe an implied constitutional freedom of political communication.

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Portugal’s far-right Chega falls well short of expectations in local elections

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Party hoped to take 30 municipalities but secured three after share of vote halved from parliamentary elections

Portugal’s far-right Chega party has won its first mayoral seats in local elections, final results showed, but fell well short of expectations as its vote share halved from parliamentary elections in May.

The six-year-old nationalist party, whose name means “Enough”, took control of three city halls: São Vicente on the island of Madeira; the central town of Entroncamento; and Albufeira in the south. It won an 11.86% share of the overall vote.

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European far right follows Trump in calling for antifa to be declared terrorists

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Netherlands and Hungary move towards designation as draft resolution reportedly backed by 79 MEPs in 20 countries

Where Donald Trump leads, Europe’s nationalists and far right follow. After a Truth Social post last month, when Trump announced the US would designate antifa, the decentralised anti-fascist movement, “a major terrorist organisation”, his international allies swung into action.

That same day, the Dutch parliament, where the largest party is Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV, passed a resolution, noting the US decision and calling on the government to declare antifa a terrorist organisation in the Netherlands.

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Macron summons parties for crunch meeting in frantic effort to appoint PM

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All parties except National Rally and La France Insoumise called on by president to show ‘collective responsibility’

Emmanuel Macron has summoned the leaders of several political parties to his office to demand they show “collective responsibility” as he attempts to appoint a new prime minister amid a deepening political crisis.

All political parties except Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, which is the biggest single opposition party, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s leftwing La France Insoumise were called to the meeting at the presidential palace before Macron’s self-imposed deadline to name a new prime minister by Friday night.

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