Category Archives: The far right

AfD politician’s aide arrested on suspicion of spying for China

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Man worked as assistant to Maximilian Krah, top candidate in European parliament elections, say prosecutors

A close adviser to a leading member of Germany’s far-right populist Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) has been arrested on suspicion on spying for China in the latest high-profile espionage case to have come to light.

The man, identified by prosecutors as Jian G, was accused of “an especially severe instance” of espionage, prosecutors said, following his arrest in the early hours of Tuesday morning. It comes after the arrests of three German citizens accused of industrial spying for China in return for payment.

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Far right’s rise in Portugal could threaten ambitious climate action

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Environmentalists fear focus on economy may undermine country’s climate transition – one of most radical in Europe

Portugal has been among Europe’s more ambitious countries in terms of climate action, but the rise of the far right in recent elections could threaten the positive steps the country has taken.

At the end of 2023, Portugal broke records as it went for six consecutive days relying solely on renewable energy. But national elections in March this year marked a significant shift in the political landscape, with the far-right party Chega (Enough) making a major breakthrough. Having more than quadrupled its number of MPs from 12 to 50, Chega holds considerable sway in the 230-seat parliament, where it could influence legislation.

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US and EU sanctions against Israeli extremists mark pivotal step against far right

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International moves target two high-profile individuals with connections to senior figures in far-right politics

The latest US and EU sanctions against individuals implicated in pro-settler violence in the occupied Palestinian territories represent a significant escalation in international moves against key far-right extremists in Israel.

While previous sanctions announcements have focused on individual settlers implicated in violence – often little known outside Israel – the latest moves mark the targeting of two far more high-profile individuals with connections to senior figures in far-right politics in Israel, including national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

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Extremist Israeli settlers hit by EU and US sanctions

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Far-right group Lehava and several individuals accused of violence targeted in dual announcements

The EU and the US have imposed tough new sanctions against key figures alleged to be behind extremist violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The sanctions – announced within hours of each other by the EU and by the US Treasury – targeted a number of prominent individuals and organisations, most prominently Bentzi Gopstein, the leader of the Levaha group, who reports in the Israeli media suggest has acted as an adviser to the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir.

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French PM accused of recycling far-right ideas in youth violence crackdown

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Gabriel Attal says state needs ‘real surge of authority’ in speech in Viry-Châtillon, where 15-year-old killed

The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is facing criticism for his proposed crackdown on teenage violence in and around schools, after he said some teenagers in France were “addicted to violence”, just as the government seeks to reclaim ground on security issues from the far right before European elections.

In his speech in Viry-Châtillon, a town south of Paris where a 15-year-old boy was beaten and killed this month by a group of young people, Attal said the state needed “a real surge of authority”.

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German far-right leader in court charged with using Nazi slogan

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Prosecutors claim influential AfD leader Björn Höcke used Nazi slogan ‘Everything for Germany!’ in speech

One of the most prominent figures in the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party has arrived in court for his trial on charges of using a Nazi slogan, months before a regional election in which he is running to become his state’s governor.

Björn Höcke, 52, is the leader of the regional branch of the AfD in the eastern state of Thuringia and a powerful figure on the party’s hard right.

While never formally a national leader of AfD, the former history teacher has been influential as the 11-year-old party has steadily headed further right and ousted several comparatively moderate leaders.

At the trial at the state court in Halle, Höcke is charged with using symbols of unconstitutional organisations. He is accused of ending a speech in nearby Merseburg in May 2021 with the words: “Everything for Germany!”

Prosecutors contend he was aware of the origin of the phrase as a slogan of the Nazis’ SA stormtroopers. Using symbols of unconstitutional organisations can carry a fine or a prison sentence of up to three years.

Höcke insisted in a debate with a conservative rival last week that he was unaware it was a Nazi slogan and claimed many others had used it. “Everyone out there knows it’s an everyday saying,” he said.

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Far-right US Senate candidate tells crowd to carry guns ahead of election

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Kari Lake of Arizona warned supporters of ‘intense’ election year in which Democrats will come after them ‘with everything’

Republican US Senate candidate Kari Lake has told supporters to “strap on a Glock” ahead of the 2024 elections as she struggles to gain ground against her Democratic rival in Arizona.

In a campaign speech made to a crowd in Arizona’s Mohave county on Sunday, Lake echoed Trump-like terms in calling Washington DC a “swamp” – and used a reference to carrying guns when she told people to prepare for an “intense” election year.

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NatCon conference resumes after Brussels court overturns closure order

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Belgian PM condemns move by local mayor to shut down radical rightwing conference as ‘unconstitutional’

A radical right conference that was addressed by Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman as police arrived to close it down has resumed after a Brussels court overturned a local mayor’s attempt to stop it.

Following moves condemned as “unacceptable” and “unconstitutional” by the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, organisers of the National Conservatism conference went to the conseil d’état, Belgium’s supreme administrative court.

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Rishi Sunak and Belgian PM criticise mayor’s halting of NatCon conference

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Emir Kir ordered police to close down radical rightwing conference attended by Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage

The UK prime minister has rounded on Belgian authorities for closing down a radical rightwing conference in Brussels that was addressed by British politicians including Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman.

After a day of chaos, claims and recriminations, the decision by a local Belgian mayor to stop the National Conservatives (NatCon) event was also condemned as “unacceptable” by Belgium’s prime minister, Alexander De Croo.

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EU asylum and migration pact has passed despite far right and left’s objections

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Long-awaited package of measures marks victory for Europe’s centre albeit with ‘doubts and concerns’ over implementation

Almost a decade in the making, the EU’s new migration and asylum pact suffered so many setbacks, stalemates and rewrites that when member states finally announced a deal last year, its passage through parliament seemed assured.

That was, however, to ignore the objections of Europe’s resurgent far-right parties, who felt it was not tough enough (and, perhaps, hoped to profit at the ballot box from allowing the current chaos around migration to continue).

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Politician who attended Charlottesville white-supremacist rally faces recall

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Pushback against Oklahoma’s Judd Blevins transcending partisanship, says organizer: ‘It’s a Nazi and not-Nazi thing’

Voters in the north-west Oklahoma city of Enid are being asked to decide whether a councilmember who attended the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 should be removed from his post.

Iraq war veteran Judd Blevins, 42, was elected to Enid’s city council to be the commissioner of its first ward last year. He soon faced an effort by the Enid social justice committee, which claimed Blevins “embraces the same Nazi ideology [the US] defeated almost 80 years ago” during the second world war.

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Hire factcheckers to fight election fake news, EU tells tech firms

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Parliamentary elections thought vulnerable to fake news will test social media firms and bloc’s new DSA laws

Social media firms including TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram will be required to put an army of factcheckers and moderators in place with a collective knowledge of 24 EU languages amid fears that the European parliamentary elections will be a prime target for disinformation campaigns run by Russia and others including the far right.

The new rules flow from the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which regulates content on social media, and follows a public consultation with civil society and election observation groups in February.

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‘We are dealing with fundamentalist rightwingers’: Berlin statues are latest battleground in Germany’s culture wars

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Monuments erected on the Stadtschloss are an ‘infiltration’ of the city and its skyline by nationalists, say critics

Silently towering into the grey Berlin sky, the latest addition to the German capital’s skyline is easily missed by passengers passing along the Unter den Linden boulevard below. Eight statues of Old Testament prophets, each more than 3 metres tall and weighing 3 tonnes, were installed last week in a circular formation around the cupola of the palace in the centre of the metropolis.

Whether these wise men made of sandstone are mere innocent bystanders overlooking the ebb and flow of German history or warriors in a culture war over the country’s future, however, has been the subject of heated debate. Critics say the erection of Isaiah, Ezekiel and co is emblematic of the silent manipulation of a prestige architecture project by a shady group of donors with nationalist leanings.

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North Carolina schools candidate who called for Obama’s death put on the spot

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Michele Morrow, the far-right Republican running to oversee public schools in the state, said she is facing ‘radical extremists’

A far-right Republican candidate running to oversee public schools in North Carolina decried “extreme agendas that threaten our children’s future”, after being confronted by reporters over tweets in which she called for the executions of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

“Don’t let extreme agendas threaten our children’s future,” Michele Morrow said on social media on Thursday, posting an address in which she said she was “facing the most radical extremist Democrats [that] have ever run for superintendent in the history of North Carolina”.

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Populist parties’ divisions jeopardise chances of setting European agenda

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Survey shows supporters of nationalist parties hold widely differing views on EU membership, migration and support for Ukraine

Populist and nationalist parties fighting the European elections in June are deeply divided on almost all key issues, according to a survey, in a finding that questions their chances of defining the bloc’s agenda even in the event of a predicted far-right surge.

However, the report, by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), also said pro-EU parties risked mobilising the Eurosceptic vote if they continued to ape hard-right policies rather than coming up with persuasive alternatives.

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Portugal’s new prime minister promises to bring stability after narrow win

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Luís Montenegro must now try to form government but has vowed not to do any deal with far-right Chega party

Portugal’s new prime minister, Luís Montenegro, has promised stable government after the country’s president invited him to try to form a minority administration that could face a rough ride in a hung parliament.

Montenegro, 51, was named prime minister early on Thursday after a long-awaited count of overseas votes confirmed a narrow victory in 10 March elections for his centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD).

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Far-right Austrian nationalist banned from Germany after neo-Nazi meeting

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Martin Sellner, leader of ethno-nationalist Identitarian Movement, had addressed controversial event in Potsdam in November

A far-right Austrian nationalist has been banned from entering Germany after addressing a meeting about mass deportations that provoked mass protests across the country.

Days after he was deported from Switzerland, Martin Sellner, a leader of Austria’s ethno-nationalist Identitarian Movement, posted a video of himself on X reading out a letter to his lawyer that he said was from authorities in the city of Potsdam.

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‘A campaign for vengeance’: critics warn of a radical second Trump term

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After a chaotic first term, experienced advisers are ready to usher in a second presidency ‘driven by imaginary grievances’

The US election primary season is effectively over. Conventional wisdom holds that the two major candidates will now pivot towards the centre ground in search of moderate voters. But Donald Trump has never been one for conventional wisdom.

Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.

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Formation of Dutch government advances as far-right Wilders admits he can’t be PM

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Four parties have agreed to pursue ‘extra-parliamentary’ cabinet, says mediator overseeing tense coalition talks

Dutch coalition talks will move on from exploratory discussions to more concrete negotiations aimed at forming a largely technocratic government, after the far-right leader Geert Wilders accepted he could not be prime minister.

Four months after Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom party (PVV) became the largest in parliament, Kim Putters, the former socialist senator overseeing the talks, said they would continue based on a cabinet of political veterans and outside experts.

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From left to far right, which groups could end up on the UK extremism list?

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Michael Gove has named five groups to be examined but some fear many more will ultimately be included

Far-right and Islamist groups are among those expected to be included in a list the government will publish in the coming weeks as part of a new definition of extremism.

The communities minister, Michael Gove, named five groups to MPs on Thursday – three Muslim-led and two far-right – which he said would be examined under the new legislation.

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