Category Archives: The far right

Stephen Miller: white nationalist and, still, Trump’s immigration guru

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The revelation of an email trove in which the White House aide trafficked in far-right ideas provoked outrage but little surprise

The extraordinary email leak came with a sense of inevitability. The senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist articles and books in emails to a writer at Breitbart, who after leaving the hard-right website leaked 900 messages to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

It was a discovery that would end the careers of most political figures. But among calls for Miller’s resignation, a common theme emerged: a lack of surprise that the architect of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda endorsed white supremacist views.

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‘Sardines against Salvini’: Italians pack squares in protest against far right

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Thousands converge in bid to beat numbers drawn to League leader’s pre-election rallies

An estimated 7,000 people have crammed together in the northern Italian city of Modena as part of a growing “sardines” movement against the politics of the far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, in which opponents attempt to beat the numbers he draws to his rallies.

Protesters converged under the rain at Piazza Grande on Monday night as the former interior minister campaigned in the city before crucial regional elections in Emilia-Romagna, a leftwing stronghold.

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Neo-Nazi terror group threatened ‘to find and harm’ US activist in Germany

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Activist says German police were warned by US authorities of AWD member who went to Germany with possible intention to harm her

An US activist in Germany who was targeted by the neo-Nazi terror group Atomwaffen Division (AWD) has told the Guardian German police were last year warned by US authorities of “a specific threat to find me and do me harm”.

Related: House investigating whether Trump lied to Robert Mueller – live

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The Guardian view on political turbulence in Germany: can the centre hold? | Editorial

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The country’s traditional powerhouses on the centre-left and the centre-right face a moment of reckoning

Postwar German politics has a reputation for being moderate, consensual and a touch on the dull side. But there have been moments of high drama. In November 1959, for example, the Social Democratic party (SPD) abandoned its historic ambition to replace capitalism with socialism, dropped the Marxist account of class struggle and began to pitch itself as a broad-based Volkspartei (people’s party). History vindicated the decision. For the next 50 years or so, the SPD vied for power with the country’s other great political force, the CDU (and its CSU Bavarian ally), as both parties regularly achieved a vote share of over 40%.

Famed for their practice of big-tent politics, what the CDU and SPD would give for such numbers now. The agonies of Brexit and the rise of rightwing populism have claimed the political limelight around Europe. But those looking for clues to the continent’s future would do well to watch Germany closely over the coming weeks.

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Spain election: grand coalition ruled out as far-right Vox surges

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Socialists will not join forces with arch-rivals PP after failing again to secure majority

Spain’s governing socialist party has ruled out a grand coalition with its arch-rivals, the conservative People’s party (PP), after a deadlocked election marked by a surge in support for the far-right Vox party.

After winning the country’s fourth general election in as many years but again failing to secure a majority, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) also rejected any return to the polls, saying yet another election would be “an institutional failure”.

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Spain stalemate shows inconclusive elections are the new normal

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As politics gets polarised, many polls in Europe and beyond no longer have clear outcomes

Spain’s politics remain in deadlock after the fourth election in four years failed – like the previous one, seven months ago – to return any party, from left or right, with enough seats in parliament to readily form a new government.

As it did in April, the centre-left PSOE party of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, topped Sunday’s poll, but fell short of a majority. And while the conservative People’s party bounced back and the far-right Vox surged, the right, too, lacks the numbers to govern.

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Spain’s far-right Vox surges in wake of Catalan independence protests

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Catalan question again dominates campaign ahead of Sunday’s general election

Barcelona no longer goes to bed to the smell of smoke, the whoop of sirens or the clattering of helicopters. Three weeks after violent unrest greeted the Spanish supreme court’s decision to jail nine Catalan separatist leaders for sedition over their roles in the failed push for regional independence two years ago, the city is slowly returning to something resembling normality.

While sporadic roadblocks set up by protesters have become just another irritation of urban life and rubbish piles up on the streets after most of the bins in central Barcelona were burned on the barricades, the true impact may be more accurately measured on Sunday when Spain holds its fourth general election in as many years. The Catalan question is once again dominating the political debate and could help the far-right Vox party surge into third place, its best-ever result.

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Thousands take to streets in Rome for far-right rally

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Matteo Salvini’s League joins rightwing parties in ‘Italian pride’ protest

Thousands of Italians descended on Rome for a far-right rally labelled “Italy pride”, evoking connotations to the “march on Rome” held on 27 October 1922 that marked the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini’s rise to power.

The rally on Saturday had been in the making since Matteo Salvini, the leader of the League, was spectacularly ousted from government in late August.

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Family, faith, flag: the religious right and the battle for Poland’s soul

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The rightwing Law and Justice party may be authoritarian and anti-LGBT, but its welfare programmes have transformed the lives of low-income Poles

“Every good Pole should know what the role of the church is … because beyond the church there is only nihilism.”

– Jarosław Kaczyński, chairman of the Law and Justice party, 7 September

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Austrian elections offer latest sign far right’s rise is faltering in Europe

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Freedom party’s vote collapses to 16%, as others stall in Italy, Spain, France and elsewhere

The slump in support for the nationalist Freedom party (FPÖ) in Austria’s elections on Sunday is the latest indication that if the tide has not turned against Europe’s far-right populists, it does seem – for the time being, at least – to have stopped rising.

Sebastian Kurz’s conservative People’s party (ÖVP) won 37.1% of the vote, its best score since 2002, while the share held by FPÖ, until May his junior coalition partner in government, collapsed to 16.1%, down a full 10 percentage points.

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Neo-Nazi ‘terrorist cell’ on trial over alleged Berlin attack plot

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Eight members of Revolution Chemnitz accused of planning armed assaults on immigrants

The trial of an alleged neo-Nazi cell accused of plotting a violent political uprising in Germany has begun amid fears that the far-right movement is increasingly armed and radical.

Eight members of Revolution Chemnitz, aged between 21 and 32, have been charged with forming a rightwing terrorist organisation.

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Austrian elections: support for far-right collapses

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Sebastian Kurz looks certain to reclaim his title of world’s youngest leader as his ÖVP takes 37%

Support for Austria’s Freedom party (FPÖ) has plunged by more than a third as voters punished the far-right group in national elections for a corruption scandal that brought down the government.

The former chancellor Sebastian Kurz, 33, looks certain to reclaim his position as the youngest leader in the world after his conservative People’s party (ÖVP) secured 37.1% of the vote – its best result since 2002.

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Try before you buy: German city offers workers a free one-month stay

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Picturesque Görlitz is offering free lodging and studio space in exchange for feedback on what potential residents want from a city

Last year Eva Bodenmüller read about a city in eastern Germany inviting people to live there for a month for free. She and her partner Carsten Borck, an artist, knew they had to leave their residence in Italy soon and weren’t looking forward to moving back to their native Berlin.

“I thought: ‘Why not Görlitz?’” said Bodenmüller, a freelance journalist .

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Brazilians blame Rio governor’s shoot-to-kill policy for death of girl

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Hundreds protest over favela killing of Ágatha Félix, eight, allegedly shot in back by police

The photograph shows a smiling eight-year-old girl dressed as Wonder Woman, beaming through gap teeth and crossing her small clenched fists into an X. Shocked Brazilians shared the image of Ágatha Félix online after she was shot in the back in a Rio de Janeiro favela on Friday night by what residents said was a bullet from a police officer’s rifle. She later died in hospital.

She was the fifth young child to be killed in Rio favelas this year. Favela activists, politicians, the public defenders’ office and the president of Rio’s bar association blamed the shoot-to-kill policy of the Rio governor, Wilson Witzel. “He is responsible for the murder,” tweeted Guilherme Boulos, a leftist politician.

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After murder, defections and poll defeat: the sun sets on Greece’s Golden Dawn

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The neo-Nazi party’s Athens offices have downsized and it has closed offices across the country. Greeks embrace the end of an era of rage

For years the five-storey building at 131 Mesogeion Avenue embodied the success of Golden Dawn, the neo-Nazi party that took Greece, and Europe, by storm. Today, its tattered flag, broken signage and shuttered doors have come to tell another story: of Golden Dawn’s rise and fall on the back of rage and economic crisis, hate-mongering, murder and criminal charges. “The people put them in, the people threw them out,” quips Giorgos Mavroeidis, the manager of a health-appliance shop two stores down. “We got used to the rallies in the end but they were extremists to be sure,” he says of the black-clad staff and supporters who would frequent the building, the party’s national headquarters. “It’s strange to think of us being so close to them now.”

Related: 'Their ideas had no place here': how Crete kicked out Golden Dawn

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AfD politician threatens journalist after Hitler comparison

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Björn Höcke halts interview after German state broadcaster draws parallel to Nazi rhetoric

An Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politician has walked out of an interview and threatened a journalist after he was confronted with parallels between his rhetoric and that of Adolf Hitler.

An interview with Björn Höcke by the state broadcaster ZDF, recorded last week but screened on Sunday, shows the AfD politician threatening “massive consequences” to a journalist who refused to restart an interview after a series of difficult questions.

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Racism is spreading beyond the football stands. It’s time to kick it out for good

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Taunts against black players are symptomatic of a rising tide of prejudice in society, fostered across Europe by the far right

Romelu Lukaku is a football star and goal-scoring machine. He has hit the net 113 times in 252 Premier League appearances and is the Belgian national team’s all-time top striker. Last month, he transferred to Inter Milan from Manchester United for a reported £74m. On 26 August, he scored on his debut in Serie A – Italy’s first division. For many football fans across Europe, Lukaku is both a legend and role model.

There is a “but” coming … and it concerns Lukaku’s skin colour. In many respects, Lukaku is a marvel. But he is a black marvel and, for a minority of fans, club officials – and even some players – this overshadows everything else. Whether out of bigotry or ignorance, Lukaku’s ethnicity – he is of Congolese descent – shapes and distorts their perception of an exceptional man and athlete.

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Norway issues rightwing terror warning for year ahead

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Heightened assessment based on extremists expressing backing for recent attacks

Norway’s domestic security agency has warned about the possibility of a terror attack from rightwing extremists “in the coming year”.

In a statement, the PST said its heightened assessment stemmed from the fact that several Norwegian rightwing extremists had recently expressed support for the perpetrators behind attacks in New Zealand, the US and the failed attack in the Norwegian capital Oslo last month.

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Viktor Orbán trumpets Hungary’s ‘procreation, not immigration’ policy

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Hungarian PM invokes far-right ‘great replacement’ theory at Budapest demography summit

Procreate or face extinction: that’s the message from central European leaders to their shrinking populations, as across the region rightwing governments implement so-called “family first” policies to incentivise childbearing.

Hungary’s government is holding an international summit on demography in Budapest this week, being attended by several regional leaders and delegations from dozens of countries in an attempt to trumpet their investment in family policies.

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Far-right AfD makes big gains but fails to topple mainstream parties

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Exit polls put party second in German state elections in Saxony and Brandenburg

The anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland party made strong gains in two crucial state elections in Germany on Sunday, increasing its support significantly but failing to oust the mainstream parties.

But the sharp shift to the right in Saxony and Brandenburg – AfD came second in both states – is a blow to the ruling coalition of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), both parties having lost thousands of voters to AfD.

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