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The recent elections in France and Great Britain reiterate a message which European voters have been trying to send the Brussels bureaucrats and the Davos Men over the last few years: They cannot accept uncontrolled mass immigration, especially of people hostile to European values, and they are opposed to the replacement of their nation states by a United States of Europe. The results of these two elections (as well as of earlier elections in the Netherlands and Italy, to take two examples) imply a resounding no by many or even most voters to mass immigration and centralisation.
Moving Across Borders Without Problems
Classical liberalism, as originally articulated by John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith, and revived and reinforced in modern times by Friedrich A. von Hayek and Milton Friedman, provides the intellectually most satisfying account of man in society as well as the most effective policies for promoting liberty and prosperity: Government must be limited because some of our rulers may turn out to be either bad or incompetent; property must be private because people care more for what they own themselves than for what others own; and trade must be free so that people can benefit from the division of labour. The three principles of limited government, private property, and free trade have withstood the test of time, while socialism only produces oppression and misery.
A consistent classical liberal supports the free flow of ideas, goods and people across borders. Immigrants eager to work in order to better the conditions of themselves and their families are a blessing, not a burden. Indeed, people are moving across European borders all the time, Norwegians going to Sweden looking for jobs, Icelanders to Denmark, Poles to Germany, Romanians to France, and so on. As a result, everybody becomes better off. There are no significant problems about these kinds of immigrants. But in recent times, alas, other kinds of immigrants have arrived in Europe. Individually, they are probably no better or worse than others, but they come from a culture of violence, indolence, misogyny, and hostility to alternative expressions of sexual identity. Briefly, they are the angry and noisy Muslim extremists that have recently filled the streets and squares of London, Berlin and other European capitals in support of the Hamas terrorists.
Only One Group Creates Problems
These are the immigrants who have tried several times to implement the death sentence the Iranian imams passed on Salman Rushdie. They are the people who shot the staff of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. They are the people who have tried to murder Danish journalists and cartoonists. They are the people who control whole neighbourhoods in Nordic and British cities mainly occupied by Arab immigrants and mostly avoided by the police. They are the people who shout obscenities at Jews in public places and occasionally try to set their synagogues on fire. Although the killer of Duth politician Pim Fonteyn was not an Arab, he gave as his reason that Fonteyn was presenting Muslims as scapegoats.
Compare this with other kinds of immigrants. Which Norwegians in Sweden are trying to pass and carry out death sentences on Swedish authors hostile to Christianity? Which Icelanders in Denmark are physically threatening Danish journalists who mock their tiny nation (as for example Ekstrabladet repeatedly does)? Which Polish immigrants in Germany are trying to kill politicians critical of the Catholic Church? All these examples appear absurd, and indeed they are. This is because most immigrants in Europe share certain values and respect certain limits, whereas the Muslim extremists do not. The extremists refuse to adjust to European laws, customs, conventions, manners and traditions, in short to European culture, although they certainly want to share in the material fruits of that culture.
French Election No Victory of the Left
European voters do not want their countries to be taken over by Muslim extremists, although of course Muslim immigrants to Europe should enjoy the freedom of religion denied to Christians in many Muslim countries. Consider the French legislative election in two rounds, 30 June and 7 July 2024. In the second round, four main groupings competed: Le Pen’s National Rally, Macron’s Ensemble, the former Gaullists, and a coalition of left-wing parties hastily formed to gain as many seats as possible by not standing separately. National Rally did well in both rounds, gaining 15–20 per cent from the last elections. It got 33.2 and 37.1 per cent of the votes respectively, more than ten million votes. Macron’s Ensemble lost 4–14 per cent, got 21.3 and 24.5 per cent of the votes respectively, a little less than seven million votes. The left-wing alliance gained 3 per cent in the first round and lost 6 per cent in the second round. It received 28.2 and 25.8 per cent of the votes, respectively. The old Gaullists (the Republicans) lost 2–4 per cent, got 6.6 and 5.4 per cent of the votes respectively. Thus, the National Rally won the election, although not a majority in the Legislature, as they had unrealistically hoped.
British Election No Victory of the Left
This was not a left-wing victory by any stretch of the imagination. The same can be said about the British general election on 4 July. The Labour Party got 33.7 per cent of the votes. It gained only 1.7 per cent from the last election, although it got a large majority in the House of Commons. It received less votes under Sir Keir Starmer than under the unspeakable Jeremy Corbyn in the last two elections. The Liberal Democrats got 12.2 per cent of the votes, only gaining 0.6 per cent from the last election. The Conservatives suffered a heavy defeat. They got 23.7 per cent of the votes, losing 19.9 per cent from the last election. Because of the electoral system, their loss of seats was much more dramatic than this number suggest. The Reform Party under Nigel Farage got 14.3 per cent of the votes, gaining 12.3 per cent. In terms of votes, it became the third largest party, larger than the Liberal Democrats, although with fewer seats. Thus, the real winner of the British election was the Reform UK Party. It presents the same message as France’s National Front: No mass immigration, and a reversal of EU centralisation.
The Opinion of the Electoral Base
I am by no means a supporter of Le Pen’s National Rally or Farage’s Reform UK. For example, some of the National Rally’s economic policies are deeply misguided. They seem to be dirigistes inspired by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, not conservative liberals in the tradition of Benjamin Constant, Frédéric Bastiat, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Bertrand de Jouvenel. The National Rally may believe in private property, but they appear unenthusiastic about limited government and free trade. They are also ambivalent about the obvious Russian threat to Western civilisation. But this does not change the fact that in the elections in Great Britain and France many voters turned away from the traditional conservative-liberal parties because they rejected mass immigration, especially from Muslim countries, and the replacement of the European nation states by a United States of Europe, run by an unaccountable, arrogant and obscure bureaucracy in Brussels. No right-wing or conservative-liberal mass party in Europe will succeed if it ignores the clear opinion of its electoral base.
European Identity and National Identities
I do not doubt that there is a European identity, mainly moulded, I would suggest, in the battle of Tours in 732 and in the siege of Vienna in 1683 when the Europeans united against a foreign threat. But the identification with Europe among voters is not as strong as the identification with the nation. Swedes think first and foremost of themselves as Swedes, not as Europeans. The same is the case in almost all other European countries, with the possible exception of Luxembourg. Certainly, Europeans have much in common, as Edward Gibbon eloquently stated two hundred and fifty years ago:
It is the duty of a patriot to prefer and promote the exclusive interest and glory of his native country; but a philosopher may be permitted to enlarge his views, and to consider Europe as one great republic, whose various inhabitants have attained almost the same level of politeness and cultivation. The balance of power will continue to fluctuate, and the prosperity of our own or the neighbouring kingdoms may be alternately exalted or depressed; but these partial events cannot essentially injure our general state of happiness, the system of arts, and laws, and manners, which so advantageously distinguish, above the rest of mankind, the Europeans and their colonies. The savage nations of the globe are the common enemies of civilised society; and we may inquire with anxious curiosity, whether Europe is still threatened with a repetition of those calamities which formerly oppressed the arms and institutions of Rome.
The European project is a noble one. It was successful as long as it was about economic integration, turning swords into plows, trading instead of fighting, voluntary exchange for mutual benefit. But economic integration only presupposes a certain legal framework, kept to a minimum, not the extensive political integration which is usually a euphemism for centralisation. If the European Union is to be stable and strong, it must return to its roots as a relatively loose federation of nation states, with a common market and in a military alliance with the United States of America. It must abandon the project of the United States of Europe which would be unable to resist Gibbon’s ‘savage nations of the globe’ because it would not be based on a strong enough common identity.