Conflicted Politicians: the Radical Right in the European Parliament

Conflicted Politicians The populist radical right in the European Parliament Marley Morris Supported by: Counterpoint is a research and advisory group that uses social science methods to examine social, political and cultural dynamics. With a focus on how civil society operates in different contexts, Counterpoint helps organisations to develop solutions for more resilient and prosperous societies. This book is available to download and re-use under a by-nc-sa Creative Commons license ported to UK law. This means that you are free to copy, distribute, display and perform the work, and make derivative works, in a non-commercial context, as long as you credit Counterpoint and the author and share the resulting works under an equivalent license. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/ Conflicted Politicians: the populist radical right in the European Parliament Published by Counterpoint 2013 Some rights reserved www.counterpoint.uk.com ISBN 978-1-909499-03-4 Copy edited by Julie Pickard Series design by modernactivity Typeset by modernactivity Printed by Lecturis Text & cover paper: Munken Print White Set in Transport & Scala Marley Morris Acknowledgements 3 Executive summary 5 1 Introduction 9 2 Against the consensus 21 3 Alliances across Europe 33 4 Assessing the policy impact 43 5 Speaking out in the European Parliament 61 6 Conclusions and recommendations 69 Notes 75 References 83 1 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the generous support of the Open Society Foundations, without which this project would not have been possible. In particular, I would like to extend my thanks to Heather Grabbe, Ellen Riotte and Nadja Groot for their help and support in the writing of this report. I also would like to thank VoteWatch Europe (www.votewatch.eu) for providing the data on MEPs’ voting and the case studies on particular votes. I am particularly grateful for the discussions with Doru Frantescu and Simon Hix, who helped ensure that the use of VoteWatch’s data was accurate and thorough. My thanks also go to Nathalie Brack for her methodological insights on researching Euroscepticism and the populist radical right in the European Parliament. I am grateful to all the respondents who kindly took the time to respond to my queries. I thank Leonidas Donskis and Richard Howitt for the interviews I conducted with them. I also appreciate the email exchanges with others – including UKIP MEP Gerard Batten – who willingly answered our questions. Finally, I thank Catherine Fieschi and Lila Caballero at Counterpoint for their comments and advice. All errors and omissions remain my own. Marley Morris 3 Executive summary With the 2014 European Parliament elections on the horizon, there is growing concern from European leaders that the current climate means that the populist radical right – as well as Eurosceptic parties – will make significant gains in the European Parliament (EP). To understand what this might mean in practice, it is essential to investigate how the populist radical right currently operates in the EP. There has been much research on the ideology of the populist radical right and the attitudes of its supporters – but less on how the MEPs actually function at the European level. This report uses data and case studies on roll-call voting from VoteWatch Europe (www.votewatch.eu) in order to investigate the behaviour of populist radical right MEPs. It aims to depict the current behaviour of the populist radical right in the European Parliament to policy- makers, politicians and citizens, to ensure that future strategy and policy-making is guided by evidence-based and context-sensitive analysis and interpretation. The research Populist radical right MEPs face a fundamental conflict. On the one hand, in most cases their ideology commits them to being fiercely critical of the EU – in some cases they want out altogether. At the same time, they benefit from the EU – obtaining money, representation, legiti- macy and contacts – and are part of one of its core 5 Conflicted politicians Executive summary institutions. Our research suggests that this core conflict they have sided with the centre right on a particular is manifested in a series of ways. issue. This lack of impact appears to be both because First, some populist radical right MEPs are fiercely populist radical right MEPs are marginalised in the EP against the political consensus in the European and because they have little interest in influencing policy. Parliament on certain core populist radical right issues In particular, the core conflict of populist radical right – for instance, immigration and ethnic minority rights. MEPs between their hostility towards the EU and their Especially anti-consensus parties that are part of the role within it may well force them to distance themselves populist radical right family include the Partij Voor de from the policy-making process. Vrijheid (PVV), the British National Party (BNP) and Fourth, when it comes to making speeches and Vlaams Belang. When placed in the situation of being asking questions, the populist radical right tends to part of an institution they dislike, it appears that some outdo other MEPs. Our analysis suggests that the populist radical right MEPs react by rebelling against populist radical right focuses its role on gaining publicity the institution and regularly voting against the majority rather than participating in policy-making activities in on the issues that matter to them. the European Parliament. Second, populist radical right parties (PRRPs) The reason for this is given by the populist radical have struggled to form strong alliances in the European right’s fundamental conflict in the European Parliament, Parliament. The Europe of Freedom and Democracy pitting PRRPs’ antagonism towards the EU against the (EFD) group – containing a number of populist radical benefits they receive from having members within the right parties – has a relatively low cohesion rate compared parliament. In response to this conflict, populist radical to other political groups. That is, the EFD’s members right MEPs tend to want to be perceived in the media and often do not vote the same way. The other PRRPs are not by national audiences as railing against the system from attached to any group, largely because they do not have the inside. the required number of members to form a political group. This weakness on the populist radical right’s part is rooted in ideological heterogeneity, a fear of stigmatisation, and conflicting nationalisms. Third, the populist radical right has little impact on policy and substantive issues in the European Parliament. When compared to the other political groups, its MEPs participate less often, write fewer reports and opinions, and are less successful at pushing through amendments and winning votes. They rarely hold the balance of power and so have little ‘blackmail power’ to offer the other political groups votes in exchange for advancing their policy interests. Where they have made a difference to a voting decision, it is generally because 6 7 1 Introduction ‘I already have my church, so I don’t need another religion in Brussels.’ 1 Timo Soini The populist radical right and the European Union do not have an easy relationship. In the recent turmoil of the Eurozone crisis, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has repeatedly cautioned against populism and extremism. In a keynote speech, Van Rompuy observed that: For Europe means friendship too. Some may think me naïve, but was the first Franco-German Treaty not a friendship treaty? Let us now extrapolate the concepts of individual and person to the whole of society. We end up with political ideas expressed on the one hand in populism and inward looking and on the other hand in solidarity, a sense of responsibility, and openness to the world.2 The populist radical right epitomises the outlook Van Rompuy criticised. In their case, ‘friendship’ between people is also to be valued, but on different terms – some people are friends, others are most certainly not, and it is perfectly natural that people choose to be friends with those who are more like them. This outlook is exemplified by former Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen’s notorious line: ‘I love my daughters more than my nieces, my nieces more than my cousins, my cousins more than my neighbours.’ 3 For the populist radical right, then, 9 Conflicted politicians Introduction the European Union is less a genuine expression of right MEPs? And second, how do the populist radical friendship and instead a ‘forced marriage’ between right and the European Union perceive each other? nations, riding roughshod over the crucial differences between the EU’s member states. Not long ago, things were very different. As Cas Who are the populist radical right MEPs? Mudde has noted, in the 1980s populist radical right The terms ‘populist’, ‘radical’ and ‘right’ each have their parties – in both Western and Eastern Europe – were own controversies, but there are good reasons to describe markedly more sympathetic to the European Union and the parties under discussion in this way. For this pamphlet, its institutions.4 Originally, the populist radical right we use the term ‘populist’ to refer to their condemnation was also swayed by the grand vision of the European of a corrupt ‘elite’ and their glorification of an exclusive project. Even the self-avowed nationalist Le Pen was in ‘people’; we use ‘radical’ to refer to their ‘outsider’ challenge favour – as long as it was on his (and France’s) terms. to the political mainstream; and we use ‘right’ to refer But over time this optimism morphed into suspicion and to their social conservatism, often signified by their distrust, particularly after the passing of the Maastricht antipathy to the social and cultural effects of high levels Treaty in 1992.5 Now, most PRRPs are either resolutely of immigration.

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