On Being Far Right

According to some people, Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro and his supporters are “far-right”.

The same is said about a growing number of political parties in Europe, among them Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD); France’s National Rally (formerly National Front); Hungary’s Fidesz, the governing party led by Victor Orban; Italy’s Fratelli d'Italia (which Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni leads); and the Law and Justice Party (PiS) in Poland, which was in government until 2023.

The far-right label is also commonly applied to Javier Milei’s Libertarian Party in Argentina, Chile’s Republican Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the former Rodrigo Duterte government in the Philippines, and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Even President Donald Trump is regularly described as far-right.

None of those mentioned would ever use the label to describe themselves; some even regard it as insulting. And yet, what it actually means is far from clear.

The left and right wing labels were originally based on the seating arrangement in the French National Assembly during the French Revolution. The left favoured revolutionary change and opposed the monarchy; the right supported the existing order and monarchy.

Things have obviously changed. The left is now associated with various forms of collectivism, from social democracy to socialism. Those holding such views are generally willing to accept that the label applies to them and don’t quarrel if the far-left label is applied to avowed socialists and communists.

The right is a different matter. While it can include those who support the existing order, which might make them conservatives (depending on the nature of the order), it is otherwise difficult to define.

It is even more difficult to define the far-right. Nazism and Fascism are often said to be far-right, but that makes no sense. Although both were highly antagonistic towards socialist organisations, that was only because they viewed them as political rivals. In policy terms, both embraced many collectivist ideas. Indeed, the Nazi Party’s formal name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party while the Italian Fascist leader, Mussolini, was a former editor of the socialist magazine Avanti.

A policy common to many of the parties labelled far-right is opposition to mass immigration, especially from non-Western countries. In Europe, such immigrants are often framed as threats to social cohesion with calls for stricter immigration controls or the deportation of those who are already there.

This is another change; opposition to immigration has historically been close to the hearts of the left, on the grounds that immigrants are a threat to the jobs of the working class. These days, the left essentially welcomes immigration from anywhere.

So-called far-right parties are also typically more nationalistic than parties of the left, fostering a sense of national identity sometimes linked to ethnic or cultural factors. This may involve a focus on preserving traditional values, language and heritage, and rejecting multiculturalism or diversity. Social conservatism, support for traditional family structures, gender roles, and religious values, and discomfort with progressive movements such as LGBTQ rights can also be found. Globalism is criticised as undermining local cultures and economies in favour of a global elite.

Defining any of this as right wing, let alone far right, makes no logical sense.

A regular assertion about the far-right is that it has a tendency towards authoritarianism and against democracy, typically based on attempts to define Nazism and Fascism as far right. Given the left’s history of authoritarianism this is a facile assertion, especially as it would capture communist leaders such as Stalin, Mao-Tse-Tung and Pol Pot, each of whom was an authoritarian dictator.

Nonetheless, it is the basis for claiming Bolsonaro and Trump are far-right, because their supporters protested (not without reason) that their electoral defeat was a result of fraud. Yet in neither case was democracy ever in danger, unlike in Venezuela where Nicolas Maduro has repeatedly rigged elections and jailed his opponents. Maduro, being a socialist, is never described as far-right.

The inclusion of Argentina’s President, Javier Milei, among the far-right is simply bizarre. Milei, who describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist, has implemented policies to reduce the size of government including winding back regulations, reducing taxes and removing constraints on economic growth. He also supports liberal social policies. There is nothing similar in the other countries where far-right policies are said to be resurgent.

Finally, application of the term gets crazy when it comes to Israel. Those who favour the defeat of the country’s sworn enemies so it can live in peace are branded far-right, while those who give either tacit or overt support to its enemies are on the left.

The fact is, the label means nothing. Its only common characteristic is that those to whom it is applied reject certain present-day “progressive” values and left-wing ideologies. It is a word used by the left, primarily intended to be derogatory.

When I hear the term far-right, it actually tells me nothing about those to whom it is applied, but quite a lot about the values of those who apply it.