How to beat the far right

There are elections which can define the course of history. The second round of the French election on Sunday is one of these.

Faced with the prospect of a far right government in France, the logical choice for all democratic forces is to withdraw third placed candidates which could stand in the way of a victory over the far right.

In the short term this is the only possible way to stop the far right from winning. The 'popular front' including Melenchon have already declared that they are withdrawing in constituencies where centrists are in a better place to beat the far right. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who distinguishes between the enemy (RN) and the adversary (the left ) has hinted doing in those constituencies where the left is in a better place to beat the far right. But regrettably some in the president's camp take exception with France Insoumise candidates in a false equivalence which betrays the legacy of the second world war.

Even during the cold war centre right republicans used to vote for communists (and vice versa) when facing Jean Marie Le Pen's FN.

But while commendable this strategy worked in a context where the far right was more of a nuisance than a real threat.

To beat the far right as a project of government, the centre and the left have to converge around a synthesis which remains elusive but has become a necessity not just in France but even in the US.

The reality is that as things stand neither the centre nor the left can beat the far right on their own. But a sheer sum of the parts is also likely to be dismissed as a marriage of convenience by voters (this reminds me of Prodi's alliance in Italy which stretched from the centre-right to the far left but which imploded after a few months in power). Moreover voters across the world tend to vote for something they can believe in and not simply to block the path of others.

One mistake committed by the centrists is that they can keep on embracing the same policies while hoping that left wing voters have no alternative but to back them against the far right. Macron failed miserably in this with the Popular Front emerging as the main contender against the far right. In next Sunday's election the first line of defence against the far right is the left.

But the left often makes the mistaken assumption that by going back to its roots (whatever that means) it can become the natural choice of those who vote fascists cause they have been left behind. In reality it was under Jeremy Corbyn that Labour lost the so-called 'red wall' in its northern heartlands.

It is time to take a look back at history. Cause what is happening now comes with a sense of deja vu.

Some dismiss the urgency of stopping the far right simply because it bears little resemblance to the brown or black shirts.

But while expecting the Nazi zombies to creep back from their sordid graves is far fetched and unrealistic, let's not forget that it was moderate voters and mainstream conservatives who put in Hitler, Mussolini and Pinochet in power. The Nazis were not alien predators who descended on the planet. They were crafty politicians who plotted alliances with conservative forces to win power, often by respecting (and bending) the constitutional rules. Mussolini retained the monarchy and Hitler won power in coalition with conservative parties while serving under President Hindenburg. They also kept power through mixture of fear and consent. Secondly they did so incrementally moving the goalposts as they consolidated their power.

Neither i am not comparing Bardella, Le Pen or Trump to Hitler. None of them advocate the elimination of entire ethnic groups and in a reflection of our times they are more islamophobic than anti semitic. Today you can be fascist who supports Israel for all the wrong reasons. But they have also invested a lot in a climate against immigrants and have contributed to a climate of intolerance.

Moreover talk of about ' the national preference', a roll back of climate policies and taking away citizenship rights of children represent a real threat to our way of life and our existence.

Another mistake committed by some analysts is to view the modern far right as some kind of populist anti elitist movement legitimised by democratic elections.  The reality is that Nazism and fascism were also an expression of a similar sentiment. The railed against jewish elites and ranted against intellectuals.  Of course in power they not only eliminated inconvenient trade unions but provided capitalism with slave labour. But right to the end they projected themselves as tribunes of the masses.  And just as today, their rise in the 1920s and 1930s seemed unstoppable.  They managed to shape popular common sense.  The far right project today is also incremental, weakening Europe and democratic institutions from within.

Yet they were stopped and beaten.  And we also owe that to the rise of mass democratic movements (namely christian democracy, social democracy and euro-communism).  Our Europe was born out of a compromise which saw most of the left accepting liberal democratic norms and the centre endorsing active state intervention and the welfare state.  It was an imperfect compromise but one which emancipated millions of people.

The historic lesson is that the far right can be beaten by popular mobilisation and a counter hegemony which shifts the political centre to the left.

So to get serious about the far right threat, the left has to push the centre to ditch its love affair with neo-liberalism and austerity. But to get there the left must ditch its hobby of denigrating the 'west' even when facing authoritarian powers like Russia, China and Iran... The left also has to reclaim the sort of civic patriotism rooted in the jacobin tradition and the partisan resistance. It must reclaim its historic role in the front lines of defending the legacy of 1789 and 1848.

It is time for an inclusive and assertive republicanism which takes pride in the conquests of the past but is ready to address the challenges of the future. A bold left which does not shun public ownership in the energy and transport sectors, which aggressively demands a global tax on corporations and crucially embark on a project of renewal which offers a better and more prosperous life by investing in job creation and saving the planet. It should also stand for the defence of democracy from its detractors, including aggressive imperialists like Putin.

It has to offer hope in a future where people have greater control over their daily existence, where poverty is abolished and where technology and AI are socialised with the aim of shortening the working week. But ultimately all this depends on protecting humanity from the ravages of climate catastrophe. It would be simply irresponsible for democratic forces to wage war against each other while the planet is burning. The stakes have never been higher.

In between times: From dissonance to hubris

The brutal war in Gaza carried out with impunity has exposed the limits of humanitarian interventionism, often a pretext for empire building (remember the Iraq war and the chaos it unleashed) but also a discourse based on the idea that human rights are universal.  This was never the case but the dissonance has reached epic proportions in the killing fields of Gaza.  For while initially the west's poster boys and girls could invoke this discourse against Hamas, it was clear from before October 7 that the forceful displacement of Palestinians was and remains the objective of Israel's far right.  What is happening in Gaza is a repeat of Srebrenica and Gorazde carried out with US made ammunition.  And while a lot can be said about the role of the west in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia,  the intervention in Kosovo and to some extent Bosnia, at least sent a sign that war criminals can be held accountable for acts of genocide. This affront to any pretension of universal values has definitively weakened the edifice of the western liberal establishment.   The contradiction between supporting Ukraine with weapons to resist invasion  and occupation (as it should be) and supporting Israel with weapons to bombard, kill, maim and occupy has become so gargantuan, that  if Biden does not have an epiphany we could be assisting to a veritable melt down. The risk now is that the west itself will be taken over by an assortment of  ethno nationalists who unashamedly support allies on the basis of race, religion and national interest without bothering for any pretext based on international law and justice.  And while Biden is ideologically bankrupt and his administration is fast imploding (with staffers resigning en masse) , this is no reason to celebrate the hubris of a neo-fascist taking over the White House by next year. Ironically in this bizarre brave new world the Houthis have emerged as the last standard bearers of  humanitarian interventionism and Putin, the Iranian mullahs and Erdogan the advocates a (hypocritical) rule based world.  In this sense the South African legal case against Israel, is one of the few glimmers of hope.  For if the world highest judicial authority recognises that what is happening in Gaza amounts to genocide (as the massacre of 23,000 people suggests) , the west will have to choose between supporting genocide and opposing it.  Moreover it will be a reminder that multilateral global institutions can deliver justice and even hold western allies accountable for their actions.  But the consequences of hubris could be even more catastrophic especially  if it derails global commitments on climate change and if it emboldens all regional (and global) bullies to do the same as Israel.