{"id":75890,"date":"2026-06-22T09:37:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/75890\/"},"modified":"2026-06-22T09:37:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:37:14","slug":"the-european-right-is-suffering-from-an-identity-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/75890\/","title":{"rendered":"The European Right is suffering from an identity crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The period of unusual stability brought to Italian politics by Giorgia Meloni\u2019s Right-wing coalition is under threat. Former army general Roberto Vannacci \u2014 nicknamed Il Generale by supporters \u2014 is mustering<\/a> an anti-establishment force to split the vote on the Right, with his National Future party this week polling<\/a> higher than Matteo Salvini\u2019s League party (from which it split earlier this year) for the first time, on 6%.<\/p>\n

Vannacci\u2019s focus on \u201cremigration\u201d, including a proposed quota<\/a> for migrants in Italy set at 4% of the population, puts him to the Right of the ruling coalition. For Meloni, he represents a dilemma that is increasingly common among European nationalists: how to retain anti-establishment credibility once in power, in the face of accusations of \u201cselling out\u201d from insurgent political forces?<\/p>\n

Since the election defeat<\/a> of Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orb\u00e1n in April, Meloni has become the leading light of nationalism within the EU. Still, notwithstanding her instrumental role in forcing the bloc to the Right on migration, she is arguably in danger of becoming tainted by association with Ursula von der Leyen and other EU leaders. Among conservatives for whom hostility to Brussels is a key marker of authenticity, Meloni\u2019s successful navigation of the bloc\u2019s bureaucratic machinery is suspect.<\/p>\n

For emerging nationalist leaders like Vannacci, Meloni and her Right-wing peers in government elsewhere on the continent have failed in their core task of fighting for sovereignty and national identity within the EU. \u201cEither you are with us from National Future, guardians of nationalism and citizenship, or with von der Leyen, [Mario] Draghi, multinationals and globalism,\u201d Vannacci doomily proclaimed<\/a> last week. The increasingly ideological, ethnocentric nature of Right-wing thought leaves successful leaders like Meloni open to accusations of betrayal, creates opportunities for those professing a purer form of nationalism, and risks a damaging descent into the kind of factionalism and infighting typically associated with the ideological Left.<\/p>\n

This pattern can be seen elsewhere in Europe, with Right-wing fragmentation especially prevalent in countries where religion provides a deeper ideological basis for socially conservative thought. Poland \u2014 a society which is arguably even more grounded in Catholic belief than Italy \u2014 is a cautionary tale. The country\u2019s United Right, dominated by the Law and Justice party, claimed 44% of the vote in 2019; now in opposition, it polls at around 27% and continues to bleed votes to the anti-establishment Confederation Freedom and Independence (13%) and the ethnonationalist Confederation of the Polish Crown (9%).<\/p>\n

In Hungary, meanwhile, the scale of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s defeat in the spring was partly attributable to a splitting of the Christian nationalist vote. The emergence of the rival Our Homeland movement, which won around 6% of the vote in both 2026 and 2022, can now be understood as an early warning sign of Orb\u00e1n\u2019s fading appeal. The veteran leader\u2019s singular political achievement until that point had been his ability to retain, for 16 years, an anti-establishment authenticity that was at odds with his significant personal power and authority.<\/p>\n

Right-wing unity prevails to a greater degree in countries where an establishment \u201cfirewall\u201d has succeeded in keeping nationalist parties out of government. The factionalism that is a corollary of the ideological Right gaining power has not yet afflicted the AfD in Germany or France\u2019s National Rally; lessons from Poland, Italy and Hungary suggest that once the firewall is broken, it surely will.<\/p>\n

In Britain, a similar dynamic is at play. Rupert Lowe\u2019s justification for splitting the nationalist Right \u2014 his belief that Reform UK is \u201cmanaged opposition<\/a>\u201d \u2014 reflects a view among some voters that Nigel Farage\u2019s party has lost credibility by welcoming former Tories tainted by power. The damaging impact of this fracture on the Right\u2019s electoral chances was plain to see<\/a> in the Makerfield by-election campaign.<\/p>\n

With success breeding discontent for anti-establishment forces, the conflict between the responsibilities of power and the increasingly uncompromising demands of frustrated voters is a circle that Right-wing parties in Europe must learn to square. If not, they will never be safe \u2014 as Meloni is now finding out \u2014 from their own shadows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The period of unusual stability brought to Italian politics by Giorgia Meloni\u2019s Right-wing coalition is under threat. Former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15,40,308,58,172,4234,59,346,6956],"class_list":["post-75890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","tag-european","tag-european-union","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-hungary","tag-italy","tag-nationalism","tag-poland","tag-right-wing","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}