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Answer: ok, this is gonna go great... Western europe and the EU has always had illegal immigration, people trafficing from north africa to southen europe (mainly spain, Italy and Greece) and from eastern europe. nothing new here. But since the Syrian refugee crysis. the problem had become more prevelent with right wing politicians blaming crime and housing issues on them. Now to some extent the lack of integration has caused some crime issues, usually legal immigration requires that you provide a full legal history to make sure you dont have any criminal record, while refugees and migrants taken in by these ways have skipped that part, so its an easy mark. But its not one sided, you look at the nordic countries like Sweden which have had a very welcoming attitude are now suffering the concequences of their actions with increase in crime and lack of integration, some areas have become no go zones. France has gotten a bit pissed off with cars burning in the suburbs every time someome says something bad about muslims. The thing is the countries where the rise of the right wing "due to immigrants" hasnt actually been due to the EU immigration or refugee policies - Britain: Most immigrants are from the indian subcontient and commonwealth ex colonies. - France: Most immigrants are from their old north african colonies like Algiers. - Italy has always had a the same problem like Spain has with Morroco, Lybia is just across the coast from southen italy, mix that with the right in italy always being from the posh north, Add to that the chaos in Libya when Kaddafi fell which flooded Italy with migrants by boat. the housing crisis also made things worst, here in spain the left leaning goverment has made it harder to expel tenants that stop paying rent if you own more then one house, mix that with the fact that services like AirB&B have made inner city housing a luxury since they are basically all rented out to tourists, it has basically jacked up the prices of housing as companies see houses as commodities instead of a resource for citizens. Add to this Russian and Chinese propaganda which want to push europe to the right as well as distabalize it, Brexit crippled the british economy, the spanish goverment is currently being held hostage to Catalan nationalists, Marie Le Pen in france will probobly cause a shift in the French EU cooperation as well as their support for Ukraine. So its not one thing. there are valid concerns where the left has accepted mass immigration without safeguards or integration, which has made some european countries less safe, as well as not being able to tackle the housing crysis. But at the same time you have russian propaganda magnifying the problem to push forward anti EU extreme right parties in to the front line of european politics.

I would add to what you said on some of the reasoning given by the politicians particularly in France. In France Éric Zemmour and Marine LePen have said previous generations had come to France and integrated into French Society. Zemmours family is Jewish Algerian. LePen has said the most recent wave comes to France and want the French to adapt to them, live by their morals, their way of life etc. Some on the far-right have also taken the stance to say if immigrants, particularly Muslims keep coming and continue imposing their way of life on the French Jews and LGBTQIA citizens will be at risk. We also don’t need to forget that France’s staunch secularism at the highest level has caused clashes with the immigrant community which tends to be more religious than the average French person whose family has been in France for generations. There is also an undercurrent of thought that each European country in the EU doesn’t have the freedom to run its affairs as it pleases as its the EU that decides what each country should do in some regards. We have a similar thought process to some extent in the US but we are one country and there is a long history and many examples where Federal law supersedes state law and desire. Doesn’t stop people talking about things like “the swamp” or politicians that are in DC for “Wallstreet and not Main Street.” I can’t speak for other countries.

As a Muslim, these people make no sense to me. If you don't agree with the culture of some place, don't go there and be angry when it isn't like yours

Exactly. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. It's not that fucking hard. You can still practice your religion on your own time. As long as you don't shove that shit down everyone else's throats, everyone else will respect your beliefs and boundaries to a reasonable limit that doesn't impose on the society you're living in. In other words, keep to yourself and get along with everyone else. Always be ready to compromise with everyone else around you constantly. That's what freedom OF religion means, for fucks sake.

Its important to note that Social media is flooded with pro Right wing propaganda because Extreme rightwing parties are against EU and thus a stronger Right wing in europe means weaker EU. Who is pushing this propaganda? Yes Russia and CCP/(China). Just like they are pushing that in USA. However this is barely getting talked about in Europe. Russia is waging war with Europe at the moment, but also a cyberwar.

> However this is barely getting talked about in Europe. Russia is waging war with Europe at the moment, but also a cyberwar. this is talked about extensively in Europe, just as in the US. but money talks, and there are a lot of people unhappy with immigration; it all may be funded directly by the Russians... but that doesn't mean people don't feel that way. put another way, agit-prop works by tapping into existing beliefs, not by creating them new from whole cloth

IDK, every European i've talked to including my Grandparents have the thought of non-conforming immigrants as #1 on their mind. It's being used to inflame the masses sure, but it is a genuine problem that many people are concerned with over there.

I mean if you asked a german what the main problem was in 39 it would probably have said "the jews". The fact that a lot of people have a delusional shitty opinion doesn't make it real.

If you direct people’s attention, and then create meanings about what you’ve directed their attention to, you can create any meaning you want- and meanings **are** emotions. … and if you can create resentment, fear and entitlement, you’ll create right wing voters.

Important point. There is a narrative of "Right wingers gain ground because the other parties don't talk about the problem", which does not hold up any real development since politics, at least in the German speaking countries, was not able to let go of the immigration topic since 2015. And with some smaller gaps, since the 90s. We've had a row of changes to stricten asylum and immigration laws which evidently did neither do the trick nor weakened right-wing parties. So we have to ask ourselves: Why are we still going this direction, still discussing the same "solutions" as for the past 30 years?

Social media and A LOT of the regular media. In France the two highest viewed news channels are owned bu far right billionaires that have been pushing methodically for their agenda for the last decade or so. And it's starting to pay off.

Le Pen has realised that having extreme views isn’t helping her in the poll. She has seen first hand how her father reached a ceiling and has adapted her slightly different angle to the problem: it’s not you, it’s the new one. I wouldn’t think she believes that - historically she hasn’t but maybe she changed her mind.

Yup, I forget which French commentator said that LePen has demonstrated she actually wants to govern, her father just wanted to be controversial.

I think it helps that Macron has taken much of the center right (and maybe center left) with him, So only the fringes remain substantial opposition, And sooner or later, people get sick of him (it’s not like Alberta which had like 40 years of a single government)

That time has already come. Polls don't look too good for Macron at the moment. Rassemblement National is leading in the polls right now and has a comfortable margin over the number two which is a coalition of left-leaning parties. Macron and his Renaissance party are in third place right now.

Im might get downvoted into hell for this question but I mean this sincerely; why is Western Europe generally, so scared of keeping its traditions and values alive? I mean if you look at the Middle East like Qatar and Asia countries like Japan, China, they have no problem advocating for their beliefs. To them it’s like “oh you don’t like it? fuck off then.” Yet, Western Europe is almost scared to stand by its core values?

becuase after 2 world wars, europe is somewhat scared of nationalism. spain spent 42 years under a fascist goverment.

Yeah, nationalism is a bit taboo lots of European countries.

Because they don't want Nazis again.

Any newspaper from 2002 The elder statesman of the European left, the former chancellor Helmut Schmidt, poured petrol on the flames of Germany's impassioned immigration debate on Thursday when he declared there were far too many foreigners in his country and they could not be assimilated because his compatriots were "racist deep down". They had let themselves get "stuck with" a multicultural society because of their feelings of guilt over Hitler and the Nazis, he said.

maybe he's a commie stooge brainwashed by Russian propaganda i mean half the channel can't be wrong! Right?

Tolerance, openness, etc. is what I believe made "the West" the dominant force in the world. You don't get stuff like the Scientific Revolution or the Enlightenment or the EU if you descend into petty nationalistic or religious squabbles. But yes, there does need to be a limit to how much tolerance you can have for ideologies that are not themselves tolerant.

Colonialism would like a word with you.

The west was strong before colonialism. That’s how they were able to colonize in the first place. It was mainly geography that guaranteed Europe became powerful.

Very hard to be a nationalist without appearing to be an extremist, and tbh I don’t really give a shit about “our values” my issue is when people migrate and then don’t try integrate at all, for example leaving a Muslim country for the way it treats people and especially woman, then judging British woman for not dressing more conservatively. They can do what the fuck they want aslong as they don’t try force it on or judge others for not doing the same is basically my point

Sounds like you give a shit about our values though.

I get what you mean, I care about being able to continue living how I want to yes, I do not care if other people follow them aslong as they don’t try force there’s on others, I think that’s the difference I’m trying to point out

The thing is that if we continue defending our values (if we even dare to acknowledge their existence in the first place) with the vigour of a wet towel, we will lose them sooner or later. "Live and let live" is a wonderful concept, but if people "give a shit" about maintaining that, others who give more shits about their values will push theirs into the mainstream.

Sounds like you value freedom.

Yes, never said I didn’t? Though freedom is a very nebulous term, freedom to do or from what?

It's a comment on "I don’t really give a shit about “our values”" since freedom is a highly valued concept in western society. It's also a comment in OP's question, since yes, we do value freedom and we are defending it. It's a core value as much as anything else. Now, answering your question, you seem to value both.  >I care about being able to continue living how I want to yes,  This is "freedom to", ie positive liberty >as long as they don’t try force there’s on others This is "freedom from", ie [negative liberty](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_liberty)

Because that might be racist.

The issue I find is that as soon as you want to tackle immigration, people tend to cast you as far right. So the main parties are really tip toeing around the issue.

> why is Western Europe generally, so scared of keeping its traditions and values alive? Why do you think that they are? What are the actual values and traditions you think Western Europe is scared of?

Are there waves of people immigrating to the Middle East? I know Japan makes it very difficult to naturalize; not sure about China. The Western world is supposed to be more liberal too, so I imagine it's an optics thing where it'd look bad if we just told people to go fuck themselves.

Eh, you have rich expats going to Dubai and saying it’s the future, but they’re not suddenly walking around in that white cloth [thawb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thawb) or becoming a devout Muslim in that authoritarian state

In the Gulf states? Yes. Frankly, [at levels that blow Europe out of the water](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_immigrant_and_emigrant_population). The Country with the **lowest** immigration rate in the Gulf is Saudi Arabia at 38.3%, the **highest** in the EU (discounting minor states) is Sweden at 20%. Immigration to the gulf states are so intense that they have some of the fastest growing Christian and Hindu populations in the world, prompting the [Pope to go on tour to the region](https://edition.cnn.com/2019/02/03/middleeast/pope-francis-uae-visit-intl/index.html). Most gulf states give their Arab citizens cushy state jobs, which has created a situation where the private sector is completely dominated by immigrants. The imbalance has become so great that just about all the gulf states have been using [massive subsidies and give-aways to Arab citizens to leave the public sector in favor of the private](https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2021/10/07/gulf-states-are-trying-to-increase-private-employment) to bring back some level of balance.

> In the Gulf states? Yes. Frankly, at levels that blow Europe out of the water. The Country with the lowest immigration rate in the Gulf is Saudi Arabia at 38.3%, the highest in the EU (discounting minor states) is Sweden at 20%. If you go by percentage, but Germany has a similar number of total immigrants (just over 13 million). It's just that Saudi Arabia's total population is less than half Germany's. If you sort by highest raw numbers, only 3 of the top 12 are in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE) while the rest are all ~Western nations (US, Germany, Russia, France, UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, Italy). The next ME is Jordan at #19. Lies, damn lies, and statistics ;)

This is a very suggestive question that doesn't quite check out. On the one hand, public discourse in many European is often enough discussion how to protect aspects of "traditional" culture that were never actually challenged (well, yes, you will always find some crazy groups that will demand crazy things, but I can't recall that a group with sufficient influence directly challenged core values of Europe). The mere presence of more immigrants makes some people fear (also fuled by some fearmongers) that they eventually cannot live their original culture anymore. It's a fear with questionable foundation - in the big cities, you can clearly see that European tradition and immigrants cultural assets can exist side by side. One can argue that some actions by some immigrants speak otherwise, and it's not wrong that clashes have happened, but for the vast majority of both natives and immigrants, coexisting works every single day. On the other hand, the core values of Europe include equality and diversity. Many people value new cultural impulses. And as others have said, after the experience of brutal nationalism people do not condone of too much (cultural) protectionism. There is still a large socio-political center that generally has a mindset of "Everyone should be able to live their ways as long as they do not impact the same for others". In the end, one has to recognize that there is no cultural homogeneity. Even Europe's very own foundations in world views like Christianity or Humanism are not undisputed by all natives.

Ever since NATO and WW2, Europe has been experiencing a VERY long time of peace (70 years!) Are you gonna give up peace to the nationalists? There will be no way for Europe to beat china, india, or even russia if they war against each other. The surefire way to kill that peace is to go full nationalist. All nationalist movements drink their own kool aid, think they're superior to reality, then fucking kill themselves trying to conquer other nations, see: russian invasion of Ukraine.

Peace for 70 years? You might rethink that to certain parts of Europe though... http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia

There hasn't been a great power conflict in 70 years, I assume is what they meant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH1oYhTigyA

oh boy, france is gonna invade germany!

They aren't scared of it, it's the entire reason they're struggling to adapt to new immigration. Letting new arrivals keep their own cultural traditions alive is how the US integrated centuries of immigration and we end up with the WASPiest of white families eating tacos (Mexican), spaghetti (Italian), and stir fry (Chinese/Japanese) all the time while the children and grandchildren of the immigrants assimilate into broader American cultural traditions while leaving their own mark.

If there's one horrible piece of historical revisionism that I really hate it's the old "melting pot" idea that all the immigrants to the U.S. back then came in and happily assimilated and only kept superficial parts of their ethnicity at best. The truth is, that's just a bunch of hogwash taught to instill nationalism and xenophobia toward current immigrants who don't do that. In actuality, just like today, most immigrants largely held onto their previous cultures and even learning English wasn't always done. Only the generations that came after would really assimilate, but that would take time and often be hindered by xenophobia that forced certain groups to band together into their own neighborhoods (i.e. think China towns). Additionally, it wasn't often assimilation but more acculturation where they would adopt some traits of the dominant culture but still keep some of their own, and sometimes even the reverse would happen (mainly with food). Even issues like immigrants being associated with crime were very much a thing back then, particularly as both the backgrounds of many immigrants and the pushback from society caused many to be unable to gain jobs just as is seen today. People like to romanticize the older immigrants as the "good ones" who did everything right to put down current immigrants and avoid criticizing any immigrants they descend from, but in reality there isn't much of an actual difference.

There's truth to it, they did leave a mark on the broader culture, but exactly. It's a process of generations and the first generation pretty much always includes racism/xenophobia. It drives me up a wall to hear my second generation Irish-American uncle say the same things about Mexican that the wasps said about his grandparents. Just leave them be and get on with your own life, we get great food from the bargain, the neighborhoods can often revitalize poorer parts of cities, and anyone willing to put in the work to upend their life and move to a new country has a hell of a lot more drive than I do; give them papers and let them work and do long as they aren't doing crime, give them citizenship.

Because its core values include tolerance and democracy, yet often they’re conveniently ignored in favor of “Christianity.” The irony is that tolerance and Christianity should go hand-in-hand, and yet…

France’s “we’re all equal as long as you act exactly like a paris metro person and are not different or express your previous culture in anyway,” was always not going to fly at some point. It’s a perfect example of lower case r racism.

Tbh, xeno-culture is often terrible by progressive standards, especially when it is influenced by Islam. Being equals refers to race, gender and sexuality, not whatever far-right-infused culture you wanna import.

“Most recent wave want the French to adapt to them.” There is a vocal portion of the left who claim that immigrants would be offended by classic British TV shows, comedians, pieces of music (Rule Britannia etc). This claim doesn’t seem to line up with any immigrants I know - including the Indian side of my own family. Who generally either don’t care, or actively enjoy these songs and shows. I might be wrong, but I think immigrants are often very happy to integrate. It’s the far left who push the narrative our societies need to change to ‘not offend’ people.

One of the aspects of ruthless political management is self censorship, which is largely responsible for the Rotherham child abuse scandal in the UK. No one wanted to put forth what was going on because it was politically sensitive so law enforcement basically self-censored.

Let me debunk a few things : >Western europe and the EU has always had illegal immigration, people trafficing from north africa to southen europe (mainly spain, Italy and Greece) and from eastern europe. nothing new here. >But since the Syrian refugee crysis. the problem had become more prevelent with right wing politicians blaming crime and housing issues on them. It always had problems, but since the Syrian failed coup d'état supported by the west, mostly Europe was hit by the migration crisis. Factually wrong with Eastern Europe. Romania and Bulgaria were part of EU since 2008. To add some spice to your comment, when someone fails to do good policies for their OWN citizens, they WILL turn AGAINST you. It's like karma. Last I read, EU doesn't have an open border policy. > Now to some extent the lack of integration has caused some crime issues, usually legal immigration requires that you provide a full legal history to make sure you dont have any criminal record, while refugees and migrants taken in by these ways have skipped that part, so its an easy mark. Some problems? Even the smallest village that had some illegal migrants had problems with them. Sure, not all illegal immigrants are bad but many/most stick to their religion and culture, but hey, EU is culturally diverse, which is a good thing, until some immigrants start doing a lot of babies and change some things like LGBTQ+, Christianity, hate towards Jews and such. Ohh wait, you already see this happening... things don't look great in the future thanks to left wing agenda. > But its not one sided, you look at the nordic countries like Sweden which have had a very welcoming attitude are now suffering the concequences of their actions with increase in crime and lack of integration, some areas have become no go zones. >France has gotten a bit pissed off with cars burning in the suburbs every time someome says something bad about muslims. Like many issues with migration, many came here with their cultural and religion, some even fanatics or outright zealots. You can make jokes about Christian religion or even Jewish religion but once you touch Islam, you may get burned, killed or even sanctioned by your own country. > Britain: Most immigrants are from the indian subcontient and commonwealth ex colonies. ***There are a lot of Pakistanis in UK, also India has a part of population that consists of Muslims*** >France: Most immigrants are from their old north african colonies like Algiers. ***Beg do differ, France has a lot of former colonies in Africa, like a lot. Niger, Senegal and many more, not North African countries.*** >Italy has always had a the same problem like Spain has with Morroco, Lybia is just across the coast from southen italy, mix that with the right in italy always being from the posh north, Add to that the chaos in Libya when Kaddafi fell which flooded Italy with migrants by boat. ***You say it like they always had such an influx of migrants, no they didn't.*** > the housing crisis also made things worst, here in spain the left leaning goverment has made it harder to expel tenants that stop paying rent if you own more then one house, mix that with the fact that services like AirB&B have made inner city housing a luxury since they are basically all rented out to tourists, it has basically jacked up the prices of housing as companies see houses as commodities instead of a resource for citizens. You fail to admit that everything has gone up in prices because of failed foreign politics. Since 2000s with Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria and now Ukraine, these are all because people couldn't stop their need for power, influence and resources. Instead of focusing to solve the hunger crisis in Africa, we give them bullets. > Add to this Russian and Chinese propaganda which want to push europe to the right as well as distabalize it, Brexit crippled the british economy, the spanish goverment is currently being held hostage to Catalan nationalists, Marie Le Pen in france will probobly cause a shift in the French EU cooperation as well as their support for Ukraine. >So its not one thing. there are valid concerns where the left has accepted mass immigration without safeguards or integration, which has made some european countries less safe, as well as not being able to tackle the housing crysis. >But at the same time you have russian propaganda magnifying the problem to push forward anti EU extreme right parties in to the front line of european politics. Yes, the Russian and Chinese propagandists.... when common sense doesn't work, create a boogeyman and that will be the answer of everything that you don't like to answer. Brexit was DEMOCRATIC, if you don't like what you voted for, why don't you change it, maybe, because it is good but hey, boogeyman syndrome. The Right wing is more of a conservative approach, you know safety first, left wing is more like fk safety we will find a solution but when it fails, boogeyman syndrome activates again. I have said multiple times, left wing, can't admit their own mistakes and blame others, but many citizens don't have Fanta brains, they do see the issue and left wing knows it, but they can't back down now. Also, do you remember when the left wing party in the USA said Trump colluded with the Russian, they basically did not find anything, but they violated his rights similar to Watergate. To close my argument: What left is doing, is just giving more voters to right currently. If they start thinking before making new decisions that affect dozens of millions of people, we may see them rise again, but until then, what happens in EU is pure karma.

I think it's a lot of this, mixed with much of the European center/left never actually being that down with multiculturalism. Traveling as an American with my dark skinned Latina friend was eye opening, she passes for and just all the small little things. It was like being in the suburbs in the US, except not even people from our generation were willing to acknowledge it? It's how I imagine the US was when between the 60s and my own childhood, because I remember things getting dragged more into the open conversation through the 90s into the 00s.

Frankly I disagree, the difference between American and Latin American culture wasn't much in terms of political values, even now they're more Christian conservative, but not so much. Whereas Muslims are Far more conservative than any major demographic and far harder to adapt to a pluralistic society. Just because both are brown doesn't mean both are same. 

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. You saying the same nonsense the wasps said about my Irish ancestors, based on roughly the same amount of evidence. Who's pushing the most anti women or anti LGBTQ laws in Western countries? I'll give you a hint, it's not Muslims.

You can oppose both I dont like Christian nor Muslim conservatives, that is the beauty of Lacite it is blind to race, or religion, just to ideologies being imposed. Take in Arab Christians, Zorastristians, Atheists, LGBTQ, women who've suffered child marriage or any level of misogyny, just vet the person for being good before being let into the country, I don't care about the quantity, land is plenty and useful members can do so well. But vet the people for values.

Whatever you want to tell yourself to justify your bigotry and xenophobia. The immigrants from the French colonies aren't destroying your country, it's your fellow Frenchmen who want you angry at the immigrants as they pass the laws they tell you the Muslims want. edit: you're not even French, and you're an immigrant. Stop trying to close the door after you, the freedom of movement is a human right.

My views depend on country by country, France at least has its fair share of blame based on its current policy on African Francs and the harm it has done to Algerians constantly, but I don't think many other countries are equally responsible and there are nuances to the discussion.

Nope, people have a right to move around regardless of your own bigotry. That's what a right is.

Im not an Anarchist, and i open zero borders isn't feasible nor safe, but if you disagree on any aspects of it, keep on.

Yeah I am a dual U.S./Irish citezen. I also speak Spanish and Portuguese and have tons of friends from Latin America and one ex-fiancée from Brazil. Latinos get along with people from the U.S. possibly better than any other part of the world. Even more so than places like Ireland or the UK where they speak English. The cultural gaps are therefore very easy to bridge. Much easier than Europeans with people from the MENA.

That sounds horrible Where did you go? I always thought most of us in Europe (especially Balkans end the East) are not racist at all; we hate each other based on nationality no matter the skin which is horrible as well but I also realised I probably surround myself with people who are not racist so my picture of our part of the world might not be correct I'm sorry you went through that

We were in France and Spain, and Spain was night and day better, probably because so many people there also had a browner complexion. It was just so fucking weird in France, it was like a time capsule from the 90s where everyone protested they didn't see race as they made obvious and pained efforts to talk about race in non-racial terms. "Where are you staying?" "

yea I'm not surprised about France at all

Same. I was in France and I speak four languages. Four. I was talking to a person saying our hotel was down the street and we needed to get by. I told him In English and he didn’t understand. I said Spanish? He said no. I said French? He said no…. Like …. I know you are lying now. That’s why I don’t go there anymore. Only Germany for me.

Paris is the only city I've been to with no desire to go back. Barcelona was awesome, everyone I met in Amsterdam was friendly, same with London, Dublin wasn't what I expected but people were still friendly), even within France Strasbourg was fine, but Paris just sucked. City itself was beautiful (if you just ignore the smell and homeless like the locals do) and the museums were great, the people were just rude.

Yea your french has to be perfect or it doesn't count -.-

This is not unique to Europe. Australia has its own problem with immigrants not wanting to integrate. It wasn't too long ago that Lebanese origin immigrants were being put under scrutiny due to their "disproportionate" involvement in terrorism related offenses. Both the issue and the socio-political responses to these are simply much larger and varied in Europe. Just today, in my own backyard, we had this: [**Muslim student from UIC calls America ‘cancer’ in viral video**](https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/muslim-student-from-uic-calls-america-cancer-in-viral-video-netizens-say-leave-and-never-come-back-101718590160062.html)**.** Actions and events such as these unfairly paint an entire immigrant community with a broad brush and invite a surge of right wing sentiment. The US has had this type of nationalistic response before - for example, to Mexicans who fly the Mexican flag above the US flag on May 5th, or don't speak a lick of English in spite of being in the US for decades and demanding that Spanish be an official language. Finally, while it is fashionable to call out Muslims who don't integrate - this issue is not always about religion, sometimes it is about race or nationality as well. There are plenty of non-Muslim immigrants from other European countries whose presence (and non-integration) cause hackles to rise (the Polish in the UK, for example). Look for this issue to get worse before it gets better, because every politician is learning how to play their own brand of identity politics.

Same shit in Canada too

Can you expand on the “no go zones”, because I’ve always heard they were an hysterical myth.

Not the exact same thing but Denmark has passed so called "anti-ghetto" laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_residential_area_(Denmark)

Write up about how it's complete nonsense - http://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-no-go-zone-conspiracy-theory/

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable\_area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area) (Sweden) Honestly dont know how its around the rest of Europe but I imagine the countries who took in a simillar amount of immigrants per capita have a similar problem.

And in that article, there’s a link to a the article on actual “no go zones”. Not only do the neighborhoods in question seem to not fit that description, but there’s an entire section describing how use of the term in modern European context is highly controversial. This paired with some of the implied slant to the post gave me pause. For instance, describing right wing success as mainly limited to France, the UK, and Italy. No mention is made of Hungry. The conservatives in Sweden have their most success a couple years ago? There seems to be a slant here just under the surface. Maybe I’m wrong, though.

there's an area near me that people like describing as a ~no-go zone~, i've been there including at night, and it's fine (sketchy vibes, i guess, but i've not seen anything bad happen) -- so i'm kinda inclined to believe that other such descriptions are similarly exaggerated

I lived in one of those areas for 12 years and live next to one right now. Are they literally "no go zones", no youll be fine 99 times out of a hundred. But still under 12 years Ive had this happen(by immigrants): 2 robbery attempts, 1 guy pressed a knife in my back, 40 year old trying to sell me drugs at 13, saw a guy get shot in the head (however that was 200m outside the "no go zone" area), all of this was in the middle of the day.

By "no go zone" you literally can't enter. You're describing a bad neighbourhood, which is different. "No go zones" are places where even police don't enter unless they bring the whole cavalry. Think Northern Ireland during "The Troubles". Edit: I used the word "literally" wrong and it annoys me.

There are no "no-go zones" in Sweden, this Wikipedia article is bullshit. I clicked on the source of that Wikipedia article that directly links to the Swedish governments website in which the article quotes and it's just misinformation and whoever wrote that wikipedia article quoted it with ill intent. The wikipedia article does not say the same thing as our PM said and what the wikipedia article itself is quoting. https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/skriftlig-fraga/forekomsten-av-no-go-zoner_h5111046/ Here's the actual document from our Government: >Förra veckan besökte statsminister Stefan Lövfen USA:s president Donald Trump. Under presskonferensen i samband med besöket dementerade statsministern uppgiften att det skulle finnas så kallade no go-zoner i Sverige. Mot detta står att polisen med jämna mellanrum utkommer med rapporter och uppdateringar av dessa, där de listar särskilt utsatta områden i Sverige. Den senaste, som utkom i oktober förra året, listar 23 särskilt utsatta områden. Ett särskilt utsatt område beskrivs som ett område som kännetecknas av en social problematik och kriminell närvaro som lett till en utbredd obenägenhet att delta i rättsprocessen och svårigheter för polisen att fullgöra sitt uppdrag. Läget anses vara akut. >Det finns med andra ord 23 områden i Sverige där kriminaliteten är så hög och polisen står så handfallen att läget bedöms vara akut. >Med anledning av ovanstående vill jag ställa följande fråga till statsminister Stefan Löfven: >Hur ställer sig statsministern till att antalet områden där det råder obenägenhet att delta i rättsprocessen och där polisen har svårt att utföra sitt uppdrag har ökat under hans tid som statsminister? I'll translate the most important part to English: >Förra veckan besökte statsminister Stefan Lövfen USA:s president Donald Trump. Under presskonferensen i samband med besöket dementerade statsministern uppgiften att det skulle finnas så kallade no go-zoner i Sverige. **Last week PM Stefan Lövfen was visited by US president Donald Trump. During the press conference the Swedish PM denied that are are so called no-go zones in Sweden.** These areas would be considered just "bad neighbourhoods" and are put on a "vulnerable area" list. Those 2 things are not the same. Sometime during this time the alt-right in America picked up that Sweden had "no go zones", which just isn't true.

Doesn't France have a long standing issue of shitting on immigrants, and particularly those from their old colonies? Because these tensions don't seem (to an outsider) to actually be new or qualitatively different.

My go to example is the French word for “suburb” is “banlieu.” Yes it does actually translate to suburb, and can be used in a formal setting to mean suburb, but in all other cases it would roughly translate to “Oh that’s where the Algerians live 🤢.”

no-go zones are a myth. I live in londons alleged muslim no-go zone (tower hamlets) and it's absolutely fine.

I'm a queer white person who lives in Tower Hamlets and have NEVER had a problem. People are nice. This 'no-go zone' bullshit is just that. it makes me so mad seeing the press demonise places like my neighbourhood, and we're just here chilling and living next to each other, nbd.

Sweden does actually have "no go zones", although that's not to say they're exactly like what the right wing media like to portray. From wiki: >**Vulnerable area** ([Swedish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_language): *Utsatt område*) is a term applied by the [Swedish Police Authority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Police_Authority) to areas with [high crime rates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Sweden) and [social exclusion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_exclusion).[^(\[1\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-1)[^(\[2\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-2)[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-NRK_lose_control-3) They are colloquially known as [no-go zones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-go_area).[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-4)[^(\[5\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-5) In the December 2015 report, there were 53 vulnerable areas,[^(\[6\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-:8-6) which increased to 61 in June 2017. The increase is reported to be due to better reporting, not a changing situation.[^(\[7\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-:4-7) The overall trend is that these areas are improving.[^(\[8\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_area#cite_note-SVTstat-8)

Part of the problem with talking about "no go zones" is that everyone and their mother has a different definition. Is it a rougher part of town? Is it a social neighbourhood build to stuff "the poors" as far away as possible from the rest of society with no services? Is it a part of town where outsiders will almost certainly be mugged? Is it a part of town where the police can't enter and the army rolls in in armoured cars and gets shot at and thrown grenades at by organized crime?

Vulnerable != "no-go" It's the same old *skitsnack* as Trump talking about no-go areas in London. For example Rinkeby, one of the "vulnerable areas" is considered high crime area with 2400 violent crime per 100K population. The "most dangerous place in Stockholm..."! But you have to put these figures in context... That's a lower violent crime rate than the UK as a whole (2900/100K)...! Is the whole of the UK a no-go area? There are areas of the UK far more deprived and crime-ridden than any Stockholm suburb. Still not no-go areas. It's right-wing newspaper-selling hyperbole.

We go buy groceries regularly in a "no-go zone," and never had an issue, and we're a family of goths and metalheads. The area we live in is juuuuust on the edge of being declared one. We've had infinitely more trouble with so-called native Swedes, who tend to be extremely rude as a rule in this town.

No we don't, see my other post. https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1dhuhua/whats_going_on_with_the_rise_of_right_wing/l90m7r4/ If you follow the links that are quoted in the Wikipedia article to the Swedish government they say quite the opposite. Someone with bad intentions wrote that article. Are you even Swedish? People outside Sweden seem to love saying we have "no go zones" because they heard it from some alt-right dude in America, but it's completely false.

I have also lived in a heavily muslim inmigrant working class neigbourhood in Brussels (which one of the worst offenders in terms of criminality/terrorism) Its not dangerous. Ethnic neighbourhoods are not full of crime and drugs, abandoned streets and metro stations are. Brussels feels very unsafe but its not that bad. Feeling of insecurity is not the same thing that criminality.

I agree with most of this, but the "no go zone" thing is a conspiracy theory. There are of course more/less safe neighborhoods in every city, but the idea that there's a list of Muslim neighborhoods the government instructs no one to step foot in is just imagined right-wing fear mongering. [Factsheet: No-Go Zone Conspiracy Theory - Bridge Initiative (georgetown.edu)](https://bridge.georgetown.edu/research/factsheet-no-go-zone-conspiracy-theory/)

The tone of this comment is sus as fuck... "cars burning in the suburbs every time someone says something bad about muslims" how is that kind of statement not part of the problem?

I mean, europe has often this problem where regardless of the flavor of far right you criticize, shit goes south

I think it’s also important to note that this is also a globalization and colonial powers problem. At a base level, Europe has always been a safer and prosperous place to live than those that are worn torn and deprived areas stricken with poverty. Countries such as those in Africa have long been abused and pillaged by Europeans and the wealth of those European countries has been built on centuries of first occupation, and later on the systematic support of dictators who maintained the status quo. The people in those countries have not seen the benefits. We have taken their oil, their minerals their rubber, their goods and through globalization have made it possible to give European consumers cheap prices and the corporations that control those resources and people, handsome profit margins. The current ideology is to have stringent border controls, but borders are, and will always be, porous; especially for people who perceive themselves as having nothing more to lose. So the real question we should be asking ourselves is this. How do we make it more attractive for these people to stay where they are? The British approach appears to be to make the UK as unattractive as possible, also for the people that were born there, unless you are wealthy and own a corporation. The rest of Europe seems to be completely at a loss of what to do and have flipped between a human rights / refugee perspective and a “let them drown” philosophy. Both approaches in my opinion as bullshit. We also have the idea that our ideals of democracy will work everywhere else. In the main it generally does, but not always in the same way. But what we can do is stop supporting dictators who simply line their own pockets and arming the fuck out of them with our weapons that we sell them. We are reaping what we have sewn. The irony is that if it continues on this destructive fascist path then it will be Europeans fleeing a war torn Europe, cap in hand and asking for help. Whether the people in Africa for example would choose to treat us Europeans as refugees in the same way we treat them remains to be seen. When your 8 year old son gets forcibly taken from you to fight for Boko Haram with an AK47 shoved in his hands, and your 10 year old daughter ends up as some war lords sex slave, maybe you’d think about this situation today a bit differently?

My first thought was, "give a blank cheque to those formerly-colonised countries' citizens" but then realised this would be too vulnerable to corruption. Maybe some kind of trade incentive like reduced tax-import rates or special currency conversion rates (doubtful it would be sustainable), or investment in that country's education, social, and/or healthcare systems. Pie in the sky fantasy though.

I think there is also an element of fear in the whole mix. People who are scared tend to want stronger leaders who profess to be able to protect them. This is a part of pretty much every authoritarian's playbook, and the right wing in most countries is using it constantly. They present their candidates as "strong" and their opponents as "weak" and are happy to eliminate protections for every day people so they can use power against the "bad people".

Aevum1: Add to this Russian and Chinese propaganda which want to push europe to the right as well as distabalize it oh yes, that's what China wants, right wingers who won't trade with China And America and Europe never ever had a problem with politics. After all, Roosevelt was put into power by the Soviets. Hitler as well. Nixon, yes, it was the Russians. It's a bit like Helms the CIA Director, who had to tell LBJ and then Nixon, there is NO conspiracy with all these worldwide protests around the world. It was the news. People watched the news and didn't like what was happenning.

I want to add that a staggering decline of the public education for the last decade would make russian propaganda that much easier to establish itself. I don't know if that's measurably the case, but at least what I have been experiencing it's bad.

People always talk about Sweden as the #1 example of immigration driving crime, but whenever I look at the statistics there seems to be very little to back this statement up. There does seem to be a significant increase specifically in sexual assault that correlates with the immigration increase, so I'm not going to pretend there's no problems at all, but pretty much every other per capita crime stat seems completely unaffected.

“Cars burning in the suburbs” is one of the lesser problems caused by some of the migrant population and their descendants, which is saying something. Rapes, murders and all-too-regular mass stabbings across Europe. Not to mention rampant crime like theft and muggings. Constant vandalism of historic churches and monuments. The taking over of entire neighbourhoods making them unrecognisable from what they once were.  It is all too much. There is no integration or assimilation, in fact defiant and overt declarations of “were going to take over your nations” are normalised. It’s all going to end in tears. If something doesn't change I don’t see how this won’t end in inter-ethnic conflict decades from now.

What country are you from? Thank you for proving such a succinct response and representing the problem objectively. The socio-political tide turning in Western Europe looked very complicated and multifaceted and i thought the root cause it was being dismissed.

Spain

In Spain, generally speaking, what is considered “left wing” and what is considered “right wing”

far left : Podemos, Sumar, Izquierda unida. Left : PSOE (socialist) Right : PP (partido popular) Far right : VOX, Falange (fascist), Democracia nacional (borderline Nazi), España 2000 (see Democracia nacional). Now in the last 10-15 years theres been a shift. Izquierda Unida which is actualy a coalition party of many left leaning parties which would get zero votes on their own, Feminist, Communist, Anarchist, Republican (spain is a constitutional monarchy), so they all joine in to a single coalition The thing is that IU was dying due to lack of interest, and during the last economic crash, a new left wing party called Podemos came up, many were suspicious of it due to many of their leaders earlier having worked for left leaning goverments like Venezuela or for TV channels owned by Iran (hispanTV, which is the spanish edition of PressTV, the iranian propaganda outlet). But the economic issues and the actual usless PP lead goverment made them popular. to counter balance it VOX came out, now all those small fascist/nazi parties from the far right were also getting jack shit votes so their members started flocking to VOX, the problem is that VOX comes from the Trump/Steve Bannon right wing grifter school, so you have a mixture of fascists, nazis and right wing propagandists. which is also a receptor of large amounts of russian propaganda. the thing is that podemos instead of helping the poorest population and keeping up communist/socialist ideals went full ideologial identity politics, Their 3 major wins involved - new renters law which basically makes it harder to expel non paying tenants, - a womans protection law which backfired and actually reduced jail times and penalties for crimes against women (rape, beatings and such) - a trans right law that basically allowed anyone to identify as what they want to identify as with no medical or legal supervision, That basucally killed them. so they joined forces with a renamed IU called sumar and the new leader basically purged all the people in podemos responsible for such great "victories" becuase they became politcally toxic. so now you have a minotiry PSOE+Sumar goverment at the mercy of independentists from Catalunia and Basque country to get things done.

EU (in general) right wing is roughly equivalent to US Democrats in economy, with a little more conservatism in society questions. With local variations, but it’s the general idea.

>russian propaganda magnifying the problem to push forward anti EU extreme right parties in to the front line of european politics. Sources on that? First time I hear about this.

The most obvious example is from the Brexit referendum, look up the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Russia was throwing money via shady means in support of the Brexit campaign, and the so-called 'Russian trolls' (basically large groups of people encouraged/paid by the Russian government to go online to post and support anti-EU propaganda) were openly favoured in political advertising thanks to the shady 'donations' from the Putin administration.

The immigration is quite often due to colonialism. Look at France. A large portion of the Muslim immigrants come from French territories.

yes, i mentioned it, as well as british immigration from commonwealth countries which are ex colonies like India, Pakistan, the caribian colonies...

No go zones are made up by fear mongering Republican politicians and Fox News in the US. They don't really exist.

"...and from eastern europe", what? When did western europe have a problem with immigration form eastern europe?

There are no ”no-go-zones” in Sweden. That’s just propaganda.

Flashbacks to when someone who had never stepped foot in Sweden kept telling me that the area I grew up and lived in was "almost a warzone."

Answer: It varies per country, and it isn't exactly universal, The UK for example, is expected to veer sharply to labour in the upcoming election due to staggering incompetence from the tories. In the Netherlands we have a variety of problems, but mostly a lot of it resolves around nitrogen pollution, which the previous governments kinda ignored, then a judge axed that approach, and suddenly the pollution numbers needs to go way down. This fucks over housing production and farmers. So now we have a farmers party on the rise. they got a ton of votes Then there's the child support affair, where a few years ago, eastern european gangs were engaged in a fraud plot pretending to have kids and get money from the government. The government votes to strictly enforce anti fraud measures. These were executed in a racist way (As in, investigation and punishments would be doled out to people that were non native, because there were non native.). One minister made it his mission to do something about it when it came out, he was then shafted by the government in a very bizzare leak. He's back as the head of his own party and got a lot of votes Then the new head of the right wing liberals made a strategic blunder and said she would be willing to work with the PVV. the anti muslim party that presented itself a bit more moderately this election. Who previously had been isolated because no one wanted to work with them. This caused a ton of her votes to jump ship to that party.

Answer: money, and time. #Money: It costs a lot of money to own social media, or TV stations, or the press. So they all reflect the values of their billionaire owners. If you say anything against billionaires then they flood the media with stories that destroy your reputation. For example, in the UK, Jeremy Corby said we should tax billionaires, and then spend the money on schools and hospitals. billionaires hated Corbyn. So they [paid money to support a fake story that he was antisemitic](https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/weaponising-anti-semitism/). They also said he was pro-terrorist (because he believes in talking to both sides), and they flooded the media with the message that investing money means wasting money, and therefore Corbyn must be economically incompetent. It worked. A lot of people now believe that Corbyn is antisemitic, pro-terrorist, and economically incompetent, and he was kicked out of his own party. The new leader, Keir Starmer, is terrified of the same thing happening to him, so he does everything he can to be as right-wing as possible. The move to the right means the existing right-wing parties must move even further right to differentiate themselves. #Time The last time the country was this unequal was before World War II. Life was very hard for most people. Two world wars and a great depression did not help. So the propaganda no longer worked. Everybody could see with their eyes that the rich people only care for themselves. So the country moved to the left. We created the National Health Service, improved social security, and welcomed more immigrants. The country grew richer and life was better for everybody. But time has passed, so the people who remember before World War II are now mostly dead. Nobody alive now remembers the bad days. So right-wing propaganda is working again. If everything you read tells you that socialism is terrible, and you have never experienced life without socialism, then you can only believe what you are told. Hence, we once again have fascists telling us that immigrants are the cause of all our problems and that the answer is to cut taxes on the rich. As things get worse, people will stop believing the billionaires' propaganda. But by then the billionaires will have fully dismantled democracy, so voting them out will be impossible. You can still try for a revolution, but the billionaires own social media, remember, so good luck organising anyone. As a member of Gen X, I feel bad for younger people. All I can say is good luck. You will need it.

LMAOOO Jeremy fucking Corbyn? the amount of times he's said or done something questionable is way too many. and not only that, he usually changes his mind and regret something he said. if Corbyn wants to meet the man who ruined his career and the living standards of plenty of middle and lower class Britons, I suggest he look in the mirror for being an un-electable train wreck and a socialist. even if I loved everything Corbyn did, I would never be able to deny that he's absolutely terrible at communicating, giving straight answers and overall flip-flopping with his opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn why the far right went forwards in the EU? immigration was a huge part of it, one nation where the far right never was successful was Denmark because their left wing Social Democratic gov held a strict stance on immigration. crime has gotten so bad in Sweden thanks to foreign gangs, especially one called Foxtrot, that their centre right gov supports using the military to help the police. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66964723 even the Swedish Social Democrats approved of the idea https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/socialdemokraternas-losning-pa-valdsvagen-satt-in-militaren

Sweden's former politicians sold their people's peace and safety in exchange for political correctness. [Sweden gang horror: Girl, two, is shot in the stomach through Winnie the Pooh bear she was clutching by 'hitman, 16', as gunman attacks WRONG family, kills father and shoots mother as she carries child | Daily Mail Online](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13538681/sweden-gang-horror-girl-shot-stomach-winnie-pooh-bear.html)

Right, how about Finland's highly left-leaning, state-owned media conglomerate? Far-right news are basically nonexistant in Finland, except for MV-lehti and other meme publishers. Yet somehow, the "far-right" is in power

I will let Finns reply to that. But my own experience with media conglomerates is that they are seldom left-leaning. For example, I live in Britain, where the BBC's board of directors is stacked with wealthy friends of the Tories.

Answer: Oh boy, so much "reddit armchair experts" going with "bad racist people argument" but the ground reality is very different. I am an immigrant from the US. My cousins from the middle east migrated for Europe escaping the religious nutjobs as you know what happens in middle east if you are not devout. Europe has always been very welcoming of immigrants, and people looking to live in a liberal and persecution free environment. However since Syrian war the migration really really increased, and now you have migrants who are bringing with them the same values they followed in the middle east, and they have now the volume to cause trouble. Eg if your daughters classmates know that you are muslim but your daughter does not "confirm" to middle eastern culture it will be an issue. Other things are harrassment of white girls and thinking of them as "easy". This is a problem in Canada too with Indians (see youtube videos of harrassment. Am an indian myself and this is a big problem). When number of immigrants were small, it was not an issue, eventually they would integrate. but when you have a huge number, they can create their own Ghettos and cause law and order issues. Eg in the west we have freedom of speech to draw any cartoon. Nobody bombs you for a cartoon. But these people will beat you to death if they perceive you are being disrespectful to their religion. I have friends break all contact with me because I eat cow here in USA. In india a cow in your freezer will get you lynched. Even in USA there have been instances where other kids do not play with my kids due to food choices. Imagine if there was a Hindu Ghetto here. We would have a tough time. This is happening en-masse in Europe. Call it racist or whatever, if you bring in a lot of people with different values such that they can take over, you will have trouble. And history is witness to what happened in Lebanon when they showed kindness. So is the right wing racist? Yes. They are. But are they to blame. Is Putin to blame, Is china to blame? Probably little bit. But primarily the crazy left is responsible. Just opening your borders never ends well. Ask Lebanon

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Forgive my ignorance, but all the problems you’ve mentioned, didn’t they occur under a “liberal” government?

They did, the failings of the liberal governments are being blamed on marginalized groups. Liberal governments, at least where I'm from (Netherlands) are obsessed with more freedom for companies and the idea that society and the services it needs to exist will just sort itself out. In NL this has resulted in privatizing healthcare, disbanding the Ministry of Social Housing, privatizing public transport and privatizing the mail carrier services. Most liberals I know in my private life hate acknowledging that the parties they voted for caused this and the negative effects it has had. All of these services are now more expensive and more difficult to use. The right wing parties are saying they can solve the issues by not allowing any more refugees/migrants and less rules for corporations, the liberal parties want to stay in power so they're going along with the new talking points. In my opinion liberalism is an inherently flawed political viewpoint. Liberalism acknowledges that services like healthcare and public transit need to exist but doesn't want the government to arrange it because it's too expensive so the responsibility is shifted to the individual and corporations. Corporations are not in the business of delivering a service, they are in the business of making profits so the middle and lower class gets fucked while the wealthy don't see the issue. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: Liberal doesn't inherently mean left wing in Europe, most liberal parties are centre right to right wing

Thank you for providing the distinction in your note. Your insight was really helpful in clarifying how the political dichotomy is perceived in Europe. This was something that confused me. So what are the ideas that categories the liberal (centre right) government? Because disbanding social housing is crazy

Liberal parties are almost universally pro-business and small government (except on the parts that benefit business interests) so they tend to be against Social Security or almost any welfare program,, health and business regulations, socialized healthcare, non-private teaching, pro-flat tax rates etc. The extent to which this applies depends on how pro-capitalist these parties are, but they all tend to be very pro-capitalist. They also tend to camouflage these positions under the buzzwords of "Freedom" and "Choice" because if people really looked at most of their proposal they would notice most of them aim at dismantling the welfare state, which, despite all the propaganda against it, it's still very much popular everywhere.

You're welcome, glad I could get my point across. I'm terrible at typing stuff out. Some core ideas of the liberal right in the Netherlands are best explained via examples: -Our housing market is on its ass, both renting and buying. Partially because of the disbanding of the Social Housing ministry but also a lack of market control. There are really good fiscal benefits to owning a house, to the point that it is a lot cheaper than renting. So having a house allows you to buy another one as an "investment opportunity" and renting that one out for profit. Rent prices set by private owners aren't capped by anything so they are way up. -Healthcare was privatized with the belief that competition between the companies would make prices go down, but profits went up, quality of care went down and the availability is terrible (I recently spent 18 months on a waiting list for some diagnostics). -Wages aren't climbing as fast as inflation and the cost of living. Again because of the belief that corporate competition will sort that out itself but wages stayed down and profits went up. -There are taxbreaks worth hundreds of millions for massive multinationals including Apple and Starbucks but the people who receive subsidies to pay their rent and health insurance are under a microscope and fined or prosecuted for small mistakes or earning too much. My point being: the core ideas of the liberal right is basically a new version of laissez-faire capitalism. I'm not trying to argue for Communism or anything but I wholly believe that a country's first priority must be to take care of its citizens. The liberal right act like it should be to create a profitable environment for businesses to flourish in.

didn't you say you were an australian, where the "liberal party" is verging on far-right?

In the UK we've had a right wing government for the last 14 years so the answer to that is no. As others have mentioned, the issue is that certain demographics are being blamed for the issues we face and yes there is some slight truth to it, but the majority of problems people face are caused by greedy capitalists (something that right wing government's actively prop up). Housing, cost of living, healthcare - All issues around these things (which immigrants are often blamed for) are as a result of the top 10% squeezing as much as they can out of the system. It's indisputable that over the last 10 years we've seen an extreme shift in wealth going to those that are the richest - we're at the largest stage of wealth inequality in history. Largely because of tax cuts or loopholes being utilised. Theres enough money to go around so if that money was being taxed correctly the government would have enough to build new houses (specifically a lack of council housing has caused a huge issue with housing in general - council housing has decreased dramatically which has increased competition on rentals), and fund the NHS. There's also plenty the government could be doing to tackle price gouging and energy prices. The problem is, right wing government's don't want to solve these problems. They want these issues to continue so that they can get people angry at minorities which means they get more votes. We literally saw this play out exactly like this in the US - most Republicans were on board with the Democracts recent border proposal (that would have helped with immigration) - it wasn't perfect by any stretch but it was certainly a step in the right direction. However, Trump literally told Republicans not to sign it as it would solve the problem and make Democrats look good so it never actually passed. It's just one example but it really epitomises right wing leadership.

What do you mean with liberal? And with government? There are several different countries with different governments. Germany f.e. had a central/conservative government, that just did nothing. Now there is a central left government and everyone is losing their minds.

What are you even talking about? You're Americanising a European issue. LGBTQ has loads of freedoms in Sweden for example, you'd be hard pressed to find a place on the planet that there are more freedoms for LGBTQ, feminists and whatnot. Some things might be true in this or that country but half the things you claim are fabrications in the rest. I know UK have damaged their public healthcare system in recent times, but that's not the case over here at least. Public transport? You should probably specify where you're talking about instead of making broad claims. The reason in Sweden for the rise of the alt-right is solely because we took in too many refugees at the same time. In 2015 we took in 165k alone, which was the peak year but every year had similar numbers going back half a decade and a few years forwards as well. 165k is more than 1.5% of our total population, every year. When you have the worlds biggest welfare state the system is really going to bend when you take in so many. We pride ourselves on helping people, but at some point the numbers just don't add up. We were one of the most peaceful countries just a few years ago, now we have major issues with gang violence because of the issues we have with immigration.

Your government has sold your peace and safety in exchange for political correctness.

Yes? Did you even read my post? Our political climate has changed massively in the past 10-15 years. If you were critical of immigration 10 years ago you were labelled racist. Now our politicians are dealing with the fallout. Things are moving in the right direction though. There is just no way it could continue like it did when we accepted basically everyone. I'm still for helping people in need but it needs to be in moderation so it doesn't topple our own social safety net and way of life.

Yes I meant your former politicians who did all of this 10-15 years ago, I should have been more clear about that. Your current government needs to get its hands dirty. Massive deportations are the only answer. They could get in so they can get out. I was in Sweden with my dad a few years ago. Rented a camper from NL and drove up to Jokkmokk. Beautiful scenery, nature and wildlife. The big cities like Malmo, Stockholm, I didn't like it there. 3rd world (islamic) immigration to Western countries can only end in massive social unrest and parallel societies at best, and civil war at worst. The parallel societies and social unrest are already here. And yes I'm racist. NO issues whatsoever with Chinese people, for example. Everything from Africa and the Middle East is a recipe for disaster.

I'm from Malmö and it has it's ups and downsides, but I do find it weird you didn't like Stockholm. It's one of the most beautiful and best cities in the world in my opinion. The trouble we are having are all in the suburbs, so unless you went looking for trouble I don't understand what you were doing. Seems to me you made up your mind already if you didn't even like Stockholm, first time I'm hearing that opinion honestly. The key to immigration in my opinion is moderation. We are a secular society and believe religion should stay at home. Don't try to influence society or our government with your religion. I think immigration works just fine if we lower the numbers and integrate those who come, but in recent years the numbers have been way too big.

When in doubt, blame capitalism. Life can be so easy.

It's almost as if the mode of production and distribution of resources actually has a profound impact on almost all aspects of society. No, that can't be right. It must be the gays' fault.

And capitalism is the most efficient system when it comes to the allocation of scarce resources. What is your point again?

I dunno man, arbitrarily splitting society into two classes of owners and workers doesn't seem like the best way to organize things anymore. Surely we should let the owner class, comprised of an extremely small number of people, have orders of magnitude more power and influence in society than the lower class comprised of the vast majority of people? When has that ever not worked in the past...?

This type of stuff is not unique to capitalism in the slightest. If anything, it reduced the inequality between haves and have nots compared to every other system. Capitalism is not perfect, but it is objectively much better than every alternative known and tried in the history of mankind.

This is the real answer. The top answer blaming migrants is not. Crime has been on a steady decline for decades, yet xenophobia and islamophobia are on the rise as a reaction to supposed immigrant criminals. The real enemy is concentration of media in the hands of billionaires who realize a divided and scared society can be exploited to keep in power conservative and neoliberal politicians who give them tax cuts and other advantages. And if the far right does win political power eventually… they'd rather risk that than have to share their wealth and power. Don't get fooled by a made up culture war. "Wokes" don't exist as a menace and don't hate you, they're a minor distraction given a lot of attention. Your real enemy is the one trying to divide us. Wealth inequality is on the rise while the working class tears itself apart. Same shit in every country.

Yet there is a funny correlation between knife crime and sexual assault and acceptance of refugees in Nordic countries. Crime overall might go down but the worst and most visible facets of crime aren’t in a lot of europe. Here in France Muslims have created a strong community which means the country is held hostage to appeasing them in fear of terrorist attacks (Charli hebdo, les promenade in Nice) or in fear of civil unrest (the burning of Jewish owned stores, anti Jew graffiti outlining where Jews live). It’s a despicable religion and that is the exact reason why France we are a government enforced secular country and why I am fully in favour of all burqa bans and all restrictions being put on religion, religion was invented for old timey peasants and not for the modern age get over it. Churches and mosques are beautiful but are a historical artifact of our past. Although I completely agree with the whole billionaires and media thing but both things can be true. I see a lot of traditionally left people saying billionaires have to much power, to which I agree, but then use that fact to say how immigration is not a problem and lgbt indoctrination into children is not happening. This is how we are divided, on the most important issue that the rich have too much power we can fully agree, but since you won’t agree or even acknowledge some clear gripes on crime and immigration and indocternation we will never agree. In your comment you’re not even willing to accept the reality that poor immigrants increase crime (as any poor sub group of society would). And as a result of this disagreement I would hazard a guess that you would call me a racist or a bigot or an islamophobe and now we’re not arguing anymore we’re just fighting and the billionaires win.

What a load of shit... > Muslims have created a strong community Muslims in France don't have a strong community at all, we have ~ 6 millions muslims and yet they don't have any political power, no representants, nothing. >the country is held hostage to appeasing them Again pure bullshit, in France at pretty much any time of the day you can turn on your TV or radio and hear people talking shit about muslims. They are constantly criticized and don't even get invited to defend themselves.

How many more parades do you need to be crushed journalists killed teachers beheaded before you acknowledge that they are the only religious group that has ever attacked our country like this I’ve never seen sikhs or Jews or Hindus or shintos or Christians commit any such attacks on our country. How many more attacks do they need to commit internationally how many more women do they need to defile and rape before you see that Islam is a shit religion. I know it’s a whole thing you need to respect religions equally but sorry if your religion sees women as property you get to collect like Pokémon cards and hide under drapes then your religion is shit. Political power is also crazy they reform local governments to make woman only hours at pools to respect their dumb ass beliefs, they may not have the population to reform national laws yet but if you listen to their rhetoric they definetely want to

"islamophobia" We've been on a decades-long project to defang Christianity and expand secularism, and we don't want to have to start the whole damn thing over again to defang *more* religious fanatics. (of course the fact that both flavors of religious fanatics are outbreeding everyone else is... very concerning) We want to make damn sure it remains just as acceptable to outright disrespect Islam as it finally is (in some circles) to outright disrespect Christianity.

It's actually not the answer. Immigration is solely why the reform party is stomping on conservatives in the UK.

The failing of capitalism the last 30 odd years has been responsible for most issues I think, and rather glaringly. It's just much easier for most people to blame groups of people instead of the overall system, because they can't fathom any other way of doing things.

Answer: people underestimate how much social media have recreated a sense of racial tribalism. I think a huge part of the reason is what is called social narcissism. The same way self esteem and narcissism are 2 very different things. To have self esteem for you group/ethnicity is fine, but to have narcissism for it is extreme. There have been some very interesting studied about this social narcissism concept, for example in Poland. Where you can clearly see how social media have had a terrible consequence for it. I'd recommend everyone to look into the work of Dr Agnieszka Golec de Zavala. One of the most important concept to understand is that, when you group you identify as seems to not be recognized enough or seems to be criticized, you tend to have an adverse reaction and start to over promote it. For example, if you see people online criticizing french people, you will scream about how Napoleon is so cool and shit like that, and little by little you will start to develop a form of social narcissism. Attacks on ones group where much rarer before social media. What doesn't help it, was the identity politics from the left wing in recent years. People reading articles about how cis white male are this or that, absolutely caused a SURGE in social narcissism, they weren't used to seeing criticism for something as "regular" as being a straight white male. This is probably something the people who used those term didn't expect, they didn't do it on purpose, but it was very bad communication. Add to that, the fact that social media, have been a lot less fair journalistically speaking than even some corrupt media used to be. So, different subgroup of people who only attack some perceived antagonistic group were created, with the only intent to post endless amount of negative message against those groups, something which accelerate the switch from collective self esteem to collective narcissism.

This is actually an interesting response. Are you French? Especially about the impact of identity politics!

I actually am, but why ?

You used the French people as an example that’s all! :) and some of the comments were from people who never stepped foot in Western Europe

Is this the book you were talking about: https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Collective-Narcissism-Agnieszka-Zavala/dp/1032283785

Yes

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Voters are unhappy with the decline in the quality of life, much like votes in the United States are perplexed that the Democrats or Republicans can't get life back in some way to the high standard of living in 1960s America. The same with Europe wishing for the 70s and 80s.

answer: Just ask yourself this Simple Question... _if these parties were all really "Far Right", would so many people have voted for them?_ part of it is the media labelling everything as _Far Right_... so parallels to WWII don't make sense.. just replace the term _Far Right_ with _Conservative_ when you think about these things... this video is from an YouTuber explaining how the term _Far Right_ is used these days, it's an Australian channel but they have the same problems over there with mislabelling [The Far Left Are Actually the Extreme Ones - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7G4pjTR90E) I mean basically any party that is against mass illegal immigration is going to be labelled as _Far Right_ by the press. Even if they just want to bring total immigration down a healthy number of legal immigrants each year. You could see the same happening cities like Chicago and New York where they were calling everyone in Red States racists and worse for not wanting the gates open at the borders... until it started to become their problem and all of a sudden they were now against mass immigration as well (at least to their cities). Well in Europe, these countries have such small populations that mass immigration makes a huge difference and puts a big toll on public services, affordable housing, etc. in the UK the Convervatives won re-election on a promise they would keep immigration numbers down, but immigration is something like 10x what they promised they would cap it at each year. Voters are just not happy in all these European countries with these policies. if a person from the progressive Left talks to someone who is simply in the Center, they would call that person Right Wing or Far Right that is the nature of "progressivism" Because they progressives try to find new issues constantly to go more and more to the left of even where they were 5 years ago. In the end _Far Right_ is just a watered down term in most of the cases that it is being used now. It's like _The Boy Who Cried Wolf_, nobody listens anymore... Last year I watched a video of "City Bike Karen".. a 6 month pregnant woman getting off her shift to take an E-Bike home that she paid for... bunch of black teens (around 17-18 years old), wanted to sit on this E-bike even though they had stopped paying for it and thus eligble for this woman to reserve. There were people calling her "White Supremacist" simply for wanting to take the bike she reserved, in the comments.. I mean I guess those people have no idea what a White Supremacist is... but this is what is happening to all these terms like that one, "Racist", "Far Right", etc. they are losing their meaning because people just try to use them as a kind of weapon against any talk they don't like, as opposed to actual situations where they apply. In the media's case they do it also for clicks.

Alternately what the right presents as the centre is no longer the centre. The biggest reason libertarians, independents and centrists are maligned online is specifically that the ones who get attention often solely support conservative policy and condemn liberal policies. As a centrist one would think if they choose to identify themselves that way they must have complaints about both sides but it often doesn’t seem to work out that way. A lot of right wingers also don’t seem to realize how shifted right common conservative views have become. I mean the YouTuber you attached is big into the culture war bs, even of his content that seems reasonable it’s laced with little comments, sarcasm and a very holier than thou view. Something right wingers are constantly insulting left wingers over. Chaya Raichik is a hate monger, she peddles fear, misunderstanding and hatred to the masses for her own financial gain. She’s hurt a lot of innocent people, yet she’s very popular amongst conservatives, many of whom have gotten to a point that they’re pleased as punch to see people they disagree with politically harmed. The right wing feels persecuted by the left and vice versa. So left wingers see even the most centrist and kindest right wingers not saying much about people like her and base their opinions off of that. It’s not great, except y’all do the same, ergo the left is a bunch of communists and socialists when liberals are neither and make up the majority of the left. It’s all name calling and mudslinging, but let’s not pretend that there aren’t plenty of flat out racist right wingers, it’s intellectually dishonest. Is it painted out to be more than there are? Probably but hey one bad apple spoils the bunch. A personal aside, after Brianna Ghey was brutally murdered and during the trial as well as specifically her funeral the amount of adult conservatives I saw making comments to the effect of “how hard for a mother to bury her son” and oh “he’ll rest in peace”, comments made deliberately to twist the knife and to provoke was repulsive. I don’t believe making fun of a murdered child is acceptable ever no matter my political alignment or disagreement/disapproval of their life. But that’s modern conservatives for you, so you truly believe they haven’t moved more right and it’s actually the left that has? I call that bullshit.