Rather than confront the grievances driving public anger, far-right politicians turn the debate into a morality play: respectable citizens on one side, dangerous left-wing agitators on the other. It is a convenient distraction. If attention can be shifted from unaffordable housing, insecure work and deteriorating public services to the supposed menace of left-wing subversion, those in power can avoid answering awkward questions about their own record.
A clash between Cypriot MEP Geadis Geadi and Belgian MEP Marc Botenga during the European Parliament’s Strasbourg plenary on 19 October exposed this tactic in striking fashion. The exchange was not simply a dispute over political rhetoric, it was a contest over who should be held responsible for Europe’s deepening social discontent.
Responding to Botenga’s reference to an alliance between the right and the far right, Geadi accused the left of having destroyed Europe, leading “Cyprus into economic chaos, Spain into immigration chaos and France into utter chaos”. He then delivered his proposed remedy: “the best thing you (the left) could do was stop participating in elections.”
It is quite a leap: from accusing political opponents of getting things wrong to suggesting they should stop taking part in democracy altogether. Apparently, the cure for Europe’s political problems is not better policies, stronger public services or a serious response to economic insecurity, it is fewer people allowed to challenge the far right.
Botenga pushed back, describing Geadi’s demand as an attempt at “installing a dictatorship” and accusing him of “calling on half the European Parliament to withdraw from elections”. He also challenged the basic premise of Geadi’s argument. “Most governments in Europe are governed by right wing parties,” he pointed out, arguing that responsibility for the destruction of social rights and people’s inability to afford fuel lay on the right of the political spectrum.
The point was hard to miss, politicians cannot spend years shaping government policy, championing economic choices and demanding tougher responses to unrest, then act astonished when people protest the consequences.
Nor can they plausibly claim that the left is responsible for every crisis simply because it offers an alternative.
When the far right cannot answer for the crisis, it invents a culprit
Blaming the left is more than a rhetorical convenience; it is a way of dodging accountability. When people struggle to pay rent, find secure employment or access functioning public services, politicians should explain what they intend to do about it. The far right instead offers a familiar performance: identify an enemy, exaggerate the threat and present repression as the only route back to order.
Geadi’s intervention made the contradiction particularly glaring. Democracy, apparently, is worth defending, provided that the people who disagree with you know when to leave. Yet political opponents do not forfeit their democratic rights because their arguments are inconvenient, and protesters do not lose their right to be heard because those in power dislike their demands. Elections are not a private club whose membership can be revoked when the results or arguments become uncomfortable.
There is an irony, too, in blaming the left for a continent in which right-wing parties hold power in numerous countries and have helped shape the political agenda. Botenga’s intervention brought the question back to where it belongs: with those who exercise power and the consequences of their decisions. Political responsibility cannot be outsourced to an ideological enemy whenever the public starts asking difficult questions.
None of this means every protest is peaceful or every demand beyond criticism. Violence should be addressed, and those who attack others or destroy property should be held accountable, but disorder does not erase legitimate grievances.
The far right wants Europe to see angry young people as a problem to be contained, rather than citizens whose anger demands an explanation. Geadi’s contribution was to suggest that one way to resolve political disagreement is to get the opposition out of elections. It is a remarkably revealing answer from someone speaking in a parliament: when the argument gets difficult, apparently, the ballot box becomes the problem.
Europe’s young people do not need lectures about order from politicians who mistake scapegoating for leadership. They need homes they can afford, jobs that offer security and public services that work. If the far right has a serious answer to those demands, it should give it. If not, it can spare Europe the grand performance about saving democracy while telling its opponents to stop participating in it.
(Sources: European Parliament)
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