Europe’s rightward drift is not set in stone: our new research should give hope to the left

excerpts from the article:

First, contrary to what is often asserted without much empirical support, voters – including voters of the far-right RN (Rassemblement National) – do not vote mainly on immigration issues. Socioeconomic issues are the main determinants of voting choices. If blue-collar workers have shifted towards the far right in recent years, it is above all because they have suffered disproportionately from globalised trade and deindustrialisation, and a lack of access to public services. From this point of view, they have felt abandoned by the left in power over the past 40 years in France. Of course, this can teach us lessons about what is happening today in other European countries. Throughout Europe, the left needs to convince voters that it can provide adequate protection against social, fiscal and environmental “dumping” – if necessary through unilateral action.

Parties of the left should also be buoyed up by the knowledge that, in doing more for poorer people in small towns and peripheral areas, they could enlarge their future electoral base and return to power. Importantly, we document the fact that rural and urban poor people have much more in common that is often thought, in particular in terms of inadequate access to public services and opportunities, and widening disparities with the richest municipalities.

Nevertheless, this does not mean that no far-right voters are anti-migrant; some most certainly are, in particular Éric Zemmour’s electorate in France. But this electorate is not a working-class one; it is one of the most “bourgeois” electorates in French history (in terms of either voter income or wealth). Nor does it mean that the immigration question is a simple one, or that the refugee crisis can be easily solved.