Establishmentarians weep, clutch their pearls over European Parliament's rightward shift

Voters across the Atlantic Ocean sent a message to the political establishment Sunday night, driving the European Parliament rightward and humiliating parties whose policies have radically transformed the continent with unchecked migration, failed assimilation, costly climate alarmism, and globalist tendencies.

The election results will reverberate for weeks and months to come. One country's prime minister has already resigned, and other leaders now face potential ousters in their respective nations.

Italy

As of Monday morning, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's national conservative Brothers of Italy party had gained 14 seats and secured nearly 29% of the vote. Reuters indicated the party's success Sunday more than quadrupled its showing in the 2019 European Union election and exceeded the 26% it secured in the 2022 national ballot.

"I am proud that Italy will present itself to the G7, to Europe with the strongest government of all. This is something that has not happened in the past but is happening today, it is a satisfaction and also a great responsibility," said Meloni.

"What we need is a Europe that will listen to citizens, that will look more to the centre-right and has more pragmatic and less ideological policies," added the Italian prime minister.

This victory has made Meloni one of the most powerful figures in the EU.

Meloni's Brothers of Italy party is part of a coalition in the parliament called European Conservatives and Reformists, which now holds 73 seats in the 720-seat parliament. ECR is set to gain the support of the National Popular Front of Cyprus, which secured 11% of the vote Sunday, largely on a message to address the problem of immigration.

Just as ECR made headway Sunday, so did the right-wing Identity and Democracy coalition, which nabbed nine seats for a total of 58. ID's gains were driven in large part by the success of France's National Rally.

France

Marine Le Pen's National Rally party ran circles around French President Emmanuel Macron's pro-European Renaissance Party, more than doubling its votes with 31.37%. The Need for Europe coalition, which includes Macron' Renaissance Party, secured only 14.6% of the vote.

This result was so embarrassing as to prompt Macron, who already lacks a majority in the French parliament, to call snap national elections on June 30 and July 7 and to call for the dissolution of the National Assembly in a few weeks.

After the French people largely kicked his party to the curb, Macron tweeted, "I have confidence in the ability of the French people to make the fairest choice for themselves and for future generations."

Axios highlighted that Macron leaned in to old scare tactics following his humiliation.

"The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation and for Europe," said the president. "After this day, I cannot go on as though nothing has happened."

"The French people have sent a very clear message to the Macronist power, which, vote after vote, is disintegrating," Le Pen noted on X, suggesting that such is the consequence of denying a people their history and curbing their "influence, identity and freedom."

Following Macron's announcement of the National Assembly's dissolution, Le Pen said, "I call on the French to come and join us to form a majority around the RN [National Rally] in the service of the only cause that guides our steps: France."

Macron's government is not the only one left tottering after Sunday's election.

Germany

Despite its vilification by the liberal media and the German political establishment, and a member's pre-election stabbing, Alternative for Germany gained six seats and placed second with 15.9% of the national vote. The top spot was firmly held by the center-right Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union, which took 30.2% of the vote.

Extra to its 5% gain over its showing in the 2019 EU election, Alternative for Germany managed to beat German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's establishment Social Democratic Party, which is expected to finish third with less than 14%.

According to the German publication Bild, 76% of Germans think the SPD-led (Social Democratic Party) government is not governing successfully. 570,000 voters who cast votes for the SPD in 2019 instead cast votes for AFD on Sunday.

Social Democratic Party politician Lars Klingbeil doubled down on his party's ineffective rhetoric after its trouncing, stating, "I believe that the result of the European elections will wake many people up to the fact that the Nazis have become stronger in this election."

The Telegraph indicated that less than a third of German voters cast ballots for the ruling parties combined. Joining Scholz's party in humiliation was the Green Party, which hemorrhaged roughly 9%, and Scholz's coalition partners, the Free Liberals, which netted 5%.

Migration and refugees were far and away the top concerns for Germans going into the election — more so than energy, climate, the economy, pensions, and the war in Ukraine.

The poor showing of Scholz's ruling coalition has prompted some to suggest the government has lost legitimacy.

The AFD reportedly seeks to join the ID coalition, sacrificing its scandal-plagued candidate Maximilian Krah to sweeten the deal. That would mean that between the ID and ECR, rightists in the European Parliament would control over 131 seats in the chamber, not including the seats held by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party, by the Polish Confederation party, and other right-leaning groups.

Elsewhere

In Spain, the center-right People's Party overtook leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's Spanish Socialist Workers Party. The PP took 34.2% of the vote and gained nine seats, ending up with a total of 22 of Spain's 61 seats in the European Parliament. Sanchez's radical party lost a seat and now only has 20 seats.

The right-leaning Vox party came third with six seats, having secured an additional two seats Sunday and 9.6% of the vote.

Dutch politician Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom gained six seats and 17.7% of its nation's total vote, placing second in the Netherlands. The Party for Freedom campaigned primarily on two issues: immigration and health care, reported the NL Times.

"The Greens and Liberals are the big losers, they will lost many seats in the European Parliament," Wilders tweeted Sunday. "On the other hand, the PVV is winning big, just like our friends in France, Belgium, Austria, Portugal and many other countries. It was a very beautiful election day!"

In Austria, the Freedom Party, whose members will join the ID coalition, placed first with 25.7% of the vote, gaining three seats for a total of six in the parliament. According to EuroNews, the Freedom Party largely campaigned on an anti-immigration, anti-Green Deal, and Euroskeptic platform.

Ahead of the vote, the Freedom Party wrote on X, "Asylum crisis, corona chaos, warmongering and eco-communism – are you fed up with all of this? Then ABSOLUTELY VOTE FOR THE FPÖ today! Together we will STOP the EU madness!"

A weepy Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced his resignation Sunday after his Flemish Lierals and Democrats party was crushed by right-leaning and nationalist parties. Croo's party lost a seat, such that it placed last with only one seat in the parliament.

"For us, it's a particularly difficult evening. We lost. As of tomorrow, I will resign as prime minister," said Croo, reported the Guardian.

The nationalist right-wing New Flemish Alliance placed first. Its leader, Bart De Wever, will likely become the country's next prime minister. The anti-immigration Vlaams Belang Party came second.

Unsuccessful concern-mongering, continued

Ursula von der Leyen, a member of the centrist European People's Party — the biggest coalition in the new legislature — vowed to serve as a check on the ascendant right, reported Reuters.

"We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," said von der Leyen. "But it is also true that extremes and on the left and the right have gained support and this is why the result comes with great responsibility for the parties in the center."

Von der Leyen's continued presidency over the European Commission will rely upon the backing of the EU's national leaders.

Days ahead of the election, the BBC warned that a rightward shift might mean "more power for nation states, less 'Brussels interference' in everyday life"; less power for the European Commission; tougher EU legislation on migration; and a pushback against climate alarmist policies.

Upon seeing the results pour in, the Washington Post sounded the alarm that the "'cordon sanitaire' erected by more mainstream parties against the putative descendants of Europe's fascist movements had collapsed" and that "a new age of right-wing politics in the West" had arrived.

The New York Times noted that right-wing parties "have gained across the continent as voters have grown more concentrated on nationalism and identity, often tied to migration and some of the same culture-war politics pertaining to gender and L.G.B.T.Q. issues that have gained traction in the United States," then warned the result could "hearten kindred political forces loyal to former President Donald J. Trump as he seeks a return to office."

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