The far right don’t need to win elections to spread their malign ideas | Kenan Malik

Even when they don't succeed, as in Spain, their extremist tropes are mainstream fare

The Spanish elections last week did not unfold as many predicted. The coalition of the centre-right People's party and the far-right Vox failed in its bid for power, largely because the Vox vote plummeted, while the incumbent prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, and his social democratic Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE), fared better than expected.

Do the Spanish results tell us something more profound about European politics and the fate of the far right? Over the past year, the far right has seemed to be on the march across Europe. Last October, Giorgia Meloni became Italy's prime minister after her Brothers of Italy party, with historical roots in the post-Second World War neo-fascist Italian Social Movement, won most seats in the general election. In Finland, the reactionary Finns party is now part of the governing coalition, while the Swedish government depends for its survival on the support of the equally reactionary Sweden Democrats.

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