Europe’s lurch to the right rolls on. Only unity on the left can stop it | Simon Tisdall

Recent polls in Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey and Finland tell the story of voters swayed by fear and prejudice. Progressive parties - take note Keir Starmer - need a clear, principled agenda to turn that tide

Why does the left keep losing? It's not a question liberals and progressives particularly want to confront, but look around. Reactionary parties of the political right and far right are once more on the rise and on the march across Europe, as shown again by last week's lopsided election results in Spain and Italy.

Each country is different, its circumstances unique. Yet a broad pattern is discernible - and it's not difficult to trace. The banal common denominator is that parties of the European left, hard and soft, are too fractured and fractious to build winning coalitions that offer convincing alternative solutions to voters' problems. Like Spain and Italy, recent election outcomes in Greece, Turkey and Finland suggest the dominant issues for electorates are the cost of living, energy and inflation. Other shared worries include security (foreign and domestic), migration, climate and environment, and national identity (loosely defined).