Don’t blame voters for a far right surge in Europe. Blame the far right’s mainstream copycats

Far right ideology has not changed, it has become normalised in the minds of voters, thanks to a snowball effect

This week, citizens of all 27 EU member states will begin to vote in the European parliament elections. One outcome seems inevitable: the far right will make significant gains. Polls suggest that the two groups in the European parliament that harbour far-right parties could secure about 20% of the seats, a fourfold increase since the early 1990s. In four of the six founding EU states, these parties lead in the polls.

Where does this far-right success come from? One explanation is that far-right parties have become more moderate over the years, while voters have become more radicalised. Yet research indicates that this explanation does not make sense. On their core issues, such as immigration and anti-establishment politics, far-right parties are as radical as ever, and according to research, voters are no less trusting of their politicians and parliaments than they were three decades ago, no less satisfied with the workings of democracy, and their attitudes to immigration have remained relatively unchanged. What has changed is not their ideologies, but that parties and voters have been driven into each other's arms.

Matthijs Rooduijn is a political scientist at the University of Amsterdam