How Immigration Has Reshaped European Politics

As my esteemed reader knows, Europe has been undergoing rapid change since at least 2015. It is therefore interesting to see how this change is reflected in opinion polls.

For this reason, I decided to share a few images this Sunday showing the development of party support in different countries. The source of the images is Politico.eu’s Poll of Polls.

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Let us begin with Germany.

The chart clearly shows how, as recently as 20 years ago, Germany’s political landscape was dominated by two major parties, CDU/CSU and SPD. In 2013, a new, small, immigration-critical party, AfD, appeared on the scene. Over the course of the past roughly 13 years, its support has risen in waves to its current level of around 28 percent, making it the largest party in Europe’s largest economic area.

Another significant change is the division of the SPD’s traditional support base between the party and the Greens. At the moment, the Greens are even more popular than the old dominant party of the left.

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Next, France.

The chart beginning in 2017 shows the rise of the immigration-critical National Rally from a medium-sized party to France’s most popular political movement. Two other significant developments have been the consolidation of the previously fragmented left, which has made it the country’s second-largest political movement, and the gradual decline in support for Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party.

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Third, the old world power, the United Kingdom.

The chart shows that the country’s two traditional major parties held their ground for a long time, but that the political landscape has since evolved into a three-party contest involving three medium-sized parties. At the moment, the Labour Party is in the lead, but the Reform UK party, led by Nigel Farage and having risen on the back of concerns about immigration, as well as the Conservatives, are breathing right down its neck. In recent months, however, support for the old major parties has been rising, while Reform UK’s upward trajectory appears to have peaked sometime last year.

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Overall, these party polls tell us a great deal about the enormous impact of immigration on the political landscape of Western Europe’s largest countries. The same has happened in Finland and Sweden — and Italy is governed by the immigration-critical Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. When we add to this the fact that modern mass immigration is not wanted in the countries of Eastern Europe either, it becomes clear that this is a pan-European view among the peoples of Europe.

This view, however, is reflected rather poorly in European politics. The European Union has failed to close its borders, and there is still an open route for harmful immigration in the form of the so-called right to apply for asylum. In addition, there are spontaneous waves of illegal immigration, most recently in Spain’s Ceuta.

It remains to be seen whether the changing views of EU citizens will affect European immigration policy. And if they do, how.

Will the right to asylum, which emerged in the aftermath of Nazi Germany’s atrocities, be abandoned because of excessive abuse? Will European states begin effectively returning the people who have flowed across their borders over the past ten years and who are unwilling to integrate into their societies? And even their descendants born within the EU?

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From the perspective of us ordinary citizens, the important thing is to lay the foundations for a better future for Europe by voting in elections for parties and candidates through whom the population and culture of our continent can preserve their vitality. The development I have described above shows that many Europeans have understood this, but also that not everyone has.

The future is, of course, unpredictable, so let this entry remain as one snapshot of the current situation. And at the same time, let it serve as a reminder to all of you — my esteemed readers — that ultimately, every democratic society becomes what the people living in it want it to become. At least when the people living in these countries understand what is in their own best interests and exercise their right to vote.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Finnish Families Flee Immigrant-Dominated Areas Over School Safety Concerns
Lessons for EU Citizens from the Ceuta Episode
Lessons from the Abdul Ballout Case

Orwellian Big Brother monitors journalists of Finland's Public Broadcasting Company Yle

The Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat heard from a long-time journalist of the Finnish Public Broadcasting Company Yle that it is problematic for them that his articles feature "too many heterosexual men". When asked about this, the Ilta-Sanomat journalist discovered that our publicly funded media records not only the gender, age, skin color, and social status of interviewees but also what kinds of thoughts or bodies they have.

Subsequently, Yle's editor-in-chief Jouko Jokinen tries his best in the Ilta-Sanomat article to explain away the image of the company’s operations that the interviewer—and ultimately the reader—might have formed. The article also reveals that Yle systematically collects statistics on the content of journalists' articles.

These are "basic things that can be automatically identified by text analysis and whose tracking is ethical. What topics we cover, how they are geographically distributed, who are the most interviewed individuals, what gender they represent, what the most used titles are, which political parties are most frequently mentioned, and so on."

And finally, the development manager of Yle then—perhaps unwittingly—reveals that "we are trying to diversify our content. Nowadays, we discuss a lot in our editorial offices, for example, whether it is always privileged people who speak for us. There are many underrepresented groups that do not have a voice in society."

In other words, confirming that our tax-funded media operates like an Orwellian big brother, whose duties include collecting data based on which even long-time Yle journalists can be presented with "ratings on the table" if they have interviewed people from so-called underrepresented groups too infrequently.

After reading the article, I was left wondering if such an Orwellian big brother is really the kind of service that Finnish taxpayers want to fund. Or perhaps they would prefer that the money be used for something entirely different—either within Yle or in other sectors of society.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Finnish journalist called for British Prime Minister´s head to be placed on London bridge to dry
Racism or self-preservation instinct?
Nightwish and the Disney Company

Elections in Finland enlight journalistic views

Finns will vote for the members of their national parliament in early April. Accoprding to opinion polls, the Conservative party (21.6 % of those, who told their opinions) is the most popular one followed by Social democrats (19.3 %) and True Finns (18.4 %), the latter one being a more conservative but economically slightly less market oriented right wing party compared to Conservatives.

Today also another opinion poll was published. According to that, True Finns were by far the most popular one among those, who will vote for the first time. Their share of told opinions was a remarkable 35,9 %, whereas the secondmost popular Social democrates were favored by only 16,7 %. 

Interestingly though, the main newspaper in the country, Helsingin sanomat, had the latter opinion poll made. And that it published its figures in an unusual way for gallups measuring popularity of political parties - namely, including also those, who did not tell their opinions. 

In this way, the share of opinions to True Finns was lower than it would have been, if expressed in a normal way (as above) - "only" 28 %. As Helsingin sanomat is well known for its disgust for true Finns, this way of presenting the results was probably made by purpose. That is, by an intention to make their popularity among youngsters to look smaller. 

I am not saying that politics in Finland would be exceptionally dirty nor media would be highly corrupted. But definitely journalists are trying to support their favorites as much as they can (another example). And therefore those entitled to vote should be cautious, when following the media stream on politics.

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
The beautiful PM of Finland has driven herself into a trouble
Misuse of taxpayers´ money in Finland
An ignorant mediahouse failed again in historical facts