Will we get a shift back toward the status quo ante? For if we do, then the world is in for quite a shock, comparable at least to the dissolution of the Soviet power.

Take for example the ECB, which at German insistence was insulated from populist pressure. I personally lean toward the Free Democrats in terms of inclinations, and I am happy that classical liberalism/economic conservatism is still getting a hearing in Europe.

The great problem for the European right is really the soft-left. The hard-left tends toward the farcical, especially in the post-Soviet era (cf. Die Linke, the Anti-Capitalist Party, French Trotskyists), but the soft-left has always been very deleterious. Once the left is broken up, space would probably open up for a resurgence of full-blow conservatism to counter the hard-left.

Part of the appeal of the Free Democrats, I suspect, is their being diametrical opposites to Die Linke, and same for UKIP viz. Labour.

Politics for them was a means of getting improved working conditions and salaries, and trying to get something better for their children. For some, there was also an element of class struggle, against factory owners and capitalists worldwide.

In family life and community matters, however, they were quite conservative. In private they were not liberal in any sense of the word.

People like these have been left out in the cold by the new and improved, globalist left parties. Parties like the recently successful “True Finns” cater to these discontents. They are more left wing than right wing, but their nationalist agenda fools the eye. Probably this is true of many so-called right-wing parties all over Europe.