Euroscepticism and the Rising Threat from the Left and Right

Book excerpt: The 21st century has been host to a significant change in political and social perspective. The European Union, once held as a harbinger of hope and source of a European unity and identity, has now become a despised enemy—the source of stolen nationalism, culture, and tradition. Peripheral groups of the far right and left have now emerged as the voices of moderation, attempting to forge a path to a Europe reflective of the union they had envisioned, a Europe that at once embraces national and European identity without a loss of economic and political sovereignty. These groups are resilient, competent, rational, and above all, successful. Their methods and manner are both something old and something new, an evolved form of fascism—witnessed through a new lens: the lens of Euroscepticism. It is Millennial Fascism: the reinterpretation and new iteration of the ideology that propelled Mussolini and Hitler to infamy.