There’s been a lot of talk as of late in the media about far-right and populist parties that were elected to the European parliament. One way to assess these parties is a chart by Counterpoint, a research group. Gathering from the chart below, European populist parties are mostly racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and sexist.
Their democratic contribution to healthy debate is questionable and it’s unclear if they’ll become more radicalized in the future.
A good example of radicalization is the UKIP, which apart from being more anti-EU before, took a strong anti-immigration stand in the European parliamentary elections. In Finland, there is concern that the Perussuomalaiset (PS)* may take a more vocal stand against immigrants as next year’s parliamentary elections near.
Migrant Tales disagrees with Counterpoint’s classification of the PS as a party with “low danger of racism.” While the party leadership may not make racist comments, they are rife among its members. Read racist quotes by the PS here.
If you are going to challenge intolerance, it’s a good matter that you know those who spread racism and prejudice.
Read full Counterpoint report here.
While the Finnish media hardly ever calls the PS a far-right party, the populist party was placed on such a list this week by the Huffington Post, Simon Wiesenthal Center and PolicyMic.
* The Finnish name for the Finns Party is the Perussuomalaiset (PS). The names adopted by the PS, like True Finns or Finns Party, promote in our opinion nativist nationalism and xenophobia. We therefore prefer to use the Finnish name of the party on our postings.