Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Voter Nomics where politics and markets collide.
Speaker 2: This year, voters around the world have the ability to
Speaker 2: turn markets, countries and economies like never before, so we've
Speaker 2: created this series to help you make sense of it all.
Speaker 2: I'm Stephanie Flanders.
Speaker 3: I made Frim Wildridge, and I'm Alegristratgy and on this
Speaker 3: episode we thought we would take a closer look at
Speaker 3: the rise of right wing populism in Europe and we
Speaker 3: have obviously had our own variety of that on show
Speaker 3: at the start of this week with the release of
Speaker 3: the Reform Party's contract not manifesto with the UK, but
Speaker 3: Nigel Faraj has spoken about wanting to be prime Minister
Speaker 3: after the next election.
Speaker 2: George of Maloney is already Prime Minister of Italy and
Speaker 2: she was on show this weekend hosting her counterparts at
Speaker 2: the g seventh summit in Pulia, and it was pretty
Speaker 2: evident that she was the only leader with a spring
Speaker 2: in her step and a favorable poll rating, so we
Speaker 2: wanted to hear about the secrets of her success and
Speaker 2: the lessons for mainstream and maybe also less mainstream conservative
Speaker 2: parties in the UK from one of her fans, Francesco Jubilee,
Speaker 2: the president of the leading Italian conservative foundation, Fondatzioni Tartarella.
Speaker 2: He's also the author of the History of European conservative thought.
Speaker 2: And then we're going to hear a completely different perspective
Speaker 2: from Janis Fara Facis, who of course you will know
Speaker 2: as the former Finance Minister of Greece, motorbike owner and
Speaker 2: author of several international best selling books, including recently Techno
Speaker 2: Feudalism What Killed Capitalism. So, Adrian Alegre, it does feel
Speaker 2: like a week to be thinking about the rise of
Speaker 2: the right in Europe. We can see also in this
Speaker 2: election that Macrants called in France, obviously a big focus
Speaker 2: on Marine Le Penn's Class Envelementale party formerly the National Front.
Speaker 2: I want to understand it, but I also want to
Speaker 2: think about lessons, as I said, for everybody in the UK.
Speaker 4: Yeah. One of the.
Speaker 5: Striking things about the writers that these are nationalist movements
Speaker 5: and the things that they hate most of all are
Speaker 5: the sort of the global devils, elites, and yet in
Speaker 5: some ways they are in themselves international. They learn from
Speaker 5: each other, they imitate each other, And I was just
Speaker 5: thinking of Farage who has launched his contract this morning
Speaker 5: contract with you, and that's directly taken from New Gingrich.
Speaker 5: You know, we don't have that in British politics. We
Speaker 5: have manifestos. You know, Peel launched the whole thing with
Speaker 5: the Tom Tamworth manifesto. Now we have somebody using the
Speaker 5: language of a contractarian society like the United States. And
Speaker 5: you know, his own political party is really a political party.
Speaker 5: It's a private company which treats him as a star,
Speaker 5: not as a party leader, but as a star with
Speaker 5: lots and lots of followers, which is exactly the politics
Speaker 5: that you see with Trump, but also with a lot
Speaker 5: of European populist leaders. So it's a strange mixture of
Speaker 5: nationalism and internationalism that we're seeing.
Speaker 1: But Adrian he's leading a revolt, you know, he's making
Speaker 1: a play of that. Isn't He's not a manifesto because
Speaker 1: that would be too vanilla, wouldn't that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I suppose so. But they're all in some sense
Speaker 5: leading revolts. But in a lot of Europe now they're
Speaker 5: moving from being a party of revolt to being a
Speaker 5: party of government. And you see that with the French
Speaker 5: in particular.
Speaker 2: And This is what I think is interesting because although
Speaker 2: they are all considered themselves to be in the same
Speaker 2: family to some extent, although actually recently none of them
Speaker 2: have got on very well with the alternative. For Deutschlan
Speaker 2: Yes Party, he's considered to be beyond the pale, even
Speaker 2: in far right circles. But I think Georgia Maloney's leadership
Speaker 2: her time in government has been very interesting in the
Speaker 2: way that she's been willing to compromise, willing to have
Speaker 2: very mainstream views and policies on Ukraine on quite a
Speaker 2: lot of economic things, and I thought it was very
Speaker 2: striking these statements that nobody really cares about except the
Speaker 2: people drafting them. But they have this communic case from
Speaker 2: the G seven, and the only disagreement of all the
Speaker 2: things they'd agreed on this very important package for Ukraine
Speaker 2: and other things, was around the restatement of support for
Speaker 2: reproductive rights and safe and legal abortion from last year's communicate,
Speaker 2: And I thought it was interesting that the one thing
Speaker 2: she was actually sort of playing ball and to all
Speaker 2: intentsive purposes being a mainstream leader when it came to
Speaker 2: many of these important European issues, But on that core
Speaker 2: cultural ground she still had to mark out a more
Speaker 2: traditional and more in some ways it was more to
Speaker 2: her base.
Speaker 5: Absolutely well. We tend to talk about the far rights
Speaker 5: and the right, but there are very important in terms divisions.
Speaker 5: There's a division between the pro pro Putin people and
Speaker 5: the anti Puotin people, and there's a division over sort
Speaker 5: of responsible economic policy as well, and I think probably
Speaker 5: some fundamental cultural divisions. If you look at the far
Speaker 5: right in the Netherlands, for example, it's very pro gay
Speaker 5: rights because it's basic critique.
Speaker 1: But in some ways this is a topsy turvy conversation
Speaker 1: because actually if you look at Maloney and her international allies,
Speaker 1: you would say Ishi Sunac, you know, is her intellectual bedfellow, because.
Speaker 5: They do seem to get on quite well.
Speaker 1: And her and her Albania plan, which looks like some
Speaker 1: European politicians are falling behind, which is, you know, the
Speaker 1: idea of having the immigrants processed off shore is partly
Speaker 1: inspired by Rwanda. So there's a kind of topsy turviness
Speaker 1: because you know, her mate, Rishi Sunac, he was doing
Speaker 1: so badly in the opinion polls, potentially is leaving government.
Speaker 1: But actually some of the ideas he's espoused in government
Speaker 1: are those in the ascendant.
Speaker 2: That shows again, I mean it's immigration as this absolutely
Speaker 2: core driving force for some of this. But there has
Speaker 2: been a question about whether Kiss Darmer will have anyone
Speaker 2: to talk to at these summits. He will be the
Speaker 2: exception if we see all of these sort of mainstream
Speaker 2: centrists and right leaders go in the next few years.
Speaker 5: That's the other topsy turbinus that Britain is completely out
Speaker 5: of sync with Europe and may well be out of
Speaker 5: sync with the United States as well. We may be
Speaker 5: the one surviving area for liberal Democrats to look at.
Speaker 1: What Kiss Darmer's foreign affairs spokesperson David Lammy is saying,
Speaker 1: you know, regarding Trump, you know and others you know,
Speaker 1: they are they are cognizant that they are going to
Speaker 1: have to work with everybody.
Speaker 5: Yes, Lammi is somewhat changed his tune on Trump.
Speaker 2: I think well, I suspect. I think I have a
Speaker 2: feeling partly from looking at our outlines for future weeks.
Speaker 2: I think we'll be getting on incoming incoming days. So
Speaker 2: we should move to our conversation with Francisco Jubile, the
Speaker 2: president of the Italian Conservative Foundation Fondazioni Tartarella. Francesca, thank
Speaker 2: you so much for joining us. We are fascinated looking
Speaker 2: at Georgia Moloni at the recent g seventh summit and
Speaker 2: obviously in previous months, really comfortable in her position as
Speaker 2: Prime Minister of Italy and successful both domestically, and it
Speaker 2: seems at these international summits. So I guess the obvious
Speaker 2: question is what's the secret of her success?
Speaker 4: I think that Georgia Meloni is becoming here by here
Speaker 4: an important leader not only for Italy, not only for
Speaker 4: our country, and not only for the Italian conservative right,
Speaker 4: but also for the European Lensks, especially after the result
Speaker 4: of the European elections, because we saw that the result
Speaker 4: of the President of.
Speaker 6: France, Emanuel Macron was not a good result.
Speaker 4: In fact, the result of Simble More National and Marie
Speaker 4: lepen was quite good, and the same is for all
Speaker 4: of Schortz, the leader of Germany. And in the case
Speaker 4: of Italy, Georgia Meloney had a really important result, not
Speaker 4: only as the leader of Fertality Italian, the main Italian
Speaker 4: center right party, but also for all the Italian government.
Speaker 4: And after that we are entering in a new phase
Speaker 4: for the European Union right now there are some important
Speaker 4: discussion for the president of the European Commission and the
Speaker 4: Georgia Meronic can play an important role as Prime Minister
Speaker 4: of Italy, but also as the president of the.
Speaker 6: E CR and the leader of the main Itally party.
Speaker 2: I guess one thing we should sort of understand is
Speaker 2: whether we're even describing her in the right way. You know,
Speaker 2: we talk about far right, and when she came to power,
Speaker 2: we were very focused on her origins. But I wonder
Speaker 2: whether she represents something different that's not a traditional kind
Speaker 2: of conservatism or certainly traditional far right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that is quite an important point. Usually when someone
Speaker 4: especially abroad, but not only abroad, sometimes also in our country,
Speaker 4: want to describe or sometimes attack Georgia Miloney or in
Speaker 4: general some politicians that are part of the Italian right,
Speaker 4: they describe them as a neo fascist or some people
Speaker 4: that are linked with some fascist idea, and I think
Speaker 4: this is not correct and this is not the correct
Speaker 4: way to try to understand what is happening in our country.
Speaker 4: The truth is that the right that is represented by
Speaker 4: Georgia Meloni is a conservative right. When I use the
Speaker 4: word conservative is quite important to make an extinction between
Speaker 4: the Latin conservatism and the Italian conservatism and the American
Speaker 4: and English conservatism, because there are some important difference, for example,
Speaker 4: on the economic issues. Our conservatism is more focused on
Speaker 4: welfare state, for example, and the British and the American
Speaker 4: conservatism is more focused, for example, on some classical liberals ideas.
Speaker 4: So there are some difference, of course, but in general,
Speaker 4: the correct way to try to understand the why George
Speaker 4: Meloni is becoming so important and so voted in our
Speaker 4: country is because she's trying also to talk with the
Speaker 4: lower class.
Speaker 6: That in the past voted for the left. But right now,
Speaker 6: if we saw also the result in the main city,
Speaker 6: for example, in the city center of Roma, or the
Speaker 6: people vote for the left. If we we go to.
Speaker 4: For example, some difficult areas of the of Roma, we
Speaker 4: see that in this part of the city the people
Speaker 4: decide to vote.
Speaker 6: For for Formeloni, and this is quite interesting.
Speaker 4: So I think that it's important to try to analyze
Speaker 4: in a deeper way what is the success of JN.
Speaker 6: Maloney.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of following British politics, but
Speaker 1: who would you put Georgia Maloney closer to Brittie Sunac,
Speaker 1: who's obviously a friend of hers, or Nigel Farah, she
Speaker 1: leads the Reform Party.
Speaker 4: I think definitely that she's closer to the Conservative Party,
Speaker 4: the Tories, and to Sunak then to Farajef. There are
Speaker 4: many points in common between Miloni and the Sunaco or
Speaker 4: in general Miloni and the Conservative Party. But how I
Speaker 4: say to you before, there are also some difference because
Speaker 4: of course, to be conservative in Italy is different than
Speaker 4: being a conservative in the UK, because our conservatism is
Speaker 4: quite link for example, with the Catholic traditions. So when
Speaker 4: we talk about the ethic themes, for example, in our
Speaker 4: conservatism is quite close with the vision of the Catholic Church,
Speaker 4: and this is a big difference with the Tories. But
Speaker 4: in the same time, when we talk about Parage, I
Speaker 4: think in Italy we use a word there is not
Speaker 4: a translation in English. The word is Soverignismo, is meaning
Speaker 4: probably national populism or something like that. And when we
Speaker 4: talk about Farage we can talk more than a conservative leader.
Speaker 4: We can talk about a national populist leader. So I
Speaker 4: think that Menoni is definitely closer to the Conservative Party.
Speaker 5: You talked about her ability to reach beyond the sort
Speaker 5: of metropolitan elites who live in the middle of Romee
Speaker 5: two ordinary people. How can she do that? What are
Speaker 5: the things that bind the conservative leadership to the working
Speaker 5: class voter.
Speaker 4: In the bigger city or in the city center of
Speaker 4: the bigger city, and the people vote for the left
Speaker 4: or the center or left. When we go to the
Speaker 4: neighborhood that are more close to some problems, for example
Speaker 4: with the security, with the migration, the people decided to
Speaker 4: vote for some a conservative party, and the same is
Speaker 4: for example in some smaller city in our country, people
Speaker 4: decided to prefer and to vote for Georgia Maloney and
Speaker 4: to vote for the center right a coalition because they
Speaker 4: feel that the answers that Georgia Maloney give for example
Speaker 4: with the migration problem, for example, on economic issues, for example,
Speaker 4: on the European Union issues.
Speaker 6: There is a big debate in our country about.
Speaker 4: The green police made by the European Union, especially for
Speaker 4: the decision to stop in the engine motors in two
Speaker 4: thousand and thirty five, and because of that the people
Speaker 4: decide to vote for gentlemen only because also the lower
Speaker 4: class think that the answers that the Conservatives and the
Speaker 4: right gave to their problem.
Speaker 6: Right now is closer to them than.
Speaker 5: The left, So liberalism is becoming an elite project. It's
Speaker 5: captured by the rich.
Speaker 6: I make you an example. I live in Roma.
Speaker 4: Roma is probably the bigger capital in the European Union
Speaker 4: or in European general, with the worst public transportation because
Speaker 4: unfortunately the underground in Rome is not working as well.
Speaker 4: And every time that they are trying to do some
Speaker 4: new projects, they discover some ancient Roman ruins, so it's
Speaker 4: quite difficult to build a bigger underground. And in Roma
Speaker 4: there is a left. This measure, and the idea of
Speaker 4: the measure was to create a bigger zone in which
Speaker 4: the car couldn't hunterer and this of course creates some
Speaker 4: problem not to the rich people which lived in the
Speaker 4: center of the city and they can move walking or
Speaker 4: by taxi or by scooter, but this creates some big
Speaker 4: problem for the poor people which live in some area
Speaker 4: not near the city center, and they must take their
Speaker 4: car to go to work, and of course they are
Speaker 4: angry against the measure because of that.
Speaker 2: It is interesting that there's a similar kind of issue
Speaker 2: in the UK around twenty miles per hour limits, which
Speaker 2: is a popular campaigning force for many in our election Francisco.
Speaker 1: Where does this end?
Speaker 2: Because is that the question? So where does this end?
Speaker 1: In that Georgie Maloney looks like her deficit has gone
Speaker 1: up to seven point two percent.
Speaker 2: You'll correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: So you you've very lucidly outlined how pro welfare spending
Speaker 1: she is, and that's clearly important to her coalition of voters.
Speaker 1: Can she afford to keep on being ultra popular?
Speaker 6: You mean about economy or you mean in general economy?
Speaker 2: Yeah, under the procedures, you know, the fiscal rules for
Speaker 2: the European Union, they could well have to do. She
Speaker 2: should could have to do some very tough things which
Speaker 2: in the past have overturned Italian governments on a very
Speaker 2: regular basis.
Speaker 4: This is quite an important point. I mean, our economy
Speaker 4: is a good economy. We have the third economy of
Speaker 4: European Union. We have a private incomes that is quite good.
Speaker 4: Most of the Italians they own their house. We have
Speaker 4: quite a strong bank system. So our economy is a
Speaker 4: good economy. But our private economy is economy. Our problem
Speaker 4: is the public economy.
Speaker 6: And when we.
Speaker 4: Talk about the public economy, we talk about the state
Speaker 4: which have a really hiked the public debt, and the
Speaker 4: problem of our public debt is that the people, the
Speaker 4: Italians and also the politician think about our public debuta
Speaker 4: as something that is of no one. In reality, the
Speaker 4: public debt is a debt of everyone. The bigger problem
Speaker 4: of our country compared to the high debty, is the
Speaker 4: lower the possibility of growth of our economy. If we
Speaker 4: we do in a comparasion between a high public debt
Speaker 4: and the low growth of our economy, this can create
Speaker 4: some problem. But I have to say this is not
Speaker 4: a problem of Meloni. This is the problem of everyone, which.
Speaker 2: We leave with respect. Though it's going to be her problem.
Speaker 2: I mean, will that mark the end of her honeymoon
Speaker 2: with the voters when she actually has to make the
Speaker 2: same tough decisions about this to manage this big stock
Speaker 2: of debt that every government in Italy has had to
Speaker 2: deal with for the last twenty or thirty years, and
Speaker 2: has actually managed to, you know, just about prevent from
Speaker 2: spiraling out of control. Has stepped back from the BIS
Speaker 2: quite a few times, each time by making very tough
Speaker 2: decisions that she has sofa been quite reluctant to make.
Speaker 4: Yes, I think that luckily the most the toughest decisions
Speaker 4: were made ten years ago, especially in twenty eleven after
Speaker 4: Monty government. It was a technical government and he made
Speaker 4: many tough decisions. So right now the public debty is
Speaker 4: really height but it's more or less under control. Of course,
Speaker 4: the COVID period didn't help us and didn't help everyone.
Speaker 4: So I think that Meloney she knows and she understands
Speaker 4: that she doesn't have the opportunity of doing many economic
Speaker 4: measures that are really in fervor in helping the in
Speaker 4: the Italians, for example, cut the taxation.
Speaker 6: But if she she.
Speaker 4: Won't, for example, introduced new taxation, this can be something
Speaker 4: good for example, and I think that she will manage
Speaker 4: in Hinita and the economy is of course quite an
Speaker 4: important issue, but there are other issues that are important
Speaker 4: for the Italian electorate. For example, the migrant crisis is
Speaker 4: the topic that is quite important, especially in the south,
Speaker 4: in the south of Italy foreign politics, and I think
Speaker 4: that Menoni is managed quite well on this topic. And
Speaker 4: of course she also has to manage in the European
Speaker 4: Union contest, where also the economic situation of Germany, that
Speaker 4: is the main economy of European Union, is becoming world
Speaker 4: compared to three years ago.
Speaker 2: Francisco to Bila. I'll be very interested to see her
Speaker 2: next few budgets, how she manages to square the circle.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, and then we'll have you back.
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, thank you very much for joining us.
Speaker 6: Thank you, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2: And now, as they say, for something completely different. Janasparafukis
Speaker 2: Greece's Finance minister for six months in twenty fifteen, negotiating
Speaker 2: on behalf of the Greek government during the Greek debt crisis,
Speaker 2: who has also been secretary general of the Democracy in
Speaker 2: Europe Movement twenty twenty five, a left wing pan European
Speaker 2: political party he co founded in twenty sixteen. Janisparafuck is
Speaker 2: very good to have you physically in the studio. Thanks
Speaker 2: for joining us on Vota Nomics.
Speaker 7: It's a great pleasure.
Speaker 2: We've got lots of things to talk to you about,
Speaker 2: but we are focusing on this program on the rise
Speaker 2: of the populist right in Europe. I guess you know.
Speaker 2: One obvious question is why he is right wing populism
Speaker 2: so much more successful than left wing populism at the moment.
Speaker 7: Because it's authentic. I don't believe you can be left
Speaker 7: wing and the populist, because my definition of populism, whoor
Speaker 7: anderstand populism is to be all things to all people,
Speaker 7: make ausers of promises and then jump on a soapbox
Speaker 7: and being jingoistic and call upon people to trust you
Speaker 7: to make things great again and dot dot I won't
Speaker 7: go on, but that if you do that, then you're
Speaker 7: not the left winger in my view, You're not a humanist,
Speaker 7: you're not facing the truth, and you use up the
Speaker 7: people's vote against the people. So this is a kind
Speaker 7: of contest I have with other leftists would disagree with me.
Speaker 7: The two words left and popularism, you put them together,
Speaker 7: you end up with an incongruity. And so you know,
Speaker 7: when the left tries populism, it becomes ridiculous. When the
Speaker 7: right become populist and become fascist, and they are very
Speaker 7: successful as we have seen during the Middle War period
Speaker 7: the left, and that of course is the end of
Speaker 7: the left when the left, the.
Speaker 5: Left are too honest to be populists.
Speaker 7: The left should be honest and therefore should avoid populism
Speaker 7: in its pursuit of.
Speaker 2: Popular With the populist approach, even by your definition, we
Speaker 2: have parties that are offering a lot to all people,
Speaker 2: particularly working people, who feel they've been left out, excluded
Speaker 2: from the direction that modern economies have gone. If what's
Speaker 2: being promised by your description is not possible or not
Speaker 2: possible without a lot of other difficult sacrifices, does that
Speaker 2: mean you think these these leaders are going to eventually
Speaker 2: come to grips, have to sort of face reality and
Speaker 2: become a cropper. Where do you see this going? Because
Speaker 2: they had doing very well with the brand of populism
Speaker 2: that we've been hearing.
Speaker 7: This is a brilliant question. I think it all depends
Speaker 7: on how many levers they have access to. So compare
Speaker 7: and contrast Georgia Mloney with Victor Roban. Because Allban is
Speaker 7: not in the Europe, he has more leavers to pull,
Speaker 7: so he troubled the minimum wage. He did was also
Speaker 7: lilily did. In other words, he looked after the working class.
Speaker 7: But it was a fasting bargain in the sense that
Speaker 7: I will look after you. You keep your mouth shut authoritarianism,
Speaker 7: You make me great again, so that I make Hungary
Speaker 7: great again. We turn against the foreigners, the Jews, the Muslims,
Speaker 7: at them the other It doesn't matter, so he had
Speaker 7: more degrees with him to do that. Georgie Milan doesn't
Speaker 7: because she's in the Euros. She has an unsustainable public debt,
Speaker 7: she has a banking system which is ricketty, So she
Speaker 7: simply follows Maria Dragi's policies, no difference to married Drage
Speaker 7: with weaponized misanthropy when it comes to migrants, foreigners, lesbian's, gays,
Speaker 7: you know, Walke and all that. But her days are
Speaker 7: numbered as a populist, as a right wing neo fascist populist,
Speaker 7: because she doesn't have the livers. She cannot look after
Speaker 7: the people the way that she's been promising them. If
Speaker 7: anything she's doing, you know, taking away protections that have
Speaker 7: been there from the previous governments.
Speaker 2: Well days might be numbered as representing a far right
Speaker 2: populist position, but as as a different kind of right
Speaker 2: wing but sort of normalized leaders could have.
Speaker 7: Quite yes, if he becomes a Bolusconi, who is somebody
Speaker 7: on the center left who again is misogynist, racist and
Speaker 7: so on. So a little bit of Trump, but with
Speaker 7: Mario drag economics new liberal economics. The mi great fear
Speaker 7: is that we are now seeing in Europe because of
Speaker 7: a fragmentation of the European Union, the single market, the
Speaker 7: politics this European Union parliament is is going to be
Speaker 7: completely incapable of effectively exercising any parliamentary process. My fear
Speaker 7: is that you're going to have a right wing, neo
Speaker 7: fascist populist right that manages to ditch austerity, to ditch
Speaker 7: the new liberal agenda, completely, erect new borders, erect new tariffs,
Speaker 7: and you know, channel a lot of money into armaments,
Speaker 7: which may have an economy impact, but the most important
Speaker 7: impact will be the coalescence with nationalism, and that could
Speaker 7: be successful, and if that happens, Europe is simply not
Speaker 7: going to be a place that will want to live in.
Speaker 2: Is a key potential part of this the French election,
Speaker 2: because if you look at Marine Le penn currently they
Speaker 2: do have a very old collection of policies, but very
Speaker 2: leftist economic policies.
Speaker 7: The don't call fascism leftism.
Speaker 2: But if you look at her economic policies.
Speaker 7: That's also Leni was a socialist and then he became
Speaker 7: a fascist. And what was the deal I will protect
Speaker 7: you introduced the first pension system in continental Europe, universal one.
Speaker 7: He increased wages and then he clamped down on trade unions,
Speaker 7: he climbed down a democratic processes and effectively started the
Speaker 7: process that led to the Second World War together with
Speaker 7: his friend Hitler. I call this fascist. This is the definition.
Speaker 2: What do you think about the significance of the French election?
Speaker 2: I mean, where does that? Where does where does that
Speaker 2: fit into the kind of that darker vision that you
Speaker 2: just painted.
Speaker 7: Well, let's let me try to lighten up the mood.
Speaker 7: I hope, I hope that Macron's strategy, even though I'm
Speaker 7: completely opposed to everything he's been doing in the last
Speaker 7: few years, but I hope his strategy of bringing him
Speaker 7: bringing them into essentially government through cohabitation. He's trying to
Speaker 7: do what Shirak did with Spend, what Mitterrand did with Iraq,
Speaker 7: effectingly to defunct them by making them less popular through
Speaker 7: allowing them to occupy ministries. How that works, but I
Speaker 7: feel it might not. I'm very worried that they may
Speaker 7: actually succeed because, let's face it, the finance, the public
Speaker 7: fire answers for France, just like Italy is and the
Speaker 7: public finances of Germany for that matter, are not consistent
Speaker 7: with the fiscal rules. So something we'll have to give
Speaker 7: Now if Bardella together with le Pen with the collapse of.
Speaker 2: His young the young leader, he might be the prime minister.
Speaker 7: Who's my nightmare personally, because under the two Lapins, at
Speaker 7: least they were not that palatable to the young. Now
Speaker 7: this is a guy who is quite photogenic, he has
Speaker 7: style quality, he's young, he comes from a working class area,
Speaker 7: he speaks well. He doesn't look like a fascist, even
Speaker 7: though he is. That's why he's my nightmare, because he's
Speaker 7: affect You.
Speaker 5: Mentioned the young. One of the striking things about right
Speaker 5: wing thought or right wing movements on the continent rather
Speaker 5: than in Britain, is how popular they are with younger
Speaker 5: people and how they're able to attract quite as you say,
Speaker 5: photogenic and dynamic young politicians. Why is that because with
Speaker 5: the left failed.
Speaker 7: This is the fault of the left. Let's face it.
Speaker 7: The worst thing that can happen to democracy is to
Speaker 7: have fascist presenting the anti systemic trend. Twenty fifteen, we
Speaker 7: get elected on an anti austerity program. I personally had
Speaker 7: proposals for the IMF and the European Center blank, which
Speaker 7: I thought were very sensible in terms of dead swaps
Speaker 7: and nothing very radical, together with an anti asterity program,
Speaker 7: and we said that we will be elected and we
Speaker 7: will not budge. We are not getting taken other credit card,
Speaker 7: other conditions that are completely financially unsustainable, and you don't
Speaker 7: have to be left to agree with that. And we buckled.
Speaker 7: And then our own government after I left, I have
Speaker 7: to say that, but who cares about me? Our own
Speaker 7: government practiced the worst kind of a stity, the worst
Speaker 7: kind of over taxing small business, everyone in a as
Speaker 7: if in a part of a plan to make the
Speaker 7: place unviable. And then then is the domino effect, because
Speaker 7: the left wing in Spain po Demos collapse as a
Speaker 7: result of not wanting to be you know, cities are
Speaker 7: number two the linking. In Germany, the French left collapses,
Speaker 7: and what is left the populist right, which I call
Speaker 7: neo fascists, being the only ones that are out there
Speaker 7: suggesting something different. I mean, whether you're here in Britain
Speaker 7: today with Suna and Starma, or whether you are looking
Speaker 7: at the policies of the ESPEE, all of Shults and Merge,
Speaker 7: the differences between them are tiny. And it's not as
Speaker 7: if Europe is flourishing. Europe has had a fifteen year
Speaker 7: dearth of investment. That's why we're following behind the Chinese.
Speaker 7: We have not invested in modern technologies, any kind of
Speaker 7: modern technology for fifteen to twenty years in Europe. So
Speaker 7: this discontent. Who is going to pick up up the
Speaker 7: votes from that discontent? The only anti systemic forces we
Speaker 7: of the left have gone to ground. We try to
Speaker 7: bend over backwards to accommodate the new liberal policies. I
Speaker 7: remember telling Shoubler once, I said, look, I know you
Speaker 7: don't like seeing me in front of you, because.
Speaker 2: If the German finance minister.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because you know I'm a lefty, but you know
Speaker 7: what we're europeanis and we're Democrats, and if you squash
Speaker 7: the living daylights out of our people, you know, to
Speaker 7: get rid of us, you're going to end up with
Speaker 7: fascists on the other side of the table. And I
Speaker 7: think that was right.
Speaker 2: But kase Armer is of the left.
Speaker 1: He's very close.
Speaker 7: This is what I want, which I find preposterous.
Speaker 5: Right, Ok, he's not of the left.
Speaker 7: That's all a bad thing. I mean, I'm not there
Speaker 7: to tell it that. You know, believe that everybody should
Speaker 7: be from the left, But I just don't agree that
Speaker 7: he's from the left.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, that's clear. Let's look at immigration where
Speaker 1: he is trying to forge another path where he's saying
Speaker 1: obviously he's not going to renew freedom of movement and
Speaker 1: so on, but he is saying that they will negotiate
Speaker 1: returns agreements with the continent. What is We've heard from
Speaker 1: another guest earlier in the program, and you've threaded through
Speaker 1: everything you've said, this kind of immigration seems to be
Speaker 1: the stimulus for some of the rise of these parties.
Speaker 1: What would be the other way to deal with the
Speaker 1: worries about immigration that so many electorates around Europe are
Speaker 1: clearly feeling.
Speaker 7: How about ditching a racism light because this is what
Speaker 7: Kirstarmy is doing. Personally, I don't know here. Personally, I
Speaker 7: suspect he and I would agree on immigration being a
Speaker 7: blessing not a curse. Europe is getting old. For a
Speaker 7: thousand years, we've been populating the rest of the earth.
Speaker 7: We've been migrating everywhere, sometimes with guns and you know,
Speaker 7: white settlers. So suddenly we have a problem with immigration.
Speaker 7: What has happened is that demographics have changed. We're getting
Speaker 7: all people are coming towards US, and that should have
Speaker 7: been fine if we had a migration policy. Kirstama, however,
Speaker 7: being a relatively spineless politician, is not going to stand
Speaker 7: up to the parajes and to the sonic sent to
Speaker 7: the braver Mans and say, you know what, we need
Speaker 7: immigration and we're going to create a policy which is
Speaker 7: simultaneously financial in the economically viable and humane and consistent
Speaker 7: with international law. He's not saying that, so he's trying
Speaker 7: to what happened, just like a steadicy light.
Speaker 2: Play that back though. I mean, one of the things
Speaker 2: you just argued was if you don't give a key
Speaker 2: chunk of the electorate something at the table, if you
Speaker 2: force austerity down their throats, then you're going to get
Speaker 2: something worse down the road. I mean, you could make
Speaker 2: exactly the same argument about keeping immigration off the agenda
Speaker 2: for many years as sort of a coalition of the
Speaker 2: right and left mainstream across Europe, not just the UK.
Speaker 2: If you don't let people have a view or even
Speaker 2: discuss the scale the direction of immigration, you end up
Speaker 2: with something worse. And if you're a Democrat, you have
Speaker 2: to accept that there are people who feel that people
Speaker 2: don't feel the same way they see the economic benefit.
Speaker 2: Maybe they may also see it as an economic cost
Speaker 2: to them if it affects if it pushes down their wages.
Speaker 2: But they also see a cultural consequence which many people
Speaker 2: are uncomfortable with.
Speaker 5: There must be a differential economic impact of immigration as well,
Speaker 5: doesn't it. It's poorer people and benefit in many ways
Speaker 5: richer people.
Speaker 7: Of course if you practice astadity, lots of people in
Speaker 7: But let me ask you a question, because because I
Speaker 7: think you're perfectly right, I don't believe in keeping important
Speaker 7: issues like this off the table. I believing in a
Speaker 7: vigorous debate.
Speaker 2: But to engage in that conversation you're actually saying is racism?
Speaker 7: Like no, no, not at all.
Speaker 2: Well that is what I think. That's what the lidbody
Speaker 2: would say. They're part of the conversation.
Speaker 7: No, I don't think it's engaging with the conversation when
Speaker 7: they effectively say that we will manage to find a
Speaker 7: way of limiting immigration which is more efficient than the
Speaker 7: Tories if you really want to engage. And here's I'm
Speaker 7: coming to your question too. Look, I remember I was
Speaker 7: in Doncaster during the Brexit campaign. I was campaigning against Brexit.
Speaker 7: As somebody who is not really a narmor of the
Speaker 7: U confusing people. And I remember there was you know,
Speaker 7: there was this wonderful older woman who came to me
Speaker 7: and said, Yannis, she wanted to engage in it's custo
Speaker 7: about immigration. As you say, I am not a racist
Speaker 7: im internationalism. I left Winger. But you know, my building
Speaker 7: is now full of Romanian boys who live for in
Speaker 7: one room and they can afford because there are four
Speaker 7: boys to bid runts up and we cannot afford to
Speaker 7: compete with them. And then I asked her question. I said,
Speaker 7: so tell me the story of this building. It used
Speaker 7: to be a council house. It was sold off to
Speaker 7: the private sector. So the problem is not the Romanian boys,
Speaker 7: is that these councilor houses were sold. Now they're part
Speaker 7: of a rent maximizing a reenteer frenzy, and council houses
Speaker 7: have not been built to replace the old stock of
Speaker 7: council house. So if you really want as a labor party,
Speaker 7: as a progressive, to engage with people, you have to
Speaker 7: take very seriously what this woman said about the fact
Speaker 7: that now she has a building full of Romanian boys,
Speaker 7: which actually she actually liked, so she was not even
Speaker 7: a racist to call her a racist is just preposterous.
Speaker 7: It's a totally unacceptable It's like Hillary Clinton calling Trump's
Speaker 7: supporters deplorables. No, you have to engage and you have
Speaker 7: to explain that, you know what, that was a mistake.
Speaker 7: Now we need to build, you know, council housing. The
Speaker 7: solution is not to get rid of the Romanians. This
Speaker 7: is going to make Doncaster even poorer and center. That
Speaker 7: is the kind of debate I would like to see
Speaker 7: the Labor Party engage in.
Speaker 5: The Labor Party would claim that it is in favor
Speaker 5: of activist government. It's going to have a national energy
Speaker 5: company that it's going to have a national investment scheme
Speaker 5: that is going to be much more and.
Speaker 2: Have a big expansion in a hay building.
Speaker 7: Indeed, money come from nothing there.
Speaker 5: Do you think there's nothing there from the Labor Party
Speaker 5: that's intentions?
Speaker 7: But you know how many comments? So I read stuff.
Speaker 7: I have this bad habit and I read very carefully
Speaker 7: both the manifesto of the twenty twenty four manifesto and
Speaker 7: what instead of fiscal studies said, And what I see
Speaker 7: is a steadity baked in. I don't see the money
Speaker 7: coming in anywhere. They're going to have to affect cuts,
Speaker 7: and they will affect cuts that are brutal in areas
Speaker 7: that will be very helpful to the most to the
Speaker 7: weakest of people.
Speaker 2: What should the left be learning from the last few
Speaker 2: years in Europe and particularly when you look at, say,
Speaker 2: for example, the European elections.
Speaker 7: My nightmare is that because we have messed up with
Speaker 7: the left, have messed up that now the coalescence between
Speaker 7: the most rabbit and Australian and trumpest aspects or segments
Speaker 7: of the old Tory Party in this country, but also
Speaker 7: in France, in German and so we will go into bed
Speaker 7: with any of Ussists and with the Left are irrelevant
Speaker 7: because we've been tried, We've been tested, and we failed
Speaker 7: our tests. And we are ourselves recoiling into identity politics,
Speaker 7: into fighting one another as to how do you define
Speaker 7: a woman? Which is a very interesting philosophical topic. But
Speaker 7: the fascists love it when we recoil in that manner
Speaker 7: into identity politics. That is my nightmare. So the one
Speaker 7: thing I'm trying to do as a Left is to
Speaker 7: dem to divide a democracy Urope. Moving across Europe. You know,
Speaker 7: we have a small, small movement, but we are held
Speaker 7: a little bit in influential amongst the left. Is to
Speaker 7: ask the big questions again, you know, how do you
Speaker 7: combine combine investment with social policies, how do you break
Speaker 7: down that alliance between austerelity and and racism and hatred
Speaker 7: of the other, of the foreigner. What do we do
Speaker 7: about Europe turning into a war union? With the idiotic
Speaker 7: concept that since the Green Deal failed, we are gained
Speaker 7: now to develop through spending on arms and developing a
Speaker 7: military industrial complex in Europe, which we never will. But
Speaker 7: you know, we need to tackle these things. We need
Speaker 7: to take a break, be self critical, and as you
Speaker 7: said before.
Speaker 2: I think you're going to get a break at least
Speaker 2: in many parts of Europe.
Speaker 7: We are already having a break. But we must not
Speaker 7: go into self referential you know, identity politics becoming irrelevant
Speaker 7: with glee.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 7: Well, thank you.
Speaker 2: So that was That's quite a lot.
Speaker 5: Of meat, definitely outspoken and some very interesting analysis. Not
Speaker 5: my politics, but some of the analysis I think holds
Speaker 5: true whatever your politics are.
Speaker 2: Well, the idea that the left is going to be
Speaker 2: almost sort of bringing its hands on the sidelines for
Speaker 2: quite a long time and somewhat irrelevant certainly in Europe.
Speaker 2: Question mark about the UK because it depends who you
Speaker 2: consider to be left.
Speaker 1: But it's complicated if you think about the last election,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen election where Jeremy Corbyn's manifesto did very well.
Speaker 1: So actually lots of this is twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, no, everything Well, there was that point about
Speaker 2: the individual policies in it were individually popular, but labeling
Speaker 2: it labor and saying you were going to do it
Speaker 2: all together was not a credible propositions along with Corbyn.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the complexities about and you say that,
Speaker 1: you heard it a little bit with Francesco around Actually
Speaker 1: in Italy, her politics is grounded in what appeals to
Speaker 1: the lower class and so on. I hate the phrase
Speaker 1: lower class, but he used it, so we have to
Speaker 1: use it the less well off. That plus twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: Corbyn's manifesto doing quite well, and then also a little
Speaker 1: bit further back than that, but actually some of the
Speaker 1: Theresa May manifesto was not a million miles away from
Speaker 1: it either in terms of you know, have to reach
Speaker 1: out and appeal to the people who feel they've been
Speaker 1: left behind by globalization.
Speaker 2: Well and That's why I think it's going to be
Speaker 2: this key question about how do these sort of these
Speaker 2: outside forces far right, however you describe them, when they're
Speaker 2: in government, how do they govern? Do they, as he claims,
Speaker 2: end up or at least as he fears, end up
Speaker 2: going down a profoundly kind of authoritarian even anti European
Speaker 2: Union sort of divisive road, or as looked a bit
Speaker 2: what Georgia Maloney has been doing, do they more become
Speaker 2: a different face of the right, saying things that we
Speaker 2: don't necessarily agree with on cultural issues, but fundamentally not
Speaker 2: challenging the fundamental the institutions of Europe.
Speaker 5: The fundamental problem is that centrist liberalism has become a
Speaker 5: philosophy of the elites, of the ruling classes of people
Speaker 5: who are doing quite well out of globalization, has quite
Speaker 5: well out of the status quo. And if that's the case,
Speaker 5: you find it very very difficult to win elections, if
Speaker 5: not impossible. So liberalism, centrist liberalism, which I think everybody
Speaker 5: in this room would subscribe to, needs to find a
Speaker 5: way of reconnecting with poorer people. The best way, of course,
Speaker 5: is to improve the economy, raised productivity, show that you
Speaker 5: can actually get richer. But I think it also needs
Speaker 5: to be done on certain cultural issues, on the issue
Speaker 5: of nationalism versus globalism and things like that. And personally
Speaker 5: I believe in terms of taking back control of immigration.
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm trying to find reasons to make
Speaker 1: Joannis Farafut focus feel less bad. But I think the
Speaker 1: other thing I think we have learned from recent politics
Speaker 1: is that things might look, you know, for a particular
Speaker 1: bit of the political spectrum or the one, and they
Speaker 1: flip very quickly. And it's the volatility and the fact
Speaker 1: that trends are coming. You know, everything is shortened and
Speaker 1: trends come and go so quickly.
Speaker 5: It wasn't that long ago to die. And perhaps you
Speaker 5: were writing articles about why is it that the Conservatives
Speaker 5: are the most powerful and successful party in human history?
Speaker 2: But that the thing, the longer you're in power, the
Speaker 2: more likely you're going to be destroyed. Reached a very
Speaker 2: sticky conclusion. All right, Well, I feel like we had
Speaker 2: something of a seminar on European political thoughts this week.
Speaker 2: Who knows what we'll do next week, but Allegra and Adrian,
Speaker 2: thank you very much, thanks for listening to this week's
Speaker 2: Potonomics with Bloomberg. This episode was hosted by Me Stephanie
Speaker 2: Flanders with Adrian Woldridge and Allegra Stratton. Produced by Summer
Speaker 2: Sadi with booking support from Chris martloom Additional editing and
Speaker 2: sound designed by Moses and dam Brendan Francis Noonan is
Speaker 2: our executive producer. Stage Bowman is head of Bloomberg Podcast,
Speaker 2: with special thanks to Francesco Jubilet, Jannies, Baro Fakis and
Speaker 2: Qiarra Albinici. Do subscribe, rate, and review this show, especially
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