Mary Dejevsky offers some disturbing conclusions about recent European election results in the Independent. Close scrutiny of polls in Belgium, Sweden and Austria suggest that far right movements are gaining traction at the expense of those  political parties rooted in the prevailing consensus of centre ground appeal.

            Dejevsky asks if Cameron’s efforts to reposition the Conservatives on the terrain mapped out by Blair may be an example of "generals planning for the battle they have just fought rather than the real battle that lies ahead?"

            Austria’s election ten days ago resulted in a defeat for the Centre-Right government of Wolfgang Schussell and is likely to produce a grand coalition of the main parties led by the Social Democrats. Surely an encouraging result for all European liberals who remember the rise of Jorg Haider’s Neo-Fascist Freedom party to a power sharing  coalition with Schussell in 2000. Unfortunately, Dejevsky points out that the greatest winners in percentage terms were in fact Haider’s heirs.

            “The reason that Mr Schussell is no longer Chancellor is that his centre–right government was not far enough right for many of its former supporters… And - lest there be any confusion – their electoral appeal resided on one thing: hostility to immigration… The combined message is disturbing. It is that the issues clustered around immigration, Islam and cultural difference are issues on which people are voting.

            By hewing with such determination to the centre ground, Mr Cameron may be missing the evidence from Europe that shows the political centre ground is moving.”

Mary Dejevsky - The Independent

            It is important to recognise these alarming trends in the mood of European voters reflected in the governments or more commonly the local councillors that they choose. But Dejevsky is also correct to emphasise that the far right remains on the fringe of political power. To do otherwise is to contribute  to the scaremongering favoured by the very movements we deplore and perpetuate the myth of an impending clash of civilisations. Michael Howard’s tactics at the last General Election revealed that in the most part “We are not thinking what right-wing politicians are thinking” on issues such as  immigration. The focus of sections of the media and in recent weeks from senior politicians such as Jack Straw and John Reid upon the issues of immigration, Islam and community divisions, risks whipping up a cultural and potentially an electoral crisis which is in no way inevitable. In this respect, Cameron’s arrival in the centre ground is wholly welcomed.