By Robert Hodgson Jun 8, 2009, 21:07 GMT
Budapest - The European Parliament elections were marked by a large groundswell of support for the centre-right across Europe, but in some places the shift was more radical.
Not merely eurosceptic, but openly racist, anti-European and anti- immigration parties gained ground in nine countries.
In Britain, the British National Party won two seats in Brussels, the first ever parliamentary victory for the 27-year-old party.
In his victory speech at Manchester Town Hall before dawn on Monday, party leader Nick Griffin, who had hours earlier described Britain as a 'bankrupt slum' on Sky Television, bemoaned the ruination of his country by a corrupt political elite.
'It's not just a matter of mass immigration - although that's the most obvious symptom of it,' Griffin said.
However, with 8 per cent of the national vote, the success of the British far-right was small compared to that in some other countries.
The anti-Islamic Freedom Party (PVV) will supply four of the Netherlands' 25 MEPs after coming second with 17 per cent of the vote.
PVV chief Geert Wilders is famous for an anti-Islam stance, reflected in his controversial film 'Fitna'.
In Hungary, the birthplace of Wilders' wife Krisztina, the nationalist Jobbik party fared almost as well as the PVV, winning three of Hungary's 22 allotted seats with nearly 15 per cent support.
Jobbik's profile began to rise in 2007 with the setting up of a uniformed group called the Hungarian Guard, which has been instrumental in a campaign against 'Gypsy crime'.
For its supporters, the Guard is a protector of traditional Hungarian values and culture, dressed in a style resembling traditional peasant garb.
To its opponents, the group is anti-Jewish, anti-Roma, and its uniform is reminiscent of the Second World War Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross.
In her victory speech late Sunday evening, Jobbik's leading EP candidate Krisztina Morvai spelled out her mission in Brussels.
'That we should not become a second Palestine, that we should not become a backward, impoverished colony,' Morvai said.
Hungary's neighbour to the north, Slovakia, is sending one radical right winger to Brussels in the form of Jaroslav Paska of the Slovak National Party (SNS).
The main targets of SNS ire are Slovakia's ethnic Roma and Hungarian minorities. Party leader Jan Slota, who once infamously threatened to roll into the Hungarian capital Budapest with tanks, appeared happy with the result on Sunday.
'The number of MEPs isn't the most important thing for us, but rather the fact that a representative of SNS will be in the EP,' Slota said, according to Slovak news agency TASR.
The ultra-nationalist Romania Mare (Greater Romania) scored over 8 per cent of the vote. Alongside party president Corneliu Vadim Tudor, 'colourful' businessman George 'Gigi' Becali will be taking a place in the 736-seat European Parliament.
Becali, who stunned the Romanian football world in May when he appointed himself head coach at Steaua Bucharest, is currently being prosecuted for alleged corruption.
He said on Sunday that he plans to use his private jet to fly to and from Strasbourg, to avoid wasting time at airports, although, ironically, he was not at liberty to leave Romania at the time.
In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party won two seats in Brussels, and a further smattering of extremists were elected in Finland, Denmark and Greece.
The Italy, the anti-immigration Northern League upped its representation in Europe from four to eight seats.
Other groups on the Italian far right, the National Alliance and Alessandra Mussolini's Social Alternative, merged with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's new centre-right People of Freedom party in March this year.
The election was not good news for all of Europe's far right parties, however.
Poland returned euroscepttic, but no extreme right candidates, while in France, 80-year-old Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front Nationale lost four of its seven seats in the European Parliament.
Altogether, there will be over 30 MEPs in the new European Parliament who could be described as being of the extreme right, and in some cases xenophobic or racist.
However, it is questionable whether they share enough common ground to form an effective alliance in Brussels.
An earlier attempt at international unity on the far right failed when the 23-member Identity-Tradition-Sovereignty (ITS) group in the European Parliament collapsed in November, 2007.
The five-strong Romania delegation quit over 'xenophobic' anti- Romanian comments made by neo-fascist Allessandra Mussolini.
Piotr Kaczynski, an expert on EU internal politics at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels, told the German Press Agency dpa that the newly swollen ranks of the extreme right will have little impact on legislation in Brussels.
'They're divided, few in number, they don't talk to each other, they're not constructive and they're not reliable partners, so nobody will reach out to them,' Kaczynski said.
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