We’ll admit that we don’t know whether this Spanish political party, Vox, is far right or not. For all we know they could be donning blue shirts – or black footy bags – marching down the street and howling with lust to give Owen Jones a good dose of castor oil. We dunno. But what we do find interesting is what The Guardian tells us are markers of being far right.
We’d agree that, given that they’re centralists in Spain, they do belong on the more conservative side of politics on that specific issue. This is just the way that issue breaks in Spain. Castile and Aragon, through Madrid, get to run the whole place, you’re a conservative. Regions gain ever greater power, some might be able to break away – the Basques, Catalonia – you’re on the left. Even devolving more power to the regions, you’re a lefty.
Yet that’s just an illustration that all politics is local. There’s no particular reason, other than historical, that central control is lefty. After all, in the US it’s the lefties who hate States rights and the subsequent variance in policy, insisting that the Feds must do everything from DC. Shrug.
However, here are the two policies which The Guardian thinks marks you out as being far right. They’re such markers that they’re used in the headline. Ok, the sub-head.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Far right wins seats in Spanish region for first time since FrancoVox, which opposes illegal immigration and abortion, gains 12 seats in Andalucía[/perfectpullquote]
Abortion? We’re in a still at least nominally Catholic country and running on an anti-abortion platform makes you “far right”?
As to being against illegal immigration well, it is illegal isn’t it? Meaning the government itself is against it and perhaps those running to be the government might at least be encouraged to express their views on the point?
Sure, we can reductio ad absurdam this. Killing babies and encouraging people to break the law makes you a lefty. But it’s also, without doing so, a bit rich to insist that anti-abortionists, anti-illegal immigrationists, are far right, isn’t it?
Hey, we agree, Vox might really be over the edge there – however vile we think Owen Jones is it’s his ideas not his body that need that purgative. But these two as proofs of far rightness?
‘Right wing’ in the Giradanu is simply a marker for people or views of which we are meant to disapprove. Which, for them, covers almost everyone to the right of Corbyn.
How many Bosheviks were executed by Stalin because they were alledged to be on the right? So how long will Corbyn be safe?
I notice that groups described as “far right” usually appeal to the working class.
The Guardian would be more honest in general to describe them as lower class, or use the current euphemism popularist.