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Europe's Left Wing Struggles to Change

Jamie Dettmer

   Europe's traditional left-wing parties ended 2019 in disarray. Battling
   a head wind of disapproval from their traditional working-class
   supporters, and suffering a series of electoral setbacks in most
   countries -- Spain being an exception -- they appear to be at a loss on
   how to rebuild winning coalitions.

   Last month Britain's storied Labour Party recorded its worst electoral
   performance in more than 80 years, losing seats it had held for even
   longer in an election rout that's triggered internecine internal
   warfare. Sister parties in Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and
   Holland all have hit historic lows.

   And the question some analysts are asking is whether there's any future
   for them unless they adapt, as some of their Conservative opponents
   have managed, to a fundamental realignment in Western politics.

   "Center-left social democracy and its more radical socialist cousin
   were founded to answer questions about the economy, but today the
   primary questions in politics are about culture and identity," said
   British academic Matthew Goodwin, co-author of the book National
   Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy, in which he argued
   populist revolts in Europe "were a long time in the making" and
   dismissed the idea they are a spasm, or just a backlash to the
   financial crisis that erupted in 2008, the austerity that followed, or
   the refugee crisis that has swept through Europe since midway through
   the last decade.

   Examining Labour's defeat for Britain's The Times newspaper, Goodwin
   suggested left-wing parties are facing an existential crisis. "A great
   irony of our time is that the left has crashed at the exact moment
   economic growth has slowed and living standards have been squeezed, the
   very things it expected to bring it to power," he said.

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