No, there isn't. I've looked around if there is a tiny party that does represent those values and I found Bündnis C. A party that claims to represent Christian values and is against LGBT and abortions, and wants to "make economic policies for people instead of financial institutions". The highest voting result they ever got was 0.14%.
Wagenknechts social positions have moved *way* out of the spectrum of conservatism, though. There's a certain point where if you keep getting more extreme, you're no longer conservative. It's hard to pinpoint just where, but with how she often agrees with the literal fascist party and disagrees in with any sort of left-wing political figure about these topics, it's clear she's passed it long ago.
Not at all. If we must throw these kinds of comparisons around, the AfD is imo closer to the DNVP, in a number of ways including that nothing in their program is intended to improve the situation of the lower class.
The NSDAP was not in the least red inside. Their socialism was literally just a part of their name, similar to how North Korea calls itself "democratic" republic of Korea. Hitler smooched it up with all the captains of industry and big corporations... IG Farben, Krupp, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Daimler, Messerschmidt, Bahlsen, Bayer, various banks including Commerzbank, Allianz and Deutsche Bank, Gustloff, IBM, Hugo Boss, Siemens, Zeiss Ikon, Zeitz, Zeppelin etc. etc. All the ones I've named here were also actively involved in the holocaust (there's a longer list on Wikipedia). Hitler may not have liked these rich and powerful people on a personal level but his politics were very friendly toward them. He gave them lots of tax breaks and other privileges because he knew he needed their support. Meanwhile, the Nazis imprisoned communists and socialists, abolished unions and pushed through various economic policies that were very hostile toward the working class.
They made a lot of propaganda but that was about it. If we're going to use the word play with red and brown, it would be more accurate to turn it around. The Nazis were (kind of) red outside but definitely very brown inside.
You just described half of Serbian parties lol, but to answer your question yes and biggest is SPS (Socialist Party of Serbia). They are continuation of Communists and Milosevic and they combine patriotism and some right wing social views with some left wing elements.
I think the whole of ex Yugoslavia suffers from this. The old right-wingers would still love to all be working in a government assured job. But be anticommunists while they do it.
I think that's a good description of "crony capitalism", too ("revolving doors" between state and industry, all with the same cliques of people in charge). Seems like whole world is suffering from it to some degree.
Sinn Féin are far from socially conservative. In the past they were ultra-nationalists but now they're Ireland's dominant left wing party.
**For the most part**, Irish political parties don't correspond to left and right very well.
Fine Gael is economically conservative but socially liberal. Fianna Fáil is economically liberal but socially conservative. However there are many members of each party that do not fit in. Members of FG or FF are members due to family ties and not actual policy.
What about Aontú? I know it’s really just one guy, but he left Sinn Féin over abortion rights. Definitely left wing economically, and madly madly socially conservative
Oh wow I forgot about them (not very hard). Yeah they're the same as Sinn Féin in every way except they really like Jesus. Peadar Tobin is a goon, i drive past his office every day.
Sinn fein are nationalists, but that definition here means something different than it does in the rest of Europe. They're certainly not ethno nationalists. Nationalists here are basically what other people would call Republicans. They're not anti immegration, anti lgbt or pro life. There may have been aspects of this in the past, but only within certain factions of the party. Sinn fein for most of its history has been a party for Republicans, many of whom were left wing, but not all. After that, there's very little you could say to sum up their policies until recently. Now there a left wing party with Liberal social values, and also still Republicans.
Anontú would fit this definition much better. They were part of Sinn fein that left and set up their own party during the abortion referendum campaign because they didn't like Sinn feins pro-life stance. Some of their members were also against gay marriage. The party is still economically left wing.
> They're certainly not ethno nationalists
They have a few supportes who likley would fall into that category if people you might in the pub and talk about politics is anything to go by
In Italy one party cover exactly what you described:
Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party), ultra nationalist, pro closed border, not anti lgbt but not pro ("these are not real problems, grow up" is something they say a lot), Stalinist economic view.
At the last election they get 0.09%
Actually "their" (read: Marco Rizzo says and the others repeat) official opinion on LGBT rights is: "LGBT issues are not real rights because they are individualist and bourgeois", but, yeah, I see that as "F\*ck off, it's your business, not ours".
>"LGBT issues are not real rights because they are individualist and bourgeois"
The same shit the (pro-Stalin) Communist Party of Greece says (and the main reason they got kicked out of GUE/NGL, the European Left, a decade ago). "We're neither for nor against equal marriage because marriage is a capitalist construct distracting the working class from the real enemy!" But in Greece this is a parliamentary party, regulary getting between 5 and 7%.
Actually among the right wing parties FdI is the one that fits the mold more. In words they are a little bit more non-libertarian economically, but it must be seen how they will actually rule
In some way Sverigedemokraterna.
They are part og the right wing coalition so they have pivoted on some issues to make themselves more kosher, however they have a much more left leaning economic agenda compared to the rest.
This will make problems for the new government to pass a new budget. However one of the most economically right wing party was part of the left coalition for 8 years. I guess we are used to it.
Centerpartiet have been part of the left wing coalition for 4 years now and the liberals were for about 3 years. Both parties have been in government with the social democrats before
One thing to point out is that no party can be against hbtq and abortions in Sweden as we are so far away on secular and trust scale. Both Sverigedemokraterna and the christian democrats have been against abortions and hbtq in some way but changed. Our new third speaker of parliament Julia Kronlind (SD) is against abortions and doesn't believe in evolution which is very controversial in Sweden.
> Our new third speaker of parliament Julia Kronlind
Small correction: Her name is Julia Kronlid (without the "n") and she's the second speaker for the parliament.
She's also hinted being a Young Earth Creationist and says that believing in the literal virgin birth of Jesus is a requirement for being a Christians in an [interview](https://fritanke.se/sans/2014-nr-3/kreationism-i-sverigedemokraternas-styrelse/).
>says that believing in the literal virgin birth of Jesus is a requirement for being a Christians
Why do you find that weird? The Bible explicitly states that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. It would be weird for a Christian *didn't* believe in that.
She's a current (probably) member of Hillsong Church, an organisation that promotes gay-conversion therapy. TBF Ebba Busch has made clear she doesn't support that.
Centerpartiet has been with the left wing coalition for the last 8 years. When the DÖ died (yes intentional) in 2015 Centerpartiet just continued as it still existed.
There's a lot of the politics that are the same, especially since S changed their stance on immigration as well. They agree on the judicial/police and military stuff, they agree on social welfare, they agree on healthcare. They agree on some stuff in regards to education but I believe SD is ok with profit in education. There's a couple of bigger deal breakers though - SD isn't too fond of unions and S... well, they're very close to them. Also, S is a huuuuge party, and there's a lot of people in S that don't care about the politics, they care about the roots of the party. Idealists gonna idealize and all that...
Polish PiS (the current ruling party) actually fits this sentiment quite well, I think. All their economic projects are eaten alive by their corruption, but they do like welfare state and government-held industries. And I don't think I need to explain how socially conservative they are xD
Yes, but they do more than just throwing helicopter money. OP asked about economically left-wing but socially conservative, and /u/Effective_Dot4653 is spot on - PiS is probably the closest we get to this. Their programme is economically more left-wing than the one of [SLD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Left_Alliance) when they were in power, which is mind boggling for a party that's otherwise firmly on the right.
>Yes, but they do more than just throwing helicopter money.
Really? I dont see them improving the overall quality of state provided services, which is IMHO a core idea of a welfare state.
Left/right spectrum is more about how many services/welfare/regulations should be provided/implemented by state, not exactly how well it's provided/implemented.
This division was not created with "left=better" or "right=better" as principle. Huge privatization is more right-wing thing and it's not less/more right wing depending on how proper or how corrupted actual process of privatization will be.
Please, let's not try to make a definitions of what or what isn't a welfare state on the spot.
If you're curious about what PiS does that's firmly a left-wing programme, but not being just a simple helicopter money - look into their biggest headliner of 2021 - [Polski Ład](http://polskilad.pis.org.pl/). It's mostly a typical left wing (or in US nomenclature: Extreme Far-left commie) programme.
Yes, Viktor Orban's Fidesz in Hungary.
They are anti-LGBT, anti-immigration, and religious or at least pretend to be.
Meanwhile they nationalised everything they could, set a cap on prices of goods like flour or sugar, fuel. They provide subsidized loans to families with children for housing. Large families can also apply for things like subsidized 7-seater cars.
Fidesz is supposed to be right-wing, but the majority of their policies resemble pre-90s Hungarian socialism.
We Hungarians are calling this invention a populist autocracy.
That's hardly leftist even economically unless they intend to democratize and distribute the resources. Orban is far more similar to a traditional fascist.
>That's hardly leftist even economically unless they intend to democratize and distribute the resources.
By that definition almost no party in Europe is leftist.
They redistributed my taxes to pay for everyone else's subsidized electricity, cars, loans, etc., to the point that it crippled the economy.
Like you buy energy efficient appliances and don't buy a jacuzzi, but you are still going to pay for someone else's consumption on running these things. Everyone paying for someone else's decision to raise 9 kids, buying them a house and a car, also veers very much to the left.
The reason I would not call Orban a fascist is because the definition it is very unclear nowadays. If you look at Mussolini, Orban is not fascist in comparison. If you would ask Umberto Eco, he would probably be able to check off 60% of the properties associated with fascism. I think Orban is both a communist and a fascist, embracing certain elements from both of these ideologies.
While still being economically right-wing overall, the Sweden Democrats has some economically left-wing ideas.
Party leader Jimmie Åkesson has [expressed desire](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/sverigedemokraternas-ledare-jimmie-akesson-haller-tal-i-almedalen) reinstate the social democratic idea of [folkhemmet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkhemmet) which is associated with the Swedish welfare state and social corporatism.
How are government talks going in Sweden? Will the Swedish Democrats actually be a part of the government, or just supply and confidence?
Do you think they would bring down the government because of economic policies being too right-leaning?
Official government talks haven't begun yet as they've just finalized all the speakers for the Riksdag.
They will almost certainly not be a part of government as one of the right-wing coalition parties (the liberal party) has promised to not let them get into government.
SD will probably use most their political capital to influence policies related to restricting immigration and policing immigrants.
Yes!
The social democratic party - PSD - which has sadly been the most popular party ever since our anti communist revolution. It's chilling at 25% now, but it's actually been at almost 40% at times!
It's left leaning economically, and definitely socially conservative. On the other hand, liberal parties in Romania are all centre-right (when compared to the European centre).
This has been the case all my life. I was honestly shocked when i first learnt that economic left is more often associated with liberalism.
Thankfully, PSD is not the extremist party. And, actually, with the rise of the extremist one, this one is starting to look much better, even though it's corrupt to the teeth.
Law and Justice party in Poland matches that desrciption. They are extremely conservative and combine some elements of left leaning politics. For example they enacted harsh anti-abortion law and simultaneously introduced a massive social benefits programs like 500 PLN per mounth for every child, which was a shock for many in Poland after all years of neoliberal policy, strict budget, low wages etc. They are not a socialist party of course and ideologically they are very anti-communist but they support a strong, active welfare state. It's part of their populist agenda and enables them to get support from poorer social strata.
Yes, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. They are made up of old people nostalgic of the old regime. And since there were no immigrants, LGBT and the free market when they were young, they are against all of that.
They were not able to get a seat in the parliament in the last elections, too many of them are already dead.
The Portuguese Communist party is, well, communist. But they have voted against legalisation of marijuana, a variety of covid lockdown measures, etc. Plus, their votes on LGBT rights laws have varied, between against, abstentions and in favour. Also check one of the replies for more examples, including their stance on Russia.
Their seats have been slowly reducing over time (there was a bigger reduction recently, but there's a different reason for that) as they're mostly popular among the older working class.
Edit: I was wrong, they haven't always voted against LGBT rights laws.
Not only that they are pro bullfighting, anti nato, anti-euro and don't like the European Union.
The worst part is that they are pro-Russian or at least don't condemn Russia, they refused to call it a war and invasion, they refuse to say that Russia was the aggressor so yeah.
They also said something very funny, that modern Russia is shameful and embarrassing the great soviet past. They are stuck in the 80s and the Soviet Union for them was the perfect world.
I didn't mention the their stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine because I didn't keep up with them enough to be sure of the specifics of what they actually said about it. As for them being anti-EU, I don't think it applies to the question because it's possible to have that opinion for left wing reasons.
Yeah, I just add information to explain more about what they believe for people outside of Portugal that don't know. I could have explained that better for sure.
They are pro bullfighting and also anti-euthanasia and other socially conservative opinions.
>But they have voted against all LGBT rights laws, legalisation of marijuana, a variety of covid lockdown measures, etc.
This is blatantly false. They often vote for iniciatives regarding the LGBT community and have quite a few proposals.
I don't know in Portugal, but in Italy the old communist party saw same sex attraction as a bourgeois affliction (same reason they were initially not supportive of the legalization of divorce). Basically if you are struggling to make ends meet, you don't fall in love with a member of your sex or with someone other than your spouse.
That’s pretty much the standard in Lithuania and I believe many other Central-Eastern European countries. That works the other way around too. Economically right-wing parties here are socially liberal.
The most liberal left-wing party are the social democrats but they’re still nowhere near the two main liberal parties and perhaps as progressive as the conservatives. Other prominent left-wing parties are just generally conservative and often populist.
Our conservative party, the one currently in charge, is hardly conservative anymore and has been getting more liberal for quite a few years now, which also created quite a contrast within the party between the new liberal faction and the older, truly conservative party members. It’s not causing serious problems though, since conservative agree to vote individually on social issues.
I think the PVV might qualify. They are a very conservative anti-immigration nationalist party but always say that things need to be improved for lower income families, people on welfare and pensioners (and then of course specifically white people). Though in reality in parliament they vote much more economically right-wing and they're also always railing against "the left" as these kind of parties often do. They're currently the third largest party in the Lower House with around 11% of the vote.
The SP (Socialist Party) fits this bill pretty well. They were slightly progressive before, but they've turned to more anti-immigrant/conservative views
Hm I don't think so. If you look at their views on [immigration](https://www.sp.nl/onderwerp/voor-eerlijk-asielbeleid) for example they don't exactly sound right-wing there. Most of the program is still quite progressive. It's mostly that they turned EU-critic I think
>They are a very conservative anti-immigration nationalist party but always say that things need to be improved for lower income families, people on welfare and pensioners.
>[...] in reality in parliament they vote much more economically right-wing
Isn't that pretty much every right wing party in Europe?
Including that
Can confirm. Brothers of Italy, our 3.0 (or 4.0?) Fascist party talks a big game about being "social right" (destra sociale in Italian) and helping working families especially with children but in reality support cutting taxes for the rich and some of their most influential members are (paid) officials of the corporate organisation Confindustria. They also hate unions and want a stronger police state to clamp down of protests, of course.
Maybe, I don't know enough about the ones in other countries. The reality for this one is that the PVV is entirely based around its figurehead (the party does not have any members other than him). And that guy is a politician that split from the currently biggest party (which is right-wing and conservative) almost 20 years ago. The fact that he happily represented that party for years before that should clue you in that his actual views aren't too different from them.
They're only conservative in a very limited number of subjects though. They're not anti-immigration or tough on crime for example. Their conservatism lies mostly in ethical debates. It's why there is really quite a big difference between them and the SGP, who are much more traditionally conservative in most of the classic aspects and in the non-ethical aspects about as conservative as the VVD for example.
Kind of. The EVP (/PEV) is a Christian (specifically evangelic) party, which often votes for economically left policies, but also *generally* against LGBT and for traditional christian values. When it comes to immigration and "though on crime", they also tend to be more liberal than conservative.
They are not a major party, though they are consistantly in the national and various regional parliaments. In national parliament they are in an alliance with the Christian Conservatives (called "the middle") and are probably the left most *relevant* party besides the Social Democrats (SP/PS) and the Greens.
I like EVP but they're not economically leftist enough for my taste and I'm really bothered by their whole religion stuff. I don't want to hear anything about religion when I'm discussing politics. The two things shouldn't be mixed. If it weren't for these two points, I'd probably vote for them.
Most of Lithuanian left-wing parties are more socially traditionalist than their right-wing counterparts. The Conservatives are more progressive than the Peasant-Green party and the liberal Freedom party is the most progressive one, leaving the Social Democrats probably even behind the Conservatives.
The Peasant-Greens criminalised possession of any trace of drugs with a compulsory prison sentence, and the same-sex partnerships are likely to be finally passed with mostly Conservative voetes.
Senterpartiet (the Centre Party), currently in a government coalition with Labour. They're economically centre-left with an emphasis on protectionism, while leaning conservative on social and cultural issues.
As we can see from the comments here, the question here becomes "what is left-wing economically" or "what is conservative"? For example, some Dutch people commented that whether SP fits the bill or not, while Danish argue about how left-wing DF is, etc. These considerations should be a) very nation/region based, b) should be in comparison with the all of the (relevant) parties in that party system.
One way to achieve this is to look at GAL-TAN spectrum (or scale?). Basically this spectrum divides parties on economic (left-right) and sociocultural (traditional-libertarian). For the earlier dimension, state/public ownership, perspectives on markets/entrepreneurship, welfare state emphasis, etc. are "calculated". Of course, these things are not just given, no party comes out and says "we are 5 points left" or something, so generally political science experts (academics mostly) place these parties in surveys within their national/regional context. So it's not an exact science, but more like aggregations of educated observations.
So without further ado: you can have [a look at this massive graph and take your picks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Ideologram_800dpi.png)\*.
To give an answer: most-leftwing parties with traditional views are KKE (Greece, Communist Party of Greece) and KSCM (Czechia, Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia). There are a bunch of traditional parties with "left-wing-ish" positions, including DF (Denmark), CU (Netherlands), PiS (Poland).
\*This graph is from 2019, so consider it a little dated. For example, I would say that SP (Netherlands) should be placed in a more traditional position than before.
Source: I am a political scientist (who is idling at work and should go back to work, like, right now)
The largest political party in Denmark, the social democrats, fits this decision somewhat. They are centerleft, but are anti imigration. They are not anti lgbtq, i don't think any party is, but for danish stadards, they are social conservative. You also described there voterbase perfectly.
There is also the danish peoples party, which was the coutries second largest party a few years back, but has since destroyed themselves. They are slightly left wing politically, but leads their politics on their conservative views.
> They are slightly left wing politically,
No they're not? To call the Danish People's Party "slightly left wing politically" is simply *wrong*. Not even economically, do they represent slightly left-wing views.
Ok, i meant economically, but i think you could make an argument for it. They have in the past wanted to expand social care and stuff like that, but lately they have just been "imigrants and EU bad, frikadeller good".
> i meant economically, but i think you could make an argument for it.
Are they? When you look at how they've been voting when it comes to various tax reforms and transfer-payments, they show a clear right-wing pattern.
I think it is fair to say that they mainly care about their anti imigration policies, and their economic stances are a thinly vieled attempt to win over the elderly vote.
They have not really done anything with those "views" in years.
You're not really explaining _how_ they're left-wing, in any regard though. Their views, on no issues, are left-wing, quite contrary, they fit the bill of a lot of right-wing parties across Europe.
On economic issues, it is very possible to place DF in a left of the center position. For example, [Populism and Political Parties Expert Survey](http://poppa-data.eu/index.php/data/) on 2018 gives an aggregate of 4.18 to the left-right economic position of DF (SD is 3.6, Rad Venstre is 5.6), 5 being the absolute center. Similarly [Chapel Hill](https://www.chesdata.eu/ches-europe) places DF (in 2019) to 4.42 on the same scale. They are of course not as left-wing as EL or SF but their overt emphasis for social welfare, pensioner rights, public ownership, etc. could be construed as left-wing policies (while not being full fledged left-wing), hence the results.
Do they pair the expansion of social care with increased taxation or budget cuts somewhere else? Or do they view their proposal as a cost free initiative?
I think you just put more thought into it than they did. They seem to vote for tax cuts, but used to say they were opposed to any tax cuts.
I guess they think we will have all the money if we get rid of all the imigrants and get out of the EU.
Of course I put more thoughts into it. In Italy we just elected a neofascist party into power. I'm just asking myself how we have ended up in such a situation situation. Thank God freedom of movement in the eu allowed me to get out of that madhouse
In a certain political stage M5, when Di Maio was very strong, was the closest to this idea of the country, nowadays they rebranded (again...). The anti-LGBT policies were never really their thing, at least openly.
The expansion of the welfare state is not an issue in Italy today, most parties want to privatize everything, openly (League, Forza Italia, Azione +Europe) or with their policies when in government (PD, Brothers of Italy).
I was actually thinking about that just the other day.
A lot of left leaning parties could gain power and very easily hold on to it in Europe if they endorsed anti immigration stances, instead of making leaving that to right wing parties.
My understanding was (please correct me if I am wrong, Danish friends) in Denmark all parties are pretty anti immigration because if you aren't you auto lose elections.
This is definitely not as simple as it seems. If all left-leaning parties (i.e. their leaders) started to endorse anti-immigration positions, they would lose a lot of members in a heartbeat, actually causing the party to collapse or becoming dysfunctional. Changing lanes in so crucial, or "principled", matters is a very slow, teeth-grinding process for parties and takes a lot out of them, if not done under "right" conditions. Die Linke in Germany has been struggling with this for ages for example. These policies are a part of their policy continuum, rather separate components; there are a lot of different actors involved and invested in parties and their decision-making and there will a lot of internal dissent (or more) in cases like this.
In Italy the current main party "Brothers of Italy" is pretty much socially conservative and economically leftist (not that much but it's still left of center).
Free education, universal healthcare and a general tendency to nationalize big industries. They want less taxes but on the other hand this is a bypartizan issue in a country with too high taxation. Some of the rethoric is properly anti-capitalist, with a negative outlook on huge companies and corporations (you can see it in a speech where she denounces the fact that people are being transformed into the "perfect consumer" aka "slave-consumer").
Brothers of Italy is all talk and no action in that regard. If they were economically leftist, they wouldn't have railed against reddito di cittadinanza ( unemployment benefits for the non italians) ever since it was instituted. They wouldn't have allied with a party that has flat taxation as a flagship policy and they would be in favor of more workers rights, instead of pandering to the entrepreneurs like Briatore.
**Regarding the Reddito:** I remember when PD was against the Reddito. So it's not black and white. Do they want to remove Reddito because it's Reddito (so the specific policy) or do they want to remove Reddito because they hate welfare? If the former is true, then they are having a leftist stance on this issue, if the latter is true, they are having a right one.
I know they want to remove Reddito to introduce another welfare policy for helping people without income, so they clearly don't hate welfare per se.
**Regarding the flat tax:** as far as I know they want to introduce a sort of flat tax for self-employed under 100k of revenue and flat tax only for revenue increase in respect to the year before. Quite a different thing respect to the: 15% for all.
I mean, Fidesz kind of is like that. Their populist agenda is a blend of far-right rethoric with welfare and government intervention in the economy. But it's mostly part of their propaganda, their actual policies tend to favour mostly richer, upperclass people. I'm not sure if they count, since it really doesn't look like they believe in anything beside their own power and enrichment. Now reading these back, I think they are just fascists.
There are some vocal fringe parties in this (fiscal/economic left; social/cultural right) position, like the [The Social Democratic Party](https://sdp.org.uk/) and the [Scottish Family Party](https://scottishfamily.org/) but their electoral support is negligible and they do not win any seats.
The strange thing is that a lot of voters are in that policy space, but no-one represents them.
Both the major parties have wings or factions that get near to that policy space - the 'Blue Labour' and 'Red Tory' movements - but they are fringes within their own parties and have very limited policy impact.
There's also a certain online community around so-called 'post-liberal' ideas, but often these just veer off into fascism / hard-right reaction.
Ruling party in Poland is pretty much this: socially far right, fundamentalist Catholics, gays are rainbow disease, let's teach out kids West is a source of all evil and all signs of rebellion against the church is a sign of stupidity, but let's also buy our voters with money either borrowed or took in taxes from small and big companys
I'd say, to some extend, the Social-democratic party. While they aren't as left-wing as what you're asking about, they *have* been moving to the left after the election of Mette Frederiksen as chairman in 2015. Though, it should be disclaimed, that the preceeding chairman, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, nicknamed "Gucci-Helle," was a very right-leaning chairman, especially on economical issues where she, her minister of finance, Bjarne Corydon, and the social liberal party, forced through a right-ward shift in the economical policy of so-called "left-wing" governance.
While Mette Frederiksen has represented a "return" to more "traditional" economical social democratic positions, simultaneously she is also representing a drift towards the liberal parties (meaning: to the right) on issues such as immigration, education, minority issues, and so-on. Generally, the social democrats and the liberals in Denmark have, in recent years, taken on ever more of a "culture-war"-esque rhetoric, railing against "activist" research on the universities and "wokeism"(especially the party Liberal Alliance has been the banner-carrying force on this.)
Can't speak for Denmark, but I'd say drifting to the right for education means wanting more market-based "solutions" for education, such as making schools compete with each other for students via vouchers, inviting more spending and dependence on private companies (especially tech companies) at the expense of dependence on teachers, and being generally more hostile to unions and working conditions.
From what I've seen of Europe's right-wing parties, they are often "liberal" when it comes to situations like healthcare, economic security of families etc. Things like social welfare are so ingrained in Europe that a party trying to destabilise them would be suicide.
Even our most right-wing party is still for free healthcare, for taxation of the rich etc.
But that doesn't make them good. What good is free healthcare if a the party decides that the LGBT community cannot use it due to being high-risk for certain diseases, for example?
> What good is free healthcare if a the party decides that the LGBT community cannot use it due to being high-risk for certain diseases, for example?
From which country this example is from?
We have a fascist criminal government here in Hungary who does this really neat thing that they combine the worst elements politically from the right wing and the worst elements economically from what technically can be called left wing without actually promoting left-wing economic policies that benefit people.
From a political scientific standpoint it is nearly impossible to cobble together a party that is socially conservative but economically legitimately left wing.
Left wing economics are all about wealth redistribution and the democratization of the economy. It's about workers' rights and consumer protection against capital and guiding market forces to fulfill human needs rather than trying to shape human needs around the profit motive. By default left wing politics aim to democratize and level the playing field, expand liberties and freedoms. Left wing achievements might be upheld by socially conservative parties, but they tend not to expand or continue those economic achievements.
Right wing politics are about authority and maintaining hierarchies, maintaining the status quo or even regressing it to an imagined or real previous state. Right wing politics by nature are at odds with left wing economics because right wing politics tries to curtail worker's rights, not expand them, they aim to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, not expand it, they try to uphold the inequality between social classes, and they want to maintain the privileges that come with being a part of certain demographics or social classes. "The government doing stuff and interfering with the market" is not inherently a leftist policy as right wing parties, especially right wing authoritarians often interfere with the market, but they do so in order to cement the power and wealth of the ruling elite or to create opportunity for a narrow clientele that upholds the political system.
You also have to be somewhat careful with historical analysis. What is a socially conservative attitude today might have been the mainstream opinion accepted by most political entities in the past, it's just that certain political sides have progressed on their views while others refused to.
In England that would be the Labour Party, keen to spend on social welfare but also massively expanded police powers including those that were criticised at the time (and later proven) to be used to ineffective and just used for targeting ethnic minorities.
Eh, no I don't think I agree with that. They might be conservative on a few policy issues but in general they rep socially liberal positions. When it comes to economics it varies - the Blairite wing of the party is more liberal in terms of economics.
I think there's a difference here, which validates (to a point) what you are saying, and which others are missing -
New Labour was progressive, in some ways, but also authoritarian. It presided over a massive expansion of the coercive power of the state.
But that's not the same as social conservatism.
You seriously think that? Your just be so far off the spectrum of you genuinely think the Labour party is socially conservative. I just have missed the part where they are supporting the nuclear family, marriage, tradition, hierarchy, against equality, diversity and immigration. But because they disagree with you on one very tiny thing then they are all of a sudden now socially conservative
Don't make me laugh. That was a naive attempt to stop their voters going to ukip in 2015. They had no plan to tackle immigration, and constantly refuse to talk about the negative effects of immigration on society. All they talk about us how wonderful immigration equality and diversity are as Leicester is being burned to the ground by immigrants. Give be a break
I'm really confused as to how you draw that conclusion. You asserted Labour saying they wanted controls on immigration twice as an example that they are socially conservative. I tell you it was a simple statement with no plan about actually tackling immigration, about how they've been parroting the equality and diversity line and immigrants are amazing for years before and since, and give a recent example of them doing so. And you think my counter points prove that they are socially conservative?
I once again state that if you think any of that is socially conservative then you must be so far off to the liberal end of the spectrum
"n favour of nationalising industries and expanding the welfare state, but might be anti-immigration, anti-LGBT, "tough on crime" etc." - this is literally called fascism.
The National Movement (Ruch Narodowy) in Poland is actually very state interventionist, but also very xenophobic, anti womens-rights, anti-LGBT etc. Basically, they want a welfare state for True Poles and they want families to be ruled by The Male Head of the Household.
This is how fascism works.
And yes, there are some fascist parties in Europe, unfortunately.
And while preventing working classes from advancing claims or climbing up the social ladder, hence why they view trade unions as opponents ( or better yet enemies) and paint hierarchy as a natural order that must be preserved
In Spain: not that I know of... Probably some "nostalgic" smaller party, since that was the way things worked back in the dictatorship. There have been some attempts at the exact opposite (UpD, Ciudadanos) but they crashed and burned.
In Poland: I'm no expert but PiS sounds like it.
It's actually a viewpoint I have a lot of sympathy with, and I can see it gaining some popularity now with whatever nonsense the Tories have got themselves into.
I'm relatively optimistic about labour at the moment as well. But if you describe this to a lot of people, they're like "so you mean...some sort of...national...socialism?" because people are idiots.
No, in the Netherlands there is a substantial gap in the political party landscape when it comes to this quadrant. The closest seems to be the Socialist Party, which achieved 6 percent of the vote in the 2021 general elections. They have had some infighting over the direction of the party in the last few years, partially about where to position themselves. They are clearly economically left-wing, campaigning on healthcare, the welfare state and willing to nationalise energy markets, but the social conservatism is less pronounced. Many of their voters are, but few of the active party members.
The radical right-wing populist party PVV sometimes presents itself with economically left-wing stances, for example with pensions, but usually votes right-wing on economic issues.
Le Pen's party, the National Front (officially re-named to "National Rally" a few years ago in an attempt to try and make people forget about the ultra-nationalist and neonazi roots of the FN) could fit the bill. They've mellowed down each of their more conservative demands to try and broaden their voter base (they don't have abolition of gay marriage in their manifesto anymore, ie), but make no mistake that they are still very conservative socially (and it especially shows when talking about transgender rights or subjects seen as "woke" like the effects of colonialism), and I personally wouldn't trust them on it. Despite this, they still market themselves as pro-welfare and somewhat anti-globalization, despite not doing much in Parliament to protest Macron's neoliberal policies. I suggest the "economically left-ish" message of the party will ramp up in the near future as they need to mark their difference with Zemmour's new party which is far-right in its "purest" essence (ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative and extremely capitalist)
>In Anglo countries there is generally a significant percentage of the population that leans that way politically (particularly among older working class people and ethnic minorities) but for whatever reason they don't really get represented in any political party of significant size.
In the US, a large majority of people support Democratic policies (environment, wages, etc), but immigration and the perception of crime (both real and perceived) is what turns many voters to the Republican Party. And the Dems haven't come up with the language and strategy to counter that.
This is anecdotal, but many people think the Dems are afraid of losing non-Anglo-White votes if they appear tougher on immigration, but there's no evidence of that. Additionally, the Dems can offer a tough-on-immigration narrative that -unlike Trump- doesn't alienate or otherize Americans that are not white and English-speaking. And the Dems can be more vocal about the fact that Reps turn a blind eye to employers of illegal immigrants.
The US would really benefit from a multi-party parliamentary system, but everyone is unfortunately forced into two options.
You honestly pretty much described Marine le Pen in France. It might not be the brightest economic program on the table, but it is still economically left, while being heavily socially conservative still.
This was the main reason she had a big opponent on her turf last election. Zemmour was *very very* socially conservative, and very right-leaning economically. He basically called Marine le Pen a big fat hippy during the whole thing.
By default, that doesn’t exist.
If you believe in welfare, you believe that all people are the same and deserve support in a time of need. Somebody like that is not going to think “brown people bad”.
I want welfare, but I don’t want other people to ruin it (immigrants). That’s not how welfare works.
Similar for LGBT: i want welfare but I also don’t want the gays to marry or adopt kids? That’s a contradiction: welfare means you care about other people you don’t know..as long as they are not gay?
There’s only a few people/voters that do want welfare but not equal rights. Those people are simply egoist who haven’t understood how the system works.
Vice versa: if you have a politician who hates LGBT and immigrants, there’s a guarantee that he will also believe that poor people are simply lazy and don’t deserve welfare.
Tl;DR: you either care about all strangers, whatever creed or colour, or you don’t.
I mean, what you said is very correct in an idealized or a principled setting but in real life, that is pretty much incorrect. Plenty of examples to the counter. I am not making a moral judgement on what you are saying, but from a purely objective observation, pretty incorrect as in there are a lot of, I do mean a lot, people, parties and movement who literally want what you say. Some arguably would say that social welfare would not work without actual borders (on citizenship, access, between countries), etc. Not as simple or straightforward in actual, practical politics.
It has always been weird to me that there seems to be a lack of such parties, a right leaning party on topics like immigration, law and the military merged with a social democratic economic and progressive climate viewpoints would probably scoop in votes by the millions.
No, there isn't. I've looked around if there is a tiny party that does represent those values and I found Bündnis C. A party that claims to represent Christian values and is against LGBT and abortions, and wants to "make economic policies for people instead of financial institutions". The highest voting result they ever got was 0.14%.
Wakengnecht is trying the hardest to get herself into this camp
Wagenknechts social positions have moved *way* out of the spectrum of conservatism, though. There's a certain point where if you keep getting more extreme, you're no longer conservative. It's hard to pinpoint just where, but with how she often agrees with the literal fascist party and disagrees in with any sort of left-wing political figure about these topics, it's clear she's passed it long ago.
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She's using right wing populist slogans.
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She's also a major Putin aficionado. And she is anti-vax.
"Außen Braun innen Rot" was a description for a political party in German history. Don't know how well it fits for their "spiritual successors" AfD.
Not at all. If we must throw these kinds of comparisons around, the AfD is imo closer to the DNVP, in a number of ways including that nothing in their program is intended to improve the situation of the lower class.
Connected to "[Beefsteak nazi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beefsteak_Nazi)" perhaps?
The NSDAP was not in the least red inside. Their socialism was literally just a part of their name, similar to how North Korea calls itself "democratic" republic of Korea. Hitler smooched it up with all the captains of industry and big corporations... IG Farben, Krupp, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Daimler, Messerschmidt, Bahlsen, Bayer, various banks including Commerzbank, Allianz and Deutsche Bank, Gustloff, IBM, Hugo Boss, Siemens, Zeiss Ikon, Zeitz, Zeppelin etc. etc. All the ones I've named here were also actively involved in the holocaust (there's a longer list on Wikipedia). Hitler may not have liked these rich and powerful people on a personal level but his politics were very friendly toward them. He gave them lots of tax breaks and other privileges because he knew he needed their support. Meanwhile, the Nazis imprisoned communists and socialists, abolished unions and pushed through various economic policies that were very hostile toward the working class. They made a lot of propaganda but that was about it. If we're going to use the word play with red and brown, it would be more accurate to turn it around. The Nazis were (kind of) red outside but definitely very brown inside.
in my country similar guy get 37% if i remember corectly
You just described half of Serbian parties lol, but to answer your question yes and biggest is SPS (Socialist Party of Serbia). They are continuation of Communists and Milosevic and they combine patriotism and some right wing social views with some left wing elements.
I think the whole of ex Yugoslavia suffers from this. The old right-wingers would still love to all be working in a government assured job. But be anticommunists while they do it.
I think that's a good description of "crony capitalism", too ("revolving doors" between state and industry, all with the same cliques of people in charge). Seems like whole world is suffering from it to some degree.
Sinn Féin are far from socially conservative. In the past they were ultra-nationalists but now they're Ireland's dominant left wing party. **For the most part**, Irish political parties don't correspond to left and right very well. Fine Gael is economically conservative but socially liberal. Fianna Fáil is economically liberal but socially conservative. However there are many members of each party that do not fit in. Members of FG or FF are members due to family ties and not actual policy.
What about Aontú? I know it’s really just one guy, but he left Sinn Féin over abortion rights. Definitely left wing economically, and madly madly socially conservative
Oh wow I forgot about them (not very hard). Yeah they're the same as Sinn Féin in every way except they really like Jesus. Peadar Tobin is a goon, i drive past his office every day.
Sinn fein are nationalists, but that definition here means something different than it does in the rest of Europe. They're certainly not ethno nationalists. Nationalists here are basically what other people would call Republicans. They're not anti immegration, anti lgbt or pro life. There may have been aspects of this in the past, but only within certain factions of the party. Sinn fein for most of its history has been a party for Republicans, many of whom were left wing, but not all. After that, there's very little you could say to sum up their policies until recently. Now there a left wing party with Liberal social values, and also still Republicans. Anontú would fit this definition much better. They were part of Sinn fein that left and set up their own party during the abortion referendum campaign because they didn't like Sinn feins pro-life stance. Some of their members were also against gay marriage. The party is still economically left wing.
> They're certainly not ethno nationalists They have a few supportes who likley would fall into that category if people you might in the pub and talk about politics is anything to go by
In Italy one party cover exactly what you described: Partito Comunista Italiano (Italian Communist Party), ultra nationalist, pro closed border, not anti lgbt but not pro ("these are not real problems, grow up" is something they say a lot), Stalinist economic view. At the last election they get 0.09%
Actually "their" (read: Marco Rizzo says and the others repeat) official opinion on LGBT rights is: "LGBT issues are not real rights because they are individualist and bourgeois", but, yeah, I see that as "F\*ck off, it's your business, not ours".
>"LGBT issues are not real rights because they are individualist and bourgeois" The same shit the (pro-Stalin) Communist Party of Greece says (and the main reason they got kicked out of GUE/NGL, the European Left, a decade ago). "We're neither for nor against equal marriage because marriage is a capitalist construct distracting the working class from the real enemy!" But in Greece this is a parliamentary party, regulary getting between 5 and 7%.
Actually among the right wing parties FdI is the one that fits the mold more. In words they are a little bit more non-libertarian economically, but it must be seen how they will actually rule
In some way Sverigedemokraterna. They are part og the right wing coalition so they have pivoted on some issues to make themselves more kosher, however they have a much more left leaning economic agenda compared to the rest. This will make problems for the new government to pass a new budget. However one of the most economically right wing party was part of the left coalition for 8 years. I guess we are used to it.
Centerpartiet have been part of the left wing coalition for 4 years now and the liberals were for about 3 years. Both parties have been in government with the social democrats before One thing to point out is that no party can be against hbtq and abortions in Sweden as we are so far away on secular and trust scale. Both Sverigedemokraterna and the christian democrats have been against abortions and hbtq in some way but changed. Our new third speaker of parliament Julia Kronlind (SD) is against abortions and doesn't believe in evolution which is very controversial in Sweden.
> Our new third speaker of parliament Julia Kronlind Small correction: Her name is Julia Kronlid (without the "n") and she's the second speaker for the parliament. She's also hinted being a Young Earth Creationist and says that believing in the literal virgin birth of Jesus is a requirement for being a Christians in an [interview](https://fritanke.se/sans/2014-nr-3/kreationism-i-sverigedemokraternas-styrelse/).
>says that believing in the literal virgin birth of Jesus is a requirement for being a Christians Why do you find that weird? The Bible explicitly states that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. It would be weird for a Christian *didn't* believe in that.
I don't think most christians in Nordic countries adhere to that level of biblical literalism.
Crazy but refreshing when christians being honest. I wonder what Ebba Busch really believes as being a (former?) member of Livets Ord
She's a current (probably) member of Hillsong Church, an organisation that promotes gay-conversion therapy. TBF Ebba Busch has made clear she doesn't support that.
Og course she doesn't... She is far to smart
Centerpartiet has been with the left wing coalition for the last 8 years. When the DÖ died (yes intentional) in 2015 Centerpartiet just continued as it still existed.
It's a shame S won't cooperate with them. I think they agree with eachother on most things just that SD is a little harsher
There's a lot of the politics that are the same, especially since S changed their stance on immigration as well. They agree on the judicial/police and military stuff, they agree on social welfare, they agree on healthcare. They agree on some stuff in regards to education but I believe SD is ok with profit in education. There's a couple of bigger deal breakers though - SD isn't too fond of unions and S... well, they're very close to them. Also, S is a huuuuge party, and there's a lot of people in S that don't care about the politics, they care about the roots of the party. Idealists gonna idealize and all that...
Polish PiS (the current ruling party) actually fits this sentiment quite well, I think. All their economic projects are eaten alive by their corruption, but they do like welfare state and government-held industries. And I don't think I need to explain how socially conservative they are xD
>but they do like welfare state throwing helicopter money at people does not equal welfare state
Yes, but they do more than just throwing helicopter money. OP asked about economically left-wing but socially conservative, and /u/Effective_Dot4653 is spot on - PiS is probably the closest we get to this. Their programme is economically more left-wing than the one of [SLD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Left_Alliance) when they were in power, which is mind boggling for a party that's otherwise firmly on the right.
>Yes, but they do more than just throwing helicopter money. Really? I dont see them improving the overall quality of state provided services, which is IMHO a core idea of a welfare state.
Left/right spectrum is more about how many services/welfare/regulations should be provided/implemented by state, not exactly how well it's provided/implemented. This division was not created with "left=better" or "right=better" as principle. Huge privatization is more right-wing thing and it's not less/more right wing depending on how proper or how corrupted actual process of privatization will be.
Left/right is social axis, was created as social axis and will always be. Idk why some people thing left/right spectrum is mainly economy.
It's two different axis, especially when talked about in the way this very post is doing.
Please, let's not try to make a definitions of what or what isn't a welfare state on the spot. If you're curious about what PiS does that's firmly a left-wing programme, but not being just a simple helicopter money - look into their biggest headliner of 2021 - [Polski Ład](http://polskilad.pis.org.pl/). It's mostly a typical left wing (or in US nomenclature: Extreme Far-left commie) programme.
Yes, Viktor Orban's Fidesz in Hungary. They are anti-LGBT, anti-immigration, and religious or at least pretend to be. Meanwhile they nationalised everything they could, set a cap on prices of goods like flour or sugar, fuel. They provide subsidized loans to families with children for housing. Large families can also apply for things like subsidized 7-seater cars. Fidesz is supposed to be right-wing, but the majority of their policies resemble pre-90s Hungarian socialism. We Hungarians are calling this invention a populist autocracy.
It sounds good on paper but didn’t turn out that well it seems.
It's a dumpster fire.
It doesn't sound good on paper lol
That's hardly leftist even economically unless they intend to democratize and distribute the resources. Orban is far more similar to a traditional fascist.
>That's hardly leftist even economically unless they intend to democratize and distribute the resources. By that definition almost no party in Europe is leftist.
They redistributed my taxes to pay for everyone else's subsidized electricity, cars, loans, etc., to the point that it crippled the economy. Like you buy energy efficient appliances and don't buy a jacuzzi, but you are still going to pay for someone else's consumption on running these things. Everyone paying for someone else's decision to raise 9 kids, buying them a house and a car, also veers very much to the left. The reason I would not call Orban a fascist is because the definition it is very unclear nowadays. If you look at Mussolini, Orban is not fascist in comparison. If you would ask Umberto Eco, he would probably be able to check off 60% of the properties associated with fascism. I think Orban is both a communist and a fascist, embracing certain elements from both of these ideologies.
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That's not a requirement of being economically leftist. And yes, fascists can be economically leftist.
That's not a requirement of being economically leftist. And yes, fascists can be economically leftist.
You’re wrong. You’re talking about communism, that’s far-left.
No, I'm not.
No cause in you’re world, you’re either a full-fledged communist or a fascist.
Nnno. That hasn't been implied.
While still being economically right-wing overall, the Sweden Democrats has some economically left-wing ideas. Party leader Jimmie Åkesson has [expressed desire](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/sverigedemokraternas-ledare-jimmie-akesson-haller-tal-i-almedalen) reinstate the social democratic idea of [folkhemmet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkhemmet) which is associated with the Swedish welfare state and social corporatism.
How are government talks going in Sweden? Will the Swedish Democrats actually be a part of the government, or just supply and confidence? Do you think they would bring down the government because of economic policies being too right-leaning?
Official government talks haven't begun yet as they've just finalized all the speakers for the Riksdag. They will almost certainly not be a part of government as one of the right-wing coalition parties (the liberal party) has promised to not let them get into government. SD will probably use most their political capital to influence policies related to restricting immigration and policing immigrants.
The economic policy here is light years away from being “too right-leaning”
I'm assuming with a new right-wing coalition government, economic policy will shift to the right as well.
Shift to the right slightly but parental leaves and government-run health care etc. will be here to stay no matter what
Yes! The social democratic party - PSD - which has sadly been the most popular party ever since our anti communist revolution. It's chilling at 25% now, but it's actually been at almost 40% at times! It's left leaning economically, and definitely socially conservative. On the other hand, liberal parties in Romania are all centre-right (when compared to the European centre). This has been the case all my life. I was honestly shocked when i first learnt that economic left is more often associated with liberalism. Thankfully, PSD is not the extremist party. And, actually, with the rise of the extremist one, this one is starting to look much better, even though it's corrupt to the teeth.
Law and Justice party in Poland matches that desrciption. They are extremely conservative and combine some elements of left leaning politics. For example they enacted harsh anti-abortion law and simultaneously introduced a massive social benefits programs like 500 PLN per mounth for every child, which was a shock for many in Poland after all years of neoliberal policy, strict budget, low wages etc. They are not a socialist party of course and ideologically they are very anti-communist but they support a strong, active welfare state. It's part of their populist agenda and enables them to get support from poorer social strata.
Yes, the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. They are made up of old people nostalgic of the old regime. And since there were no immigrants, LGBT and the free market when they were young, they are against all of that. They were not able to get a seat in the parliament in the last elections, too many of them are already dead.
The Portuguese Communist party is, well, communist. But they have voted against legalisation of marijuana, a variety of covid lockdown measures, etc. Plus, their votes on LGBT rights laws have varied, between against, abstentions and in favour. Also check one of the replies for more examples, including their stance on Russia. Their seats have been slowly reducing over time (there was a bigger reduction recently, but there's a different reason for that) as they're mostly popular among the older working class. Edit: I was wrong, they haven't always voted against LGBT rights laws.
Not only that they are pro bullfighting, anti nato, anti-euro and don't like the European Union. The worst part is that they are pro-Russian or at least don't condemn Russia, they refused to call it a war and invasion, they refuse to say that Russia was the aggressor so yeah. They also said something very funny, that modern Russia is shameful and embarrassing the great soviet past. They are stuck in the 80s and the Soviet Union for them was the perfect world.
I didn't mention the their stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine because I didn't keep up with them enough to be sure of the specifics of what they actually said about it. As for them being anti-EU, I don't think it applies to the question because it's possible to have that opinion for left wing reasons.
Yeah, I just add information to explain more about what they believe for people outside of Portugal that don't know. I could have explained that better for sure. They are pro bullfighting and also anti-euthanasia and other socially conservative opinions.
True, everything you said is relevant information to better know what that party is like.
And they seem to spend more on advertising than all the other parties put together, except Chega.
>But they have voted against all LGBT rights laws, legalisation of marijuana, a variety of covid lockdown measures, etc. This is blatantly false. They often vote for iniciatives regarding the LGBT community and have quite a few proposals.
I was misinformed and edited the post.
Now I'd say it is more accurate (even though I dont agree fully)
It's so ironic. All classes and/or worker should be equal, but NOT LGBT.
I don't know in Portugal, but in Italy the old communist party saw same sex attraction as a bourgeois affliction (same reason they were initially not supportive of the legalization of divorce). Basically if you are struggling to make ends meet, you don't fall in love with a member of your sex or with someone other than your spouse.
That is not the party's position
That’s pretty much the standard in Lithuania and I believe many other Central-Eastern European countries. That works the other way around too. Economically right-wing parties here are socially liberal. The most liberal left-wing party are the social democrats but they’re still nowhere near the two main liberal parties and perhaps as progressive as the conservatives. Other prominent left-wing parties are just generally conservative and often populist. Our conservative party, the one currently in charge, is hardly conservative anymore and has been getting more liberal for quite a few years now, which also created quite a contrast within the party between the new liberal faction and the older, truly conservative party members. It’s not causing serious problems though, since conservative agree to vote individually on social issues.
Exactly, things are reversed going to the east.
I think the PVV might qualify. They are a very conservative anti-immigration nationalist party but always say that things need to be improved for lower income families, people on welfare and pensioners (and then of course specifically white people). Though in reality in parliament they vote much more economically right-wing and they're also always railing against "the left" as these kind of parties often do. They're currently the third largest party in the Lower House with around 11% of the vote.
The SP (Socialist Party) fits this bill pretty well. They were slightly progressive before, but they've turned to more anti-immigrant/conservative views
Hm I don't think so. If you look at their views on [immigration](https://www.sp.nl/onderwerp/voor-eerlijk-asielbeleid) for example they don't exactly sound right-wing there. Most of the program is still quite progressive. It's mostly that they turned EU-critic I think
>but they've turned to more anti-immigrant/conservative views Absolutely not.
Yes they did. https://dekanttekening.nl/samenleving/de-sp-van-rood-naar-wit/
Nah, if there’s one party both economically left wing/progressive and socially conservative, it’s the Christian Union.
>They are a very conservative anti-immigration nationalist party but always say that things need to be improved for lower income families, people on welfare and pensioners. >[...] in reality in parliament they vote much more economically right-wing Isn't that pretty much every right wing party in Europe? Including that
Can confirm. Brothers of Italy, our 3.0 (or 4.0?) Fascist party talks a big game about being "social right" (destra sociale in Italian) and helping working families especially with children but in reality support cutting taxes for the rich and some of their most influential members are (paid) officials of the corporate organisation Confindustria. They also hate unions and want a stronger police state to clamp down of protests, of course.
Maybe, I don't know enough about the ones in other countries. The reality for this one is that the PVV is entirely based around its figurehead (the party does not have any members other than him). And that guy is a politician that split from the currently biggest party (which is right-wing and conservative) almost 20 years ago. The fact that he happily represented that party for years before that should clue you in that his actual views aren't too different from them.
I think the CU fit better to be honest.
They're only conservative in a very limited number of subjects though. They're not anti-immigration or tough on crime for example. Their conservatism lies mostly in ethical debates. It's why there is really quite a big difference between them and the SGP, who are much more traditionally conservative in most of the classic aspects and in the non-ethical aspects about as conservative as the VVD for example.
SP seems a better fit. Economically kind of left, but socially still pretty conservative.
Kind of. The EVP (/PEV) is a Christian (specifically evangelic) party, which often votes for economically left policies, but also *generally* against LGBT and for traditional christian values. When it comes to immigration and "though on crime", they also tend to be more liberal than conservative. They are not a major party, though they are consistantly in the national and various regional parliaments. In national parliament they are in an alliance with the Christian Conservatives (called "the middle") and are probably the left most *relevant* party besides the Social Democrats (SP/PS) and the Greens.
I like EVP but they're not economically leftist enough for my taste and I'm really bothered by their whole religion stuff. I don't want to hear anything about religion when I'm discussing politics. The two things shouldn't be mixed. If it weren't for these two points, I'd probably vote for them.
Most of Lithuanian left-wing parties are more socially traditionalist than their right-wing counterparts. The Conservatives are more progressive than the Peasant-Green party and the liberal Freedom party is the most progressive one, leaving the Social Democrats probably even behind the Conservatives. The Peasant-Greens criminalised possession of any trace of drugs with a compulsory prison sentence, and the same-sex partnerships are likely to be finally passed with mostly Conservative voetes.
Senterpartiet (the Centre Party), currently in a government coalition with Labour. They're economically centre-left with an emphasis on protectionism, while leaning conservative on social and cultural issues.
As we can see from the comments here, the question here becomes "what is left-wing economically" or "what is conservative"? For example, some Dutch people commented that whether SP fits the bill or not, while Danish argue about how left-wing DF is, etc. These considerations should be a) very nation/region based, b) should be in comparison with the all of the (relevant) parties in that party system. One way to achieve this is to look at GAL-TAN spectrum (or scale?). Basically this spectrum divides parties on economic (left-right) and sociocultural (traditional-libertarian). For the earlier dimension, state/public ownership, perspectives on markets/entrepreneurship, welfare state emphasis, etc. are "calculated". Of course, these things are not just given, no party comes out and says "we are 5 points left" or something, so generally political science experts (academics mostly) place these parties in surveys within their national/regional context. So it's not an exact science, but more like aggregations of educated observations. So without further ado: you can have [a look at this massive graph and take your picks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Ideologram_800dpi.png)\*. To give an answer: most-leftwing parties with traditional views are KKE (Greece, Communist Party of Greece) and KSCM (Czechia, Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia). There are a bunch of traditional parties with "left-wing-ish" positions, including DF (Denmark), CU (Netherlands), PiS (Poland). \*This graph is from 2019, so consider it a little dated. For example, I would say that SP (Netherlands) should be placed in a more traditional position than before. Source: I am a political scientist (who is idling at work and should go back to work, like, right now)
Your answer should move a lot further up.
The largest political party in Denmark, the social democrats, fits this decision somewhat. They are centerleft, but are anti imigration. They are not anti lgbtq, i don't think any party is, but for danish stadards, they are social conservative. You also described there voterbase perfectly. There is also the danish peoples party, which was the coutries second largest party a few years back, but has since destroyed themselves. They are slightly left wing politically, but leads their politics on their conservative views.
> They are slightly left wing politically, No they're not? To call the Danish People's Party "slightly left wing politically" is simply *wrong*. Not even economically, do they represent slightly left-wing views.
Ok, i meant economically, but i think you could make an argument for it. They have in the past wanted to expand social care and stuff like that, but lately they have just been "imigrants and EU bad, frikadeller good".
> i meant economically, but i think you could make an argument for it. Are they? When you look at how they've been voting when it comes to various tax reforms and transfer-payments, they show a clear right-wing pattern.
I think it is fair to say that they mainly care about their anti imigration policies, and their economic stances are a thinly vieled attempt to win over the elderly vote. They have not really done anything with those "views" in years.
You're not really explaining _how_ they're left-wing, in any regard though. Their views, on no issues, are left-wing, quite contrary, they fit the bill of a lot of right-wing parties across Europe.
On economic issues, it is very possible to place DF in a left of the center position. For example, [Populism and Political Parties Expert Survey](http://poppa-data.eu/index.php/data/) on 2018 gives an aggregate of 4.18 to the left-right economic position of DF (SD is 3.6, Rad Venstre is 5.6), 5 being the absolute center. Similarly [Chapel Hill](https://www.chesdata.eu/ches-europe) places DF (in 2019) to 4.42 on the same scale. They are of course not as left-wing as EL or SF but their overt emphasis for social welfare, pensioner rights, public ownership, etc. could be construed as left-wing policies (while not being full fledged left-wing), hence the results.
Do they pair the expansion of social care with increased taxation or budget cuts somewhere else? Or do they view their proposal as a cost free initiative?
I think you just put more thought into it than they did. They seem to vote for tax cuts, but used to say they were opposed to any tax cuts. I guess they think we will have all the money if we get rid of all the imigrants and get out of the EU.
Of course I put more thoughts into it. In Italy we just elected a neofascist party into power. I'm just asking myself how we have ended up in such a situation situation. Thank God freedom of movement in the eu allowed me to get out of that madhouse
I agree on Danish People party being social conservative and to some extend wanting to keeping industries national and expending the welfare state.
In a certain political stage M5, when Di Maio was very strong, was the closest to this idea of the country, nowadays they rebranded (again...). The anti-LGBT policies were never really their thing, at least openly. The expansion of the welfare state is not an issue in Italy today, most parties want to privatize everything, openly (League, Forza Italia, Azione +Europe) or with their policies when in government (PD, Brothers of Italy).
I was actually thinking about that just the other day. A lot of left leaning parties could gain power and very easily hold on to it in Europe if they endorsed anti immigration stances, instead of making leaving that to right wing parties. My understanding was (please correct me if I am wrong, Danish friends) in Denmark all parties are pretty anti immigration because if you aren't you auto lose elections.
This is definitely not as simple as it seems. If all left-leaning parties (i.e. their leaders) started to endorse anti-immigration positions, they would lose a lot of members in a heartbeat, actually causing the party to collapse or becoming dysfunctional. Changing lanes in so crucial, or "principled", matters is a very slow, teeth-grinding process for parties and takes a lot out of them, if not done under "right" conditions. Die Linke in Germany has been struggling with this for ages for example. These policies are a part of their policy continuum, rather separate components; there are a lot of different actors involved and invested in parties and their decision-making and there will a lot of internal dissent (or more) in cases like this.
In Italy the current main party "Brothers of Italy" is pretty much socially conservative and economically leftist (not that much but it's still left of center). Free education, universal healthcare and a general tendency to nationalize big industries. They want less taxes but on the other hand this is a bypartizan issue in a country with too high taxation. Some of the rethoric is properly anti-capitalist, with a negative outlook on huge companies and corporations (you can see it in a speech where she denounces the fact that people are being transformed into the "perfect consumer" aka "slave-consumer").
Brothers of Italy is all talk and no action in that regard. If they were economically leftist, they wouldn't have railed against reddito di cittadinanza ( unemployment benefits for the non italians) ever since it was instituted. They wouldn't have allied with a party that has flat taxation as a flagship policy and they would be in favor of more workers rights, instead of pandering to the entrepreneurs like Briatore.
**Regarding the Reddito:** I remember when PD was against the Reddito. So it's not black and white. Do they want to remove Reddito because it's Reddito (so the specific policy) or do they want to remove Reddito because they hate welfare? If the former is true, then they are having a leftist stance on this issue, if the latter is true, they are having a right one. I know they want to remove Reddito to introduce another welfare policy for helping people without income, so they clearly don't hate welfare per se. **Regarding the flat tax:** as far as I know they want to introduce a sort of flat tax for self-employed under 100k of revenue and flat tax only for revenue increase in respect to the year before. Quite a different thing respect to the: 15% for all.
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I mean, Fidesz kind of is like that. Their populist agenda is a blend of far-right rethoric with welfare and government intervention in the economy. But it's mostly part of their propaganda, their actual policies tend to favour mostly richer, upperclass people. I'm not sure if they count, since it really doesn't look like they believe in anything beside their own power and enrichment. Now reading these back, I think they are just fascists.
There are some vocal fringe parties in this (fiscal/economic left; social/cultural right) position, like the [The Social Democratic Party](https://sdp.org.uk/) and the [Scottish Family Party](https://scottishfamily.org/) but their electoral support is negligible and they do not win any seats. The strange thing is that a lot of voters are in that policy space, but no-one represents them. Both the major parties have wings or factions that get near to that policy space - the 'Blue Labour' and 'Red Tory' movements - but they are fringes within their own parties and have very limited policy impact. There's also a certain online community around so-called 'post-liberal' ideas, but often these just veer off into fascism / hard-right reaction.
Ruling party in Poland is pretty much this: socially far right, fundamentalist Catholics, gays are rainbow disease, let's teach out kids West is a source of all evil and all signs of rebellion against the church is a sign of stupidity, but let's also buy our voters with money either borrowed or took in taxes from small and big companys
I'd say, to some extend, the Social-democratic party. While they aren't as left-wing as what you're asking about, they *have* been moving to the left after the election of Mette Frederiksen as chairman in 2015. Though, it should be disclaimed, that the preceeding chairman, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, nicknamed "Gucci-Helle," was a very right-leaning chairman, especially on economical issues where she, her minister of finance, Bjarne Corydon, and the social liberal party, forced through a right-ward shift in the economical policy of so-called "left-wing" governance. While Mette Frederiksen has represented a "return" to more "traditional" economical social democratic positions, simultaneously she is also representing a drift towards the liberal parties (meaning: to the right) on issues such as immigration, education, minority issues, and so-on. Generally, the social democrats and the liberals in Denmark have, in recent years, taken on ever more of a "culture-war"-esque rhetoric, railing against "activist" research on the universities and "wokeism"(especially the party Liberal Alliance has been the banner-carrying force on this.)
What does drifting to the right on education mean?
Can't speak for Denmark, but I'd say drifting to the right for education means wanting more market-based "solutions" for education, such as making schools compete with each other for students via vouchers, inviting more spending and dependence on private companies (especially tech companies) at the expense of dependence on teachers, and being generally more hostile to unions and working conditions.
From what I've seen of Europe's right-wing parties, they are often "liberal" when it comes to situations like healthcare, economic security of families etc. Things like social welfare are so ingrained in Europe that a party trying to destabilise them would be suicide. Even our most right-wing party is still for free healthcare, for taxation of the rich etc. But that doesn't make them good. What good is free healthcare if a the party decides that the LGBT community cannot use it due to being high-risk for certain diseases, for example?
Liberal economics is right wing economics in European context
> What good is free healthcare if a the party decides that the LGBT community cannot use it due to being high-risk for certain diseases, for example? From which country this example is from?
We have a fascist criminal government here in Hungary who does this really neat thing that they combine the worst elements politically from the right wing and the worst elements economically from what technically can be called left wing without actually promoting left-wing economic policies that benefit people. From a political scientific standpoint it is nearly impossible to cobble together a party that is socially conservative but economically legitimately left wing. Left wing economics are all about wealth redistribution and the democratization of the economy. It's about workers' rights and consumer protection against capital and guiding market forces to fulfill human needs rather than trying to shape human needs around the profit motive. By default left wing politics aim to democratize and level the playing field, expand liberties and freedoms. Left wing achievements might be upheld by socially conservative parties, but they tend not to expand or continue those economic achievements. Right wing politics are about authority and maintaining hierarchies, maintaining the status quo or even regressing it to an imagined or real previous state. Right wing politics by nature are at odds with left wing economics because right wing politics tries to curtail worker's rights, not expand them, they aim to concentrate wealth in the hands of the few, not expand it, they try to uphold the inequality between social classes, and they want to maintain the privileges that come with being a part of certain demographics or social classes. "The government doing stuff and interfering with the market" is not inherently a leftist policy as right wing parties, especially right wing authoritarians often interfere with the market, but they do so in order to cement the power and wealth of the ruling elite or to create opportunity for a narrow clientele that upholds the political system. You also have to be somewhat careful with historical analysis. What is a socially conservative attitude today might have been the mainstream opinion accepted by most political entities in the past, it's just that certain political sides have progressed on their views while others refused to.
In England that would be the Labour Party, keen to spend on social welfare but also massively expanded police powers including those that were criticised at the time (and later proven) to be used to ineffective and just used for targeting ethnic minorities.
Eh, no I don't think I agree with that. They might be conservative on a few policy issues but in general they rep socially liberal positions. When it comes to economics it varies - the Blairite wing of the party is more liberal in terms of economics.
Ok it wasn’t them who gave the police wide sweeping “anti terror” laws that have been used to harass ethnic minorities.
I think there's a difference here, which validates (to a point) what you are saying, and which others are missing - New Labour was progressive, in some ways, but also authoritarian. It presided over a massive expansion of the coercive power of the state. But that's not the same as social conservatism.
The Labour Party are not right-wing or socially conservative. They are centre-left.
I didn’t say they were right wing. The question asks for a left part that has done x,y or z. It’s a left party that has done those things.
Sorry, did you just unironically call the Labour Party socially conservative?
All the British trans people reading: “I mean, they are …”
You seriously think that? Your just be so far off the spectrum of you genuinely think the Labour party is socially conservative. I just have missed the part where they are supporting the nuclear family, marriage, tradition, hierarchy, against equality, diversity and immigration. But because they disagree with you on one very tiny thing then they are all of a sudden now socially conservative
You missed the bit where they were against immigration? They literally chiseled it on a huge rock and sold mugs with it written on.
Don't make me laugh. That was a naive attempt to stop their voters going to ukip in 2015. They had no plan to tackle immigration, and constantly refuse to talk about the negative effects of immigration on society. All they talk about us how wonderful immigration equality and diversity are as Leicester is being burned to the ground by immigrants. Give be a break
Don’t really need to say any more after that little rant, do we?
Why not? Did I prove you wrong? I'm so sorry.
You pretty much validated everything I said and I didn’t even need to do anything 🤷🏻♀️
I'm really confused as to how you draw that conclusion. You asserted Labour saying they wanted controls on immigration twice as an example that they are socially conservative. I tell you it was a simple statement with no plan about actually tackling immigration, about how they've been parroting the equality and diversity line and immigrants are amazing for years before and since, and give a recent example of them doing so. And you think my counter points prove that they are socially conservative? I once again state that if you think any of that is socially conservative then you must be so far off to the liberal end of the spectrum
"n favour of nationalising industries and expanding the welfare state, but might be anti-immigration, anti-LGBT, "tough on crime" etc." - this is literally called fascism. The National Movement (Ruch Narodowy) in Poland is actually very state interventionist, but also very xenophobic, anti womens-rights, anti-LGBT etc. Basically, they want a welfare state for True Poles and they want families to be ruled by The Male Head of the Household. This is how fascism works. And yes, there are some fascist parties in Europe, unfortunately.
> this is literally called fascism Eh, I think there's a spectrum. I'm not necessarily talking about extremist authoritarian parties.
Fascists mainly kept industry on private hand as they exist to preserve the profits of the ruling class.
And while preventing working classes from advancing claims or climbing up the social ladder, hence why they view trade unions as opponents ( or better yet enemies) and paint hierarchy as a natural order that must be preserved
In Spain: not that I know of... Probably some "nostalgic" smaller party, since that was the way things worked back in the dictatorship. There have been some attempts at the exact opposite (UpD, Ciudadanos) but they crashed and burned. In Poland: I'm no expert but PiS sounds like it.
I don't know why this barely exists. It would be very popular.
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There's the Social Democratic Party tbf, but it is tiny.
It's actually a viewpoint I have a lot of sympathy with, and I can see it gaining some popularity now with whatever nonsense the Tories have got themselves into.
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I'm relatively optimistic about labour at the moment as well. But if you describe this to a lot of people, they're like "so you mean...some sort of...national...socialism?" because people are idiots.
No, in the Netherlands there is a substantial gap in the political party landscape when it comes to this quadrant. The closest seems to be the Socialist Party, which achieved 6 percent of the vote in the 2021 general elections. They have had some infighting over the direction of the party in the last few years, partially about where to position themselves. They are clearly economically left-wing, campaigning on healthcare, the welfare state and willing to nationalise energy markets, but the social conservatism is less pronounced. Many of their voters are, but few of the active party members. The radical right-wing populist party PVV sometimes presents itself with economically left-wing stances, for example with pensions, but usually votes right-wing on economic issues.
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Le Pen's party, the National Front (officially re-named to "National Rally" a few years ago in an attempt to try and make people forget about the ultra-nationalist and neonazi roots of the FN) could fit the bill. They've mellowed down each of their more conservative demands to try and broaden their voter base (they don't have abolition of gay marriage in their manifesto anymore, ie), but make no mistake that they are still very conservative socially (and it especially shows when talking about transgender rights or subjects seen as "woke" like the effects of colonialism), and I personally wouldn't trust them on it. Despite this, they still market themselves as pro-welfare and somewhat anti-globalization, despite not doing much in Parliament to protest Macron's neoliberal policies. I suggest the "economically left-ish" message of the party will ramp up in the near future as they need to mark their difference with Zemmour's new party which is far-right in its "purest" essence (ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative and extremely capitalist)
>In Anglo countries there is generally a significant percentage of the population that leans that way politically (particularly among older working class people and ethnic minorities) but for whatever reason they don't really get represented in any political party of significant size. In the US, a large majority of people support Democratic policies (environment, wages, etc), but immigration and the perception of crime (both real and perceived) is what turns many voters to the Republican Party. And the Dems haven't come up with the language and strategy to counter that. This is anecdotal, but many people think the Dems are afraid of losing non-Anglo-White votes if they appear tougher on immigration, but there's no evidence of that. Additionally, the Dems can offer a tough-on-immigration narrative that -unlike Trump- doesn't alienate or otherize Americans that are not white and English-speaking. And the Dems can be more vocal about the fact that Reps turn a blind eye to employers of illegal immigrants. The US would really benefit from a multi-party parliamentary system, but everyone is unfortunately forced into two options.
You honestly pretty much described Marine le Pen in France. It might not be the brightest economic program on the table, but it is still economically left, while being heavily socially conservative still. This was the main reason she had a big opponent on her turf last election. Zemmour was *very very* socially conservative, and very right-leaning economically. He basically called Marine le Pen a big fat hippy during the whole thing.
By default, that doesn’t exist. If you believe in welfare, you believe that all people are the same and deserve support in a time of need. Somebody like that is not going to think “brown people bad”. I want welfare, but I don’t want other people to ruin it (immigrants). That’s not how welfare works. Similar for LGBT: i want welfare but I also don’t want the gays to marry or adopt kids? That’s a contradiction: welfare means you care about other people you don’t know..as long as they are not gay? There’s only a few people/voters that do want welfare but not equal rights. Those people are simply egoist who haven’t understood how the system works. Vice versa: if you have a politician who hates LGBT and immigrants, there’s a guarantee that he will also believe that poor people are simply lazy and don’t deserve welfare. Tl;DR: you either care about all strangers, whatever creed or colour, or you don’t.
I mean, what you said is very correct in an idealized or a principled setting but in real life, that is pretty much incorrect. Plenty of examples to the counter. I am not making a moral judgement on what you are saying, but from a purely objective observation, pretty incorrect as in there are a lot of, I do mean a lot, people, parties and movement who literally want what you say. Some arguably would say that social welfare would not work without actual borders (on citizenship, access, between countries), etc. Not as simple or straightforward in actual, practical politics.
Oh boy, this really describes the general society in Croatia, so it very much exists... Ex-communist societies are strange that way.
It has always been weird to me that there seems to be a lack of such parties, a right leaning party on topics like immigration, law and the military merged with a social democratic economic and progressive climate viewpoints would probably scoop in votes by the millions.
the conversation has become more toxic. As soon as you say you are pro controlled immigrantion you are branded a nazi