A Far-Right Alliance Between England and France?

An old political saying “First count the votes” is even more relevant today. And yet, the wannabe leaders of France and Britain, Jordan Bardella and Nigel Farage, seem to have forgotten it.

That is perhaps the best explanation why the far-right in Paris and London is grandiosely announcing joint plans to remake not only their own nations, but also Europe as a whole.

Mutual admiration society

Bardella made headlines in London when he said that Farage will be the next prime minister of Britain. However, it is far from clear that such a strong endorsement from the French far-right helps Farage at home.

Farage, who is a stereotypical English golf club bar room Francophobe, has long made a career out of disparaging the French and promoting Donald Trump. His regular claim to cast Trump’s United States as a global model that all should heed and admire is not widely popular in the UK.

Very practical obstacles in their way

Looking at the UK, it is nevertheless true that the level of disillusionment in the country with the traditional Conservative, Labour and Liberal-Democrat politicians that have been in charge of the country for the past 150 years is immense.

And no doubt, Farage is leading the polls and, owing to Britain’s first-past-the-post election system, as of now would be on track to lead the country.

Even so, the likely year of the next British general election is … 2029.

Mutual admiration society

The reason why Jordan Bardella recently hopped across the Channel aboard the Eurostar train was to collect some Farage star dust to his bid to enter the Elysée after the French presidential elections in April 2027, with the run-off final ballot two weeks later.

The BBC obligingly treated the brief Bardella Eurostar visit as a major event. The youthful French leader did not disappoint, saying that he and Farage would form a governing tandem that would remake Europe.

Time on their side

It is true that both the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, and the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, is not popular. However, both national leaders have time on their side.

While their far-right challengers huff and puff hoping to blow down the edifice of the British and French state, they have plenty of time to make mistakes.

Anything but flawless on the hard right

Farage, for example, is embroiled in an antisemitism row with students at the expensive private school he attended in London, an institution which he left without gaining a university place and went to work in a junior clerical job on the London Metal Exchange in the City of London.

At that school, a number of his contemporaries have come forward to insist Farage mocked them if they were Jewish or black. One described Farage saying “Hitler was right” while making hissing noises of gas escaping.

Farage claims that this was normal school behavior amongst 17-18 year olds at the time but his fellow students, if Jewish, say they felt intimidated.

Will Bardella become France’s president?

What about Bardella’s odds to become President of France? That proposition is much contested in France, not least given the experience of having a president in Emmanuel Macron who entered the top office when he was not yet 40. This certainly has not enamored French voters to another young president, in this case still in his early thirties.

And even if elected, as things currently stand, as president Bardella would have to spend more than two years in office working with the British prime minister who may well still be Sir Keir Starmer.

No better dice even if Starmer is moved aside

It is certainly possible that Starmer will be replaced by the Labour Party by someone more likely to keep the keys of Downing Street. Even so, there is no suggestion – other than in the more excitable fringes of English conservative journalism – that Labour will hold the next election before the summer of 2029.

So whoever is the next French president will have to work with a Labour prime minister in 2027-2019.

Tighter refugee policy?

As a political gift for the English far right, Bardella said during his London visit that he would work with Farage to stop small boats crossing Channel with asylum seekers.

To be sure, Sir Keir Starmer or any other Labour prime minister would welcome such a change in French government policy. Up to now, the French approach has been based on watching criminal traffickers fill small boats with asylum seekers which set off for the English coast 20 miles away.

The question for Bardella or any French presidential candidate is: Would French voters, especially in northern France close to the Straits of Dover and the English Channel, really want their next president to be doing London’s work by keeping asylum seekers in France, instead of them being a problem for les RosBifs?

A Meloni-like conversion of the RN?

It is also assumed in France that whoever is the far-right candidate will drop the primitive anti-European Union posturing that has long been the trademark of the Rassemblement National. Instead, the approach applied by the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni may prevail.

She began her rise to lead Italy’s far-right in the manner of Farage blaming Brussels for all the problems Europe faced.

How anti-EU is Britain now?

Nigel Farage famously helped Boris Johnson win Brexit in 2016. But the mood in the UK has changed. In recent weeks, newspapers and opinion polls are queuing up to denounce Brexit as a major threat to any economic growth prospects for the UK.

Private polling for Labour shows Farage isn’t bothered by accusations of being called racist, anti-immigrant or pro-Putin – but he hates being branded Mr. Brexit.

Even the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch now says Brexit has damaged Britain. So, the next French president – even if a far right one – isn’t likely to join the Farage-Trump chorus that chants anti-EU hymns which no longer enthuse voters.

Conclusion

Bardella is not going to gather votes in France by being a junior partner in a US-UK far-right alliance between Trump and Farage. There will be no meaningful 21st century entente cordiale between Britain and France. Other than low-rent demagogy on race, Europe’s new nationalist populists have very little they agree on.