'Look On My Works, Ye Mighty, And Despair’

The far right across Europe used to dream of seeing their countries leave the European Union. In France, they called for a Frexit; in Germany, it was Dexit. But recently these calls have quietened. The reason is not that far-right parties have become enamoured of the EU, but rather they now understand that instead of quitting, they can reshape the EU into a collection of “strong” nation states that will each enact their own rightwing anti-migration agenda.

As Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally (RN) in France, recently remarked in explaining why his party no longer called for France to quit the EU: “You don’t leave the table when you are winning the game.”

If you can't beat them, join them (and subvert them), eh? How delicious! 

The German government is on a dangerous path. The country holds a central position in the EU and is its largest economy, meaning that this plan, which goes against one of the central tenets of the EU, threatens to undermine the European project.

Oh noes! Disaster! Who could do such a thing? 

A cornerstone of that project was the ambition to make national borders disappear by creating the passport-free Schengen area, which now includes 25 of the 27 EU member states. It was one of the reasons why the EU received the Nobel peace prize in 2012 – although even then, thousands of migrants were dying at the EU’s external borders every year. At the time, a representative of the union declared: “Over the past 60 years, the European project has shown that it is possible for peoples and nations to come together across borders. That it is possible to overcome the differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’.”

Actually, enough Europeans have realised that it doesn't show that at all, that in fact it shows the opposite. And they've had enough of a union that's no longer working for them, but for itself.  

Besides stoking up racist resentment in society and undermining the rights of vulnerable groups, the German government risks putting the EU itself in jeopardy. The very idea of a political community that enshrines the right to free movement across borders is crumbling before our eyes. And it is not migrants who are to blame.

Ah, well, it had a good run while it lasted.