WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN EUROPE:

But now, German chancellor Gerhard Schroder has called on the European Union to ‘quell the far right’, by paying ‘urgent attention to the issue of law and order’ (why is that always their solution? More law’n’order clampdowns?). It will hardly be surprising if mainstream politicians try to make mileage out of standing up to the far right – just as Chirac did against Le Pen in France and as local politicians did against the British National Party in Britain. After all, these mainstream politicians don’t have any decent policies or ideas of their own worth voting for – but at least they aren’t fascist scum, eh?

Mick Hume of spiked made sense of the reaction to Fortuyn’s death, arguing: ‘The way that one politically meaningless shooting in the Netherlands has shaken the Continent reveals the strength of the culture of fear today…. Whatever the reasons behind Fortuyn’s death, we can be certain that, driven by the culture of fear, the response to it will pose a far more urgent threat to democracy than the far right or a crackpot vegan assassin. It will strengthen the view that a united front against the spectre of “extremism” is more important than political debate, and that certain views cannot safely be expressed. It will reinforce the “safety first” attitude about protecting politicians from the public, and protecting the public from themselves.

The sad thing is, I think that this may turn out to be an optimistic assessment.