FIVE YEARS ago right-wing populist parties held office in only a couple of EU member countries. Today they have a share of power in eight, and expect to make gains in the European Parliament elections between June 6th and 9th. Some of these hard-right outfits have been banging away for decades. Others are relative newcomers. What unites them are the things they hate: immigration, Islam, climate-change regulations and the power of the EU over its member states. Most also dislike feminism, and gay and trans rights. Each adjusts the message to suit its circumstances.
Western Europeans like to think they set the continent’s trends, but the wave of hard-right success started in the east. Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party won power in Hungary in 2010 and took over the courts and the media. Poland’s Law and Justice party imitated those moves while in office from 2015-23. Europe’s migrant crisis of 2015-16 was a gift to both parties, but they fell out over Mr Orban’s friendliness to Russia. That split runs throughout Europe’s hard right: in Poland, the Baltics and the Nordic countries, nationalists see the Kremlin as an enemy; in the Balkans and elsewhere, things are more ambiguous.