Continental drift

In Austria on Sunday, the left marched the faithful to the polls and secured victory in the re-run presidential election for Alexander Van der Bellen, the former Green leader. In Italy, things didn’t quite so well for Matteo Renzi (above), who has now resigned after the failure of his referendum to change the Italian constitution. First Brexit, then Trump and now, well, what next?

Quadrant‘s John O’Sullivan, writing in National Review, offers his analysis. A sample:

…next year we will have – in addition to the French presidential elections — a Dutch election in which the populist party of Geert Wilders (who is currently on trial for demanding fewer Moroccan immigrants in Holland) may end up as the largest single group in parliament, and a German election in which Angela Merkel will seek a fourth mandate in a contest in which, for the first time, a populist anti-migrant party, the AFD, may win a serious number of votes and seats and deprive the conservative Christian Democrats of office even in a coalition, as now.. Something big is clearly going on.

The essay can be read in full via the link below.

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