The far right is rising in southern Spain – and European elections will soon give them more power

When the far right comes second in the French presidential elections, when they are in power in Italy, Poland and Hungary, surely it is time to fight back?

Region by region, country by country, government by government, the far right are taking control in Europe.

Sometimes in unlikely places. The latest is Andalucia, the province which covers virtually the whole of southern Spain, and includes Granada, Seville, Malaga, Cordoba and Cadiz. Eight million people.

You may have visited, but not taken much notice of the politics. Time to do so. For last month, Andalucia became the latest region of Europe to see members of the far-right Vox party elected to the provincial assembly, and they are now propping up a centre-right Partido Popular local government.

Andalucia’s new president, Juan Manuel Moreno, has agreed to adopt some of the more moderate/less extremist Vox policies for his regional administration.

It highlights the real dilemma facing traditional conservative parties everywhere in Europe, when the far right grabs 10 to 30 per cent of the poll and the seats in a legislature.

Do you compromise and try to appease them, as in Andalucia; or try to go round them via “grand coalitions” with social democrats, as in Germany?

If it’s the former, you boost the far right, and lend it legitimacy (and the parliamentary rise of Hitler is an unfortunate precedent); if it’s the latter, you end up with distorted politics, and usually weaken the left-wing partner.

In Andalucia, the limited cooperation of right and far right constitutes a revolution. It ends 36 years of uninterrupted rule by the socialist PSOE party. Even so it is, in a sense, no surprise. Spain was hit hard by the financial crisis (including a collapse in real estate and construction), and by the eurozone crisis.

Unemployment stands at more than 25 per cent, though that may be an exaggeration because of the extent of the informal “grey” economy.

The separatist rebellion in Catalonia and the migrant crisis have given the far right the push they needed to gain an influential 12 seats in the hung 109-strong assembly. Plus, of course, a system of proportional representation that has opened doors to such fruitcakes, closet racists and neo-nazi legislatures from Seville to Budapest. Never forget that Nigel Farage would never have been an MEP without PR (and he failed to win a seat at Westminster under first-past-the-post).

How bad is Vox? The good news is that Moreno’s conservatives have been able to limit its demands to some “pro-family” policies, preventing “the threat of Islamic fundamentalism”, and protecting bullfighting (admittedly barbaric, but big in Andalucia), hunting and, er, flamenco, which is not all that threatening to civilisation.

However, Vox follows the usual template of the far right – a commitment to expelling “illegal” migrants; reversing legislative rights for women and LGBT+ people, and being generally anti-EU. Scapegoating Brussels, migrants and “establishment” democratic politicians seems to be a reliable way to win elections these days in Europe. It worked for Ukip and Brexit, after all.

It’s all the more shocking in this part of Europe because it is only 40 years or so since the country was under the fascist regime of General Francisco Franco, the victor of the bloody civil war, friend of Hitler and Mussolini, and brutal oppressor of his nation, including dissidents in Andalucia.

Memories are short, it would seem, and sensitivities still acute, as the row over relocating Franco’s earthly remains away from his vast mausoleum continues to divide Spanish opinion – a symbolic, cultural argument as much as a political one.

We have become so inured to the rise of the right, and, in Britain so obsessed by Brexit, that we seem to shrug our shoulders when another citadel falls to its cynical lies and propaganda.

Europe has its economic problems, but they pre-date the migrant crisis, and the EU is hardly the source of them, given that some EU countries are doing relatively well economically.

Yet when the far right comes second in the French presidential elections; when it is the informal opposition group in the Bundestag; when it is in power in Italy, Poland and Hungary, surely it is time to fight back?

Soon, in the May elections, its representatives will invade the European Parliament, and turn it into a sort of clubhouse for modernised fascism. Even Nigel Farage refused to have anything to do with them.

It is creeping; it is sometimes reversed; it is being challenged, but the long-term trend is clear.

These modern-day fascists, who masquerade under pseudonyms such as “gilets jaunes” or “populist” or “patriot” are on the march. Matteo Salvini; Marine Le Pen; Viktor Orban, Geert Wilders, the German AfD, the Swedish Democrats, the Polish Truth and Justice Party – they are certainly not going away.

They are inspired by and allied to Trump and Trumpism. They are part of a global wave that includes Bolsonaro in Brazil, Putin in Russia, Modi in India, Erdogan in Turkey, Duterte in the Philippines, and more: hard men semi-dictators.

We are, in fact, witnessing the strange death of liberal democracy not just in Europe, but globally. This is one time when democrats should be panicking. We’re not. Why not?