New Right on the March in Europe
Reform UK Praying for a Revival
The New Right is on the march—fighting illiberal European courts in order to run for office, and in the case of the UK, running into difficulties governing—but seeking the help in a revival of Christianity.
Germany AfD Party – the German Alternative for Germany political party can run in the upcoming elections, this after a high court determined their fate. Why was a court involved? Because AfD was deemed “far-right,” etc. You know the drill. The right is rising and the left uses the courts to stop us. Alice Weidel is the leading candidate for chancellor and co-chairwoman of Alternative for Germany and the New Right candidate, and AfD will win.
France National Rally Party – The illiberal left again using the courts to stop Marine Le Pen, the presidential front runner on a weak conviction. Le Pen is appealing the ruling, and if she does not win her appeal she will probably not be able to run in the 2027 presidential election. So again, the “free and democratic” courts in “free and democratic” Europe are attempting to stop the front-runner from running and the people from electing the candidate of their choice. Le Pen is the New Right candidate, and we support her and National Rally.
Hungary Fidez – Here the fight is to stop Orban, at all costs. All of the political parties (except 2 or so irrelevant ones) endorse Tisza Party candidate Peter Magyar to end Viktor Orban’s political career. One poll puts Magyar up 10, another 20, in the upcoming April elections. Hungary in the meantime blocked Brussels sending another $90b euros to Ukraine. Ukraine cut off energy to Slovakia and Hungary (bad move) and lose more war funding. Orban is the New Right candidate, and we support him and Fidez.
United Kingdom Reform Party – In lengthy Financial Times story that sounds hilariously like the phenomenally good “Yes, Minister” and “Yes, Prime Minster,” Reform UK running on “stopping government waste, promising tax cuts and scrapping diversity programs and slashing top pay,” are now faced with actual budgets. And like Minister Jim Hacker, “promises made and promises broken by the Administrative State,” Reform UK has its hands full. The reality is people often vote for reform, or MAGA, but in the end, they don’t want the recycling program to end. This is the rub with every political party, right and left.
Consider the Communist NYC Mayor Mamdani and his free $70,000,000 grocery store scam that the WaPo excoriates here. “Promising free stuff sounded nice on the campaign trail, but someone needs to pay for it. When his predecessor tried to trim spending on libraries, Mamdani called it ‘cruel.’ Now that he’s in charge, his preliminary budget plan calls for nearly $30 million in library cuts. Those and many other cuts are probably necessary to get the bloated city budget on a more sustainable footing.”
Even if the Reform Party UK, unlike Mamdani, are honest brokers, and even if Brits elect Nigal Farage as the next Prime Minister, governing is hard work.
Evangelical Rise in Reform UK – In my journey to the Reform UK political conference in 2024 in Birmingham, England, I spoke to many attendees and heard from a dozen or so elected officials and those running for office. One of my takeaways from multiple speeches and conversations was the distinct “personal relationship with Jesus” language that was used. I was shocked, and glad to see this turn to Christianity. This was once customary for the New Right in the USA ten or twenty years ago, yet it is now a part of the Reform UK playbook. In “Britain’s Right Decides to Get Religion,” Robert Shrimsley now sees this and, yawn, takes exception with it.
Shrimsley points out that James Orr, a Cambridge theologian and Danny Kruger, who recently defected from Tory to Reform, are both Christians and are tasked by Farage to “lead policy development.” Shrimsley is concerned that Reform UK’s promotion of Christianity smacks of “Hungary’s Viktor Orban and the writings of Jordan Peterson…this is no gentle Anglicanism…In fact, Orr dismisses the Church of England as ‘the Labour Party at prayer.’ The faith this movement projects is forceful social conservatism.”
Great Britain is in a fight for its life as we see it, and to look back at one of the key pillars that made the West, and Great Britain, the Christian Faith, and embrace it, cannot come fast enough.
Some of the stated goals Reform UK include: control immigration, stop churches from becoming mosques, and confront and eliminate liberal secular individualism that has given rise to porn, the erosion of cultural values, and falling birth rates.
Shrimsley cynicism is this: Britain is secular, the churches in England would be empty except for the African evangelical Christians, and that “the true threat to Christianity in Britain is atheism.”
True Christian conversion is, and always has been, outside of the jurisdiction of the government. God can and does move. We pray He does so in Britain, and that Shrimsley writes about a great revival in the very near future, starting with the election of Nigel Farage as Prime Minister.