Unmasking the far right’s anti-worker agenda

Polls and media outlets are predicting that far right parties will achieve their highest number of Members of the European Parliament (EP) since its first legislature. Even if there is great variation in social and labour policy among far right parties, some attitudes are consistent among them: they reject a universalist perspective towards labour and social rights, and they support welfare programmes only when it can propel them to government.

Far- right parties' attitude towards labour law is better understood alongside their relations with Trade Unions, characterised by their differences and incompatibility. 

The voting record of the far right Members of the European Parliament shows that they blockade legislative initiatives to further labour rights, collective bargaining and universal welfare. The votes of the members in the far right Euro-groups are blocking initiatives that European Trade Unions place at the top of their agenda. Therefore, a Parliament with an enlarged far right presence could prevent key social policy from being approved.