How has the European political arena influenced nationally marginalized right-wing populist parties? Previous studies have found that political parties' success in European Parliament (EP) elections is linked to their national success in general, identifying several mechanisms that link parties' European and national success, including voters' consensus cues (Dinas and Riera Reference Dinas and Riera2018) and the timing of elections (Schulte-Cloos Reference Schulte-Cloos2018). These studies have focused on voters who vote for right-wing populist parties in both European and national elections. However, there is a gap in understanding the parties' perspective. The question remains: why have only a few prominent right-wing populist parties capitalized on the added opportunities of the European political stage, while others in the same country have faltered despite encountering similar challenges and opportunities?
Through a case study of right-wing populist parties in Britain and France, I demonstrate that the utilization of the EP by these parties influences their electoral persistence in national politics. Contrary to the assumption that European success automatically translates to national success, I argue that electoral success at the national level and longevity of these parties are intricately linked to how they strategically employ resources gained from representation in the EP.
Right-wing populist parties in France and Britain have been marginalized for a long time due to the majority electoral rule in national parliamentary elections, unlike many other European right-wing populist parties that could benefit from the proportional representation (PR) electoral system in national competitions. Ironically, though, right-wing populist parties in France and Britain have been in a better position to enjoy the benefits of the EP than similar parties in other European countries because challenger parties can take greater advantage of EP elections when they are held under electoral rules dissimilar to those used in national elections (Ehin and Talving Reference Ehin and Talving2021).
The French Front National (FN)Footnote 1 and UK Independence Party (UKIP)Footnote 2 are right-wing populist parties that have been swift to recognize and use the opportunities presented by the EP. Both parties strengthened their internal party organizations using EP-provided political resources and have persisted as influential political actors in their national political arena for more than two decades. The FN has been an alternative choice for French voters since its first European election victory in 1984. Its success has been more than electoral: ‘Through the dynamics of party competition and policy formation the party has succeeded in changing the terms of the debate on immigration in a way that favors its own electoral success’ (Schain Reference Schain1995: 2). On the other hand, UKIP furnished its own raison d’être of withdrawing the UK from the EU. The party's record in general elections had consistently improved for 20 years until the 2017 elections. Although support for UKIP has dropped since the 2016 referendum on leaving the EU, the Brexit Party, a new party that inherited the most important features of UKIP, affirmed the resilience of the party's perspective by winning a plurality of the vote in the 2019 European elections. Reform UK, the more recent incarnation of the Brexit Party, earned five seats in the House of Commons, and was the third most supported party in the 2024 general elections.
However, other radical-right parties in France and Britain have failed to seize the opportunity to employ the resources provided by the EP and quickly lost their relevance to national politics. Mouvement pour la France (MPF, Movement for France) successfully mobilized votes in European elections from 1994 to 2009, becoming the second or third most popular French party in the EP. In spite of this, the party was not supported nationwide in domestic elections and had only a single regional stronghold. Other radical right-wing parties in France, such as Partie des Forces Nouvelles (PFN, Party of New Forces) and Mouvement National Républicain (MNR, National Republican Movement), were unable to secure European representatives, thereby missing the opportunity to leverage the new European platform for national competition. The British National Party (BNP) gained Members of the EP (MEPs) in the 2009 EP elections but failed to carry their impact on to subsequent general elections.
A comparison between right-wing populist parties in France and Britain can be conducted using a most similar systems research design (George and Bennett Reference George and Bennett2005) to demonstrate that the strategy of employing EP-provided resources and participating in European elections, rather than the addition of the European political space per se, has made a difference for parties' national performance. By shedding light on right-wing populist parties' utilization of the EP, this study contributes to the internal supply-side literature on right-wing populism and the Europeanization of party politics.
In the next section, I define right-wing populist parties and explain why they deserve scholarly examination regarding their use of the European political arena. Then I review the literature on the representation of radical-right parties in European politics and summarize the supply- and demand-side explanations for the rise of radical-right populism. Linking two previously separate bodies of literature, I provide an analytical framework to explain the impact of the EP on the supply and demand for radical-right parties, and ultimately on the electoral persistence of these parties in national competition. This analytical framework indicates two possible pathways that radical-right parties can adopt for the strategic use of the EP. I describe each such pathway, focusing first on the pathway adopted by the FN and UKIP using primary and secondary data, including semi-structured interviews with the MEPs. The conclusion discusses key findings and their academic and policy implications for future research.
Right-wing populist parties, the most ironic Eurosceptic forces
The debate around how to label the group of parties that are overtly anti-immigrant and anti-EU non-mainstream parties has never been resolved among scholars. The absence of a universally accepted term causes obscurity in terms of comparability of the parties (Halikiopoulou Reference Halikiopoulou2018: 63; Zhirkov Reference Zhirkov2014: 286).
The term ‘right-wing populist’ is used in this article because it is the most comprehensive concept that does not exclude parties in the grey area between right-wing, radical right and extreme right. Then what is right-wing populism? Instead of trying to reinvent the term, the definition employed in this article draws from the works of other scholars, notably Cas Mudde (Reference Mudde2004, Reference Mudde2007) and Jens Rydgren (Reference Rydgren2018). Right-wing populist parties are political parties that are nativist in their core, and reject certain features of liberal democracy without being overtly anti-democratic. They are populist in their appeal to the pure and good ‘people’ in opposition to the corrupt and evil ‘elite’.
Many European right-wing populist parties have been Eurosceptic because of their strong stance on national sovereignty, which makes it ironic that they have been the most successful challenger parties in utilizing the EP. Right-wing populist parties which successfully entered the EP have benefited in various ways from the political platform that they distrust and fight to reduce. Of course, right-wing populist parties are not the only political force that criticizes the EU but still enjoy existing in the EP: left-wing challenger parties have also been Eurosceptic while simultaneously occupying seats in the EP. However, left-wing populist parties' Euroscepticism is considered to be milder than that of right-wing populist parties as the ultimate goal of the right-wing challenger parties is to protect sovereignty from external forces such as immigrants and the EU, while the left-wing challenger parties' Eurosceptic agenda is rather narrowly focused on fighting neoliberalism in European economic policies (Beaudonnet and Gomez Reference Beaudonnet and Gomez2017; Braun et al. Reference Braun, Popa and Schmitt2019; Hobolt Reference Hobolt2015). Right-wing populist parties being the fiercest Eurosceptic political group in the EP and also the greatest beneficiaries of the European elections (Schulte-Cloos Reference Schulte-Cloos2018) makes them the most interesting case in relation to utilization of the European political arena for the sake of their national persistence.
Right-wing populist parties' European representation and its national consequences
The second-order election (SOE) thesis contends that the results of EP elections are decided by national politics (Reif and Schmitt Reference Reif and Schmitt1980), and not vice versa; most electors consider the European political arena less important and vote to express their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with domestic politics. Political parties are subject to this second-order effect, regardless of their size and electoral history (Bartels Reference Bartels2023). However, anti/pro-EU perspectives have become salient in national politics, influencing party politics in EU member states (Braun and Grande Reference Braun and Grande2021; Gabel Reference Gabel, Goetz and Hix2000). Scholars of Europeanization have analysed the effects of European integration on the internal power dynamics of national political parties and found that European integration led to a shift in power within national political parties in favour of party elites and EU specialists (Bale Reference Bale2003; Hix and Goetz Reference Hix and Goetz2000; Ladrech Reference Ladrech2002; Poguntke et al. Reference Poguntke, Aylott, Ladrech and Luther2007). In addition, the overall political cleavages that exist in the EU member states have changed as a result of the emergence of the European political field, and the increased salience of European issues has influenced the rise of populism (Dechezelles and Neumayer Reference Dechezelles and Neumayer2010). Also, studies of the legislative activities of Eurosceptic MEPs imply that right-wing populist parties can influence the policymaking process of the member states via the EP, bypassing the national parliament (Brack Reference Brack2018), in a way similar to that of many policy actors who have chosen to undertake ‘venue shopping’ in the EU (Guiraudon Reference Guiraudon2000).
Recent studies have focused on the impact of European elections on national support for Eurosceptic fringe parties in particular (Dinas and Riera Reference Dinas and Riera2018; Franklin Reference Franklin, Nielsen and Franklin2017; McGowan Reference McGowan2014; Reungoat Reference Reungoat2015; Schulte-Cloos Reference Schulte-Cloos2018). Numerous new parties have emerged in the European electoral arena, and their prominence can lead to a trickle-down effect, affording them new access to national elections through a variety of mechanisms (Schakel Reference Schakel2018). For instance, Elias Dinas and Pedro Riera (Reference Dinas and Riera2018) suggested that voting patterns in EP elections spill over into national elections because the patterns of habitual voting continue. Julia Schulte-Cloos (Reference Schulte-Cloos2018) contended that good performance in European elections has an independent effect on performance in national elections when the two elections occur close in time. This effect is most prominent for right-wing populist parties.
What role do radical-right parties play in encouraging trickle-down or spillover effects? The internal party mechanism that links party victories in European elections to national performance is underexplored. Sofie Blombäck (Reference Blombäck, Bukow and Jun2020) found that new parties with experienced leadership and with membership of an EP political group tend to be successful in entering the national parliament only when national elections do not present high barriers for small parties. In-depth single-case studies suggest that parties' perceptions and decisions regarding how to use EP resources have long-term effects on their national performance. Emmanuelle Reungoat (Reference Reungoat2015) explained that the FN's use of tangible and intangible resources obtained from the EP impacted the party's national success. On the other hand, Lee McGowan (Reference McGowan2014) indicated that the BNP's acquisition of seats in the EP in the 2009 elections negatively influenced party organization. The findings of these studies imply that winning (or losing) seats in EP elections does not automatically increase (or decrease) a party's popularity in the national political arena. To understand how right-wing populist parties' victories in European elections are linked to their performance in national elections, it is necessary to analyse the changes that tend to occur inside and outside these parties as a result of European elections.
Demand- and supply-side explanations
Various factors influence the success of right-wing populist parties. Scholars have classified these factors into demand- and supply-side explanations. Demand-side theories refer to the conditions that influence voters' decisions, whereas supply-side approaches focus on the political opportunity structure and parties' perspectives. Demand and supply side are interwoven closely as populist grievances are sometimes induced technically by right-wing populist parties whose strategies are made based on voters' demand (Golder Reference Golder2016; Mols and Jetten Reference Mols and Jetten2020).
Demand-side explanations interpret the rise of right-wing populist parties as voters' reactions to contemporary social and economic changes, including modernization, globalization and European integration. Supporters of right-wing populist parties believe that these changes have resulted in or will result in the degradation of traditional values, an increase in cultural and ethnic diversity, and a decrease in the manufacturing industry and jobs. The demand for right-wing populism is shared not only among ‘modernization losers’ but also among upper- or middle-class citizens as they feel anxiety about losing current status and wealth (Jetten and Mols Reference Jetten, Mols and van Prooijen2021; Mols and Jetten Reference Mols and Jetten2017).
In addition to economic issues, cultural backlash and threat to status, Euroscepticism has been the primary motive for supporting European right-wing populist parties, beginning with the Maastricht Treaty (Almeida Reference Almeida2010). The series of crises that the EU has had to deal with in recent years has increased the importance of Euroscepticism, and right-wing populist parties frequently use this issue to mobilize voters (Hutter and Kriesi Reference Hutter and Kriesi2019).Footnote 3
The EP elections have changed the demand side by making Euroscepticism a hot-potato issue every five years (Braun and Grande Reference Braun and Grande2021; Braun et al. Reference Braun, Hutter and Kerscher2016). During their campaigns for the European elections, right-wing populist parties can benefit from debates on the legitimacy of the EU (Lorimer Reference Lorimer, Accetti and White2021). If the parties contest the European election on a strong Eurosceptic platform, they can increase their visibility to the public.
The supply-side approach focuses on two main aspects: external and internal supply. External supply, also called the political opportunity structure (Eatwell Reference Eatwell, Merkl and Weinberg2003; Rydgren Reference Rydgren2007), refers to the institutional and social circumstances that help or hinder the emergence of right-wing populist parties. Studies have demonstrated that right-wing populist parties are more successful when mainstream parties converge on centrist positions (Abedi Reference Abedi2002; Carter Reference Carter2005; Kitschelt and McGann Reference Kitschelt and McGann1997; Rooduijn Reference Rooduijn2015). Additionally, electoral laws matter for the success of right-wing populist parties as single-district plurality voting and high thresholds decrease right-wing populist parties' possibility of being elected (Becher et al. Reference Becher, González and Stegmueller2023).
The EP elections also alter the external supply side of right-wing populist parties. Because European elections have been based on proportional electoral systems in every EU member state since 1999, right-wing populist parties can obtain seats even if they win only a small percentage of the votes received. A proportional electoral system changes the dynamics of the competition to a greater extent in countries where a majoritarian system or threshold prevents fringe parties from being elected to national parliaments (Ehin and Talving Reference Ehin and Talving2021).
The internal supply side is characterized by such factors as charismatic leadership, financial and human resources, and party structure and organization. Because many European countries share a broadly uniform socioeconomic context, ‘variations in the success of the radical right across similar nations are therefore attributed to how parties respond effectively to public demands through their own actions and strategies’ (Norris Reference Norris2005: 15). The role of the internal supply side is even more critical for the long-term success of right-wing populist parties (Jupskås Reference Jupskås2015). External shocks, such as the migration and sovereign debt crises, can temporarily lead more people to vote for radical parties, but the persistence of these parties requires a strong party organization. For that reason, ‘the internal supply-side is the most important variable in explaining the examples of electoral (success or) failure after electoral breakthrough’ (Mudde Reference Mudde2007: 275).
EP elections change the internal supply side of right-wing populist parties by providing MEPs with legitimacy, remuneration, staff and an arena in which to be seen as professional politicians, as well as the opportunity to make alliances with other European political groups. All these resources can be extremely difficult to obtain within the home country but are essential for a marginalized right-wing populist party to gain legitimacy.
Methods and case selections
Previous studies have proved that political parties' good performance in European elections leads to good performance in subsequent national-level elections. This study also shows that European success is linked to national success by focusing on right-wing populist parties. However, it also reveals that the link can be made only under certain conditions: a strengthening of the internal supply side.
This study employs an in-depth small-N approach, specifically, process-tracing and comparative case study methods. First, process-tracing is used when a researcher's concern lies in ‘sequences and mechanisms in the unfolding of hypothesized causal process’, and it mainly focuses on ‘intervening steps in a hypothesized causal process’ (Bennett Reference Bennett, Brady and Collier2010: 207). Process-tracing methods are suitable for this study, as it is concerned with the contextual understanding of right-wing populist parties' strategic uses of the EP as an instrument to achieve long-term relevance in national politics. For instance, process-tracing can provide the best answer to the following questions: how did the French Front National use its European election breakthrough to survive its initial financial hardships? What kind of political experience could UKIP politicians obtain through the EP?
Second, this study adopts a comparative case study design, where the cases of interest are right-wing populist parties in France and the UK. In these two countries, the majority electoral system prevents radical parties from obtaining national representation, and this institutional barrier provides right-wing populist parties with a strong motivation to search for an alternative political space in Europe. Some fringe parties in the PR system might also consider the EP election an opportunity because small new parties generally have a better chance of being elected in second-order elections. European elections have been more appealing to radical parties that have limited chances in national elections (Bartels Reference Bartels2023). Challenger parties can take greater advantage of EP elections when they are held under electoral rules dissimilar to those used in national elections (Ehin and Talving Reference Ehin and Talving2021). More established right-wing populist parties in countries with PR electoral systems such as the Freedom Party of Austria (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, FPÖ) and the Dutch Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) had less motivation to utilize the EP rigorously as these parties were already legitimate political options in their national political arenas, equipped with various political resources when they ran for European elections. The level of marginalization that the FN and UKIP dealt with in their national elections before their breakthrough in European elections was not comparable with that of their allies in Austria or the Netherlands. In this sense, right-wing populist parties in France and the UK make the most appropriate case to examine how nationally marginalized parties could utilize the European politics in order to be persistent in national political competition.
Moreover, it is possible to make a rich comparison and provide explanations of various possible pathways by analysing right-wing populist parties in France and the UK together, rather than considering only one country. The FN and UKIP are examples of successful parties that have used EP resources to strengthen their internal supply. Meanwhile, the experience of the BNP shows that obtaining a seat in the EP without any strategy for utilizing it might lead to downfall at the national level. Similarly, the case of the MPF demonstrates that even repeated victories in European elections can result in party failure. A case study of the various right-wing populist parties in the two countries allows for a controlled comparison: French and British right-wing populist parties shared most of their demand and external supply sides, but only the FN and UKIP achieved national persistence for more than two decades. One might ask: are French and UK party politics similar enough that they can be considered together? Clearly, many uncontrolled political features are not shared between the two countries. However, they share the most important institutional settings, in addition to a majority electoral system: a unitary government system, which means that regional elections do not carry much importance. Compared to a federal system, there is less chance in a unitary system for political parties to undertake venue shopping in local politics, which leaves fringe parties in the position of looking to the European elections as their sole alternative political arena.Footnote 4
To explain these cases, various types of empirical evidence are used: interviews with MEPs, articles from online news media and secondary data that record the case parties' financial and human resource situations. Most of the empirical data were collected during fieldwork in three European cities – Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg – between January and July 2017. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six MEPs, four of them from UKIP or the FN, and two European specialists who are in or near policy circles in Brussels. All interviewees were contacted via telephone and email. Interviews were conducted in either English or French; the interviews in French were translated into English. Detailed information about the interviewees and interview questions are listed in the appendix in the Supplementary Material.
Analytical framework and case study
French and British right-wing populist parties have exhibited varying levels of electoral performance; their political longevity would appear to be partially influenced by how well the parties have employed EP resources. In this study, right-wing populist parties are classified into two categories. Pathway 1 parties run for European elections (Time 1), successfully enter the EP (Time 2), and then persist in national politics for a long time (Time 3). In contrast, Pathway 2 parties stop at Time 2 when they obtain seats in EP elections. Pathway 2 parties benefit from the PR electoral system (external supply) and the salience of Euroscepticism among voters (demand) but fail to remain as a meaningful competitor in national elections. Successful parties, the FN and UKIP, made use of various resources from the EP when they competed in national elections, whereas unsuccessful parties did not exploit their EP seats to enhance their party organizations. Moving from Time 1 to Time 2 is relatively easy for challenger parties because European elections are second-order elections that use the PR system, while Euroscepticism has become a key word at the moment. However, to proceed to Time 3, parties need to strengthen the internal supply side by making use of the financial and human resources, consolidated leadership and political experience obtained in the EP. Many challenger parties just go back and forth between Time 1 and Time 2 without strategic use of the EP-provided resources (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Two Different Pathways for Using the EP.
There is no agreement on what should be considered as ‘success’ for radical-right populist parties in the existing literature. However, many authors agree that there should be differentiation between ‘being persistent’ and ‘making the first breakthrough’ at least and that the former is harder to achieve than the latter (e.g. Mudde Reference Mudde2007; Schain et al. Reference Schain, Zolberg and Hossay2002).
In this study, a radical-right populist party is defined as successful if it showed ‘electoral persistence’ over time, which means a party shows an overall trend of increasing the percentage of votes for at least two decades, even with fluctuations. For instance, in the case of the FN, the party achieved only 0.3% of the votes when it first ran in the 1973 legislative elections but since the 1986 elections its percentage share in the total votes has been in two digits. UKIP also started with a very humble result in its first House of Commons election in 1997 with 0.3% of the votes. UKIP had continuously recorded a rising vote rate in legislative elections until June 2017. In contrast, competitors of the FN and UKIP respectively have vanished before they became important and resilient political players in the national politics.
Pathway 1: Electoral persistence (FN and UKIP)
Right-wing populist parties that have strategically used EP-provided resources to strengthen their internal supply sides have persisted as relevant political actors on their national political stages. The FN and UKIP effectively utilized these resources to strengthen their party organizations.
The FN's national persistence
The FN's victory in the European elections in 1984 brought it many essential political assets that allowed it to build its electoral competency in subsequent national elections. Between the formation of the party in 1973 and the 1986 legislative election, the FN never received more than 0.5% of the votes in any national election. After it received 17% of the vote in the first round of the by-election in Dreux in 1983, its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, saw a gleam of hope, but the party needed results in national-level elections to become a legitimate option. In the 1984 EP election, the FN finally made a breakthrough, receiving 11% of the votes; since then, it has continued to receive double-digit support at the national level (Figure 2). From 1984 through to the most recent 2019 European elections, the FN has been able to draw on financial and human resources from the EP, using them to reinvent itself as a more electable option in national elections.
Figure 2. Electoral Performances of the FN (1973–2024): Percentage of the Vote Received.
Note: Results in the first round (*).
First, the FN was able to save itself from economic hardship using money collected from candidates in European elections and the remuneration of elected MEPs. Until the mid-1980s, the financial situation of the FN was dire, and the party relied heavily on supplies provided through personal ties with Le Pen. ‘The financial situation was very bad. We had lawsuits pending owing to unpaid rent. We were even threatened with expulsion. No bank wanted to risk giving money to a movement whose future is still uncertain,’ recalled Jean-Pierre Reveau, a member of the National Assembly from 1986 to 1988 and treasurer of the FN in the 1980s and 1990s (Albertini and Doucet Reference Albertini and Doucet2014: 103). The 1984 EP election was a turning point in the party's finances.
The 1984 election was the first European election contested by the FN. Even before the beginning of the election, Le Pen, animated by the good results in the Dreux election, actively used the EP election as a chance to improve his party's financial status by collecting money from applicants for a party list of candidates.
Germaine Burguaz, former activist for the FN from the 1970s to the 1980s, did not hesitate to refer to ‘racketeering’ when speaking of Le Pen's ‘candidate business’ (Fourest and Venner Reference Fourest and Venner1998: 36). She had to pay one million francs for the privilege of appearing in the ninth position on the list of candidates for the 1984 European elections, and that was not all. Once the ‘deposit’ was paid, the party demanded a long-term contract: not only would the candidates fully finance their own campaigns, but they were also required to sign a document of debt recognition to the party in the event that they were elected. After being nominated, the candidates agreed to pay 50% of their supplementary monthly allowances to the party.
The monthly deposits by the MEPs became essential to the party after the FN lost its parliamentary representation with the 1988 legislative election. Although the FN received the same percentage of votes in the 1988 election as in 1986, the number of seats distributed to the party decreased from 35 to 1. Losing parliamentary representation meant a loss of the financial resources that came with the delegation. Reduced to only one deputy in the National Assembly, the ‘tithing’ provided by its elected representatives in the EP was a critical financial source for the FN.
The financial resources from the EP remained an essential part of the party economy even after the FN became an internationally well-known radical-right party and experienced a generational shift in the party's leadership. In the 2010s, the FN focused on diverting the MEP staff funded by the EP to national campaigns. This practice of deploying EP staff in work that is not related to the EP has long been known to be used by the FN and other parties, but the public was broadly unaware of it until recently.
The FN used funds intended for the MEPs' staff to reimbursed some of the party employees working for the FN's electoral promotion who had no relationship to the work being done in Brussels. For instance, Marine Le Pen hired her bodyguard, personal secretary and presidential campaign adviser with money provided for MEPs' parliamentary assistants. Gaël Nofri was an adviser to Marine Le Pen during the presidential election of 2012. He claimed to have been the victim of abuse by the FN, which paid him the salary of a parliamentary assistant without his knowledge when his contract was for working on the presidential campaign. Nofri stated that he had never visited the EP (Sulzer Reference Sulzer2017; Turchi Reference Turchi2017).
The staff of other FN MEPs were directly involved in the party's national campaign, including its graphic designers and political advisers. For example, Charles Hourcade, who was on paper a parliamentary assistant to MEP Marie-Christine Boutonnet, was the graphic designer for the FN headquarters in Nanterre, France (L'Obs 2017). The budget for hiring parliamentary assistants was also used to pay party cadres for non-elected positions. Florian Philippot joined the party in 2011 and was appointed strategic director of the presidential campaign of Marine Le Pen. Since then, until he became an MEP himself in 2014, he had been paid as a parliamentary assistant to Marine Le Pen (Piel Reference Piel2018). Jean-François Jalkh, an MEP himself from 2014 to 2024, was once a parliamentary assistant to Jean-Marie Le Pen from 2009 to 2014, even though he was vice president of the party from 2012.
Second, the FN's good performance in European elections granted the party status and legitimacy (Reungoat Reference Reungoat2015), enabling it to recruit higher-quality candidates. Ultimately, this cohort of candidates, recruited after the 1984 European election, became key members of the party, developing training programmes and other strategies. In the early days of the party, owing to its label as extrême droite, the FN lacked ‘qualified’ candidates with a better chance of being elected. The party deployed its activists as candidates, regardless of whether they had political experience. The party's inability to win elections was thus natural in light of its lack of experienced, well-known or noticeable candidates.
The party hoped to change its image (Perrineau Reference Perrineau1997: 42) by recruiting qualified candidates; however, this strategy did not bear fruit until the party earned a certain level of trust. The FN's 1984 European success greatly boosted the party's recruitment. ‘Clearly, they could have joined the party earlier and provided support to Le Pen, but the political risks were much higher prior to the 1984 European elections’ (DeClair Reference DeClair1999: 153). Some of these elites who joined between 1984 and 1986 later entered the party's leadership and made significant contributions to the development of the party's organization and strategy. For instance, the two Brunos, Bruno Gollnisch and Bruno Mégret, have become critical assets. Bruno Gollnisch, a professor and lawyer, joined the FN in 1984, but had previously rejected the party's call to become a candidate for European elections. After the party's success in the European elections, he became involved in party management. He joined the FN list for the 1986 legislative election and became a representative for the Rhône region. In the 1989 European election, he won a seat as an MEP, which he held until 2019. Gollnisch also served as vice-president and secretary general of the party and played a major role in the 2002 campaign in which Jean-Marie Le Pen succeeded in reaching the second round of the presidential election. He also chaired the political group of the FN in the EP in 2007: Identité, tradition, souveraineté (ITS).
When I interviewed Bruno Gollnisch, he noted that those who joined after the 1984 election, including him, were a highly qualified group:
The groups [of people who] joined the party in between 1984 and 1989 were high-quality people. There were three alumni of the École nationale d'administration [ENA, National School of Administration], a former ambassador, and a brilliant lawyer who had legal political experience, etc. (Interviewee no. 6)
He observed that the party's success in the European elections helped it achieve positive results in the following legislative elections:
It's true that obviously [FN's European representation] gave political legitimacy, means, and contacts with the Italians, with the Germans. This paved the way for the success of the next legislative election, which was held with proportional representation. (Interviewee no. 6)
He also stated that his MEP status helped the party and himself achieve a certain level of legitimacy:
It also gave the possibility of having staff and parliamentary assistants. Obviously, the parliamentary assistants improved their knowledge of European legal mechanisms. […] It gives me legitimacy when I speak in public. I have more authority than if I were simply Bruno Gollnisch. Of course, it gives me a certain … it has allowed me to maintain a certain political legitimacy when I am invited by the media; I am … they can introduce me as a deputy, voilà! If not, I will simply be a political activist. (Interviewee no. 6)
Bruno Gollnisch confirmed that many qualified people joined the FN after the party's European victory in 1984. He also testified that good performances in the European elections gave him and the party many resources, including legitimate status and networks, which ultimately helped the party win the national competition.
Bruno Mégret joined the party in 1985 and already had significant administrative and political experience, including serving as an adviser to the Minister of Cooperation. He was also a one-time candidate for the mainstream right-wing party during the 1981 legislative election. His experiences and contacts within the mainstream party were assets to the FN after he joined the party. Mégret focused on increasing the party's ability to compete by improving the candidate training process. With Carl Lang, Mégret launched a training programme for FN candidates, executives and activists. Propaganda techniques, management, organization, responses to adversaries and the duties and functions of leaders and members were taught. A summer school for young party members was initiated in 1985, which was organized by Bernard Antony, who also joined the party after the 1984 European election. The courses at the summer school included speech and debate training on agricultural and fiscal issues. The formation of various training programmes explains the long-term and consistent orientation of the FN to equip itself with a powerful apparatus (Igounet Reference Igounet2015).
UKIP's national persistence
Unlike the FN, UKIP never achieved a dramatic victory in the House of Commons elections, mainly because of the first-past-the-post electoral system in effect in the UK elections. However, the percentage of votes that the party received steadily increased for about two decades until the 2016 UK EU membership referendum. More importantly, the party achieved its goals by successfully executing the Brexit campaign. It is likely that the EU referendum was possible because the Conservative Party perceived a threat in UKIP potentially succeeding in expanding its voter support (Evans and Mellon Reference Evans and Mellon2019; Morillas Reference Morillas2017; Tournier-Sol Reference Tournier-Sol2021).
UKIP achieved its first electoral victory in the 1999 European elections, securing three EP seats. Based on this newly obtained status and its continuing EP success, the party was able to strengthen its internal supply side in many ways, including consolidating party leadership and expanding party members' experience as professional politicians.
First, the new leadership of UKIP used the presence of the party in the EP to gain an advantage for one side in an internal conflict between old leaders and new faces. From its foundation in 1993 until 1999, the party faced difficulties due to the internal power struggle between its founder, Alan Sked, and the faction led by Michael Holmes and Nigel Farage. Sked insisted that the party should remain a purely sovereignist Eurosceptic force and not recognize the legitimacy of the EP, whereas the newer group led by Farage wanted to take advantage of the EP (Jeffries Reference Jeffries2014).
Stuart Agnew, a long-time member of UKIP and an MEP from 2009 to 2019, discussed this internal division within the party in the interview.
There was a great disagreement within the party as to whether we should … Because this was a parliament we didn't acknowledge. […] But the pragmatic wing of the party said this is an opportunity for us. We should take it. And political parties [are] there to fight elections and we should fight for elections wherever we can. […] But once we won the seats and Farage started making noise, that [internal division] faded away very quickly.
He [Nigel Farage] said it's a bit like judo, use the opponents' weight against the opponents. Well, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. You know, that's how you know there are these places – let's go in there and use the resources we can get from it. That's what was his attitude. (Interviewee no. 1)
During the interview, Stuart Agnew confirmed the conception that UKIP could consolidate its leadership via European success. The internal dispute disappeared when UKIP won seats in the EP in 1999 for the first time and Nigel Farage was astute enough to spot a glaring opportunity even when it came from the European Union, according to Stuart Agnew.
After Sked resigned from the party leadership and ultimately left the party he founded, UKIP ran in the 1999 European election. Fortunately for the party, this election was the first in the UK to use the proportional system. UKIP won three seats, receiving 6.7% of the national votes. After this victory, the leaders of UKIP tended to depend on its MEP status. All but three of the UKIP leaders/deputy leaders had been elected to the EP. It would seem plausible that success in European elections would have increased party members' confidence in the party leadership. In particular, UKIP's dependence on Nigel Farage has been remarkable. He was the leader of the party for three terms and led the UKIP delegation to the EP for almost 20 years.
The following statement by Farage indicates that he approached the European political arena with an entirely instrumental motivation. He thinks that UKIP only needed ‘sufficient’ engagement in the EP: ‘Our objective as MEPs is not to keep voting endlessly for more EU legislation and to take power away from Westminster. […] Our view in 15 years has been that we engage sufficiently here and we use that information to get a debate going back in the United Kingdom’ (quoted in Chorley Reference Chorley2014). The poor attendance record of the UKIP MEPs among all the Euro-representatives confirms the instrumental understanding by UKIP of EP politics (Stone Reference Stone2015).
Second, the UKIP MEPs' actual presence in the EP provided party members with many invaluable opportunities. They acquired experience as professional politicians and had frequent contact with their colleagues in the EP – both sympathizers and opponents. UKIP MEP Stuart Agnew noted that the most important resources that his party gained from the EP were credibility and the provision of a work venue, supporting an argument that the successful right-wing populist parties utilized the European political arena to gain experience, and to train people.
What it [the EP] gave us was credibility. We had people elected, we had three people with MEP after their name [in 1999]. Nobody can say, ‘Well, who have you got?’ ‘We've got three MEPs, that's a start,’ we could say that. And it meant also that people could come here as staff members and work and get used to the whole thing and then they can stand at local elections. They have something to do with political experiences earned here. It helped us. We got people trained up. (Interviewee no. 1)
Elected UKIP members developed a network to share solidarity with MEPs from other member states, successfully forming and chairing a political group, the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD), which also helped the party obtain a budget to conduct polls. This conception – that the network acquired in the EP helped the successful parties to expand their network – was confirmed by Ray Finch, UKIP MEP for South-East England from 2014 to 2019. Finch suggested that the EFDD members' common experience of being treated badly in the EP by mainstream MEPs confirmed their belief that the EP was hopeless.
We find it [the political group] very interesting and we find it more educative for some of our colleagues. We are a big Eurosceptic. We don't like the Euro or whatever. We find our friends in the group now becoming more and more Eurosceptic. (Interviewee no. 5)
Pathway 2: Electoral breakthrough, followed by downfall (BNP and MPF)
Pathway 2 refers to the course taken by parties that experienced electoral breakthrough due to the proportional electoral system, SOE, or a surge of Euroscepticism, but then vanished soon after their European success.
The BNP's short-lived European success
Before UKIP emerged in the mid-1990s, the BNP was the most prominent far-right political party in the UK, but it failed to become a relevant actor in the British political arena. Researchers commonly identify its lack of charismatic leadership, competition with UKIP and its reputational burden as a fascist party as reasons for its failure (Copsey Reference Copsey2008; McGowan Reference McGowan2014; Startin Reference Startin2014). In addition to these factors, the BNP's lack of interest in EU politics and its failure to exploit resource inflow into the party from the EP should be investigated as critical elements that caused the BNP to collapse. Even after two BNP MEPs were elected in the 2009 European elections, the success rate did not increase.
It cannot be doubted that the 2009 European election brought the BNP's financial and human resources to a level that it had never previously enjoyed. However, no system was created to direct the use of the newly obtained resources for the sake of the entire party. Rather, the EP resources were used only for the two MEPs' European political activities. Nick Griffin, the party leader from 1999 to 2014, said, after his election to the EP, ‘when we've got money left over, we're putting it back into our constituencies. We've pledged to do so, and we will do so. It will be good for people in our area’ (Swaine and Watt Reference Swaine and Watt2009).
Both BNP MEPs used the funds they received from the EP to run offices for their new constituencies: the Cumbria office of Nick Griffin and the Leeds office of Andrew Brons for their constituencies (McGowan Reference McGowan2014: 677). Interestingly, these two offices were used as forward bases to promote the European acquis communautaire rather than as bases to prepare for the next national or local elections (McGowan Reference McGowan2014: 676). One of the most important roles of both offices was to report consumer complaints regarding goods and services bought outside the UK to the European Consumer Centre for Services. The use of personnel was also focused on helping the new MEPs become more familiar with EP politics rather than preparing the party for national elections. Griffin's Cumbria office hired a political researcher whose main role was to brief Griffin on voting results in the EP plenary and committee meetings. The press person for the Leeds office was responsible for updating Brons on committee meetings in the EP (McGowan Reference McGowan2014: 677).
In addition, the two BNP MEPs, Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, took their new jobs in Brussels and Strasbourg quite seriously, whereas most of the FN and UKIP MEPs perceived their EP jobs as simply opportunities to obtain additional resources and attract the media spotlight. Griffin acknowledged that he ‘spent too much time in Brussels during his first year’ (McGowan: Reference McGowan2014: 683). Consequently, leadership and control over the party were lacking at home, and more importantly, Griffin and the BNP lost their strong mandate for modernization, which could have changed the party's image. Party members had experienced frustration before the 2009 EP election, but it began to escalate in 2009, as Griffin left the party with no leadership after the European elections (McGowan Reference McGowan2014: 683). Electoral support for the BNP plummeted, leaving the party an insignificant player in British electoral politics.
The MPF's repeated good performances in EP elections followed by downfall
If a right-wing populist party strongly defends an anti-EU agenda, it receives public attention and, possibly, many votes in European elections. However, if that party fails to transfer EP-provided resources to the internal supply side, it is likely to remain a single-issue party. Although the party continues to earn a high level of support in European elections thanks to its firm Eurosceptic stance, it may fail to sustain its political influence in the national arena. The electoral history of the French MPF fits into this pathway.
The MPF was founded in 1994 and led by Philippe de Villiers, an ardent proponent of Euroscepticism, a former Secretary of State for Culture, and a well-known politician in a mainstream conservative party. The MPF received a large percentage of the vote in European elections by mobilizing Eurosceptic voters: 12.34% in 1994, 13.05% in 1999 and 6.67% in 2004. However, the MPF's European success never led to broad national support.
The MPF's European successes were not utilized to further the party's internal supply for two reasons. First, the party was already equipped with key political resources before it began winning the European elections in 1994. Second, the party did not have much motivation to strengthen its internal organization, as it changed coalition partners in each election. In other words, the MPF did not develop into an independent political force with a distinct political position in the national political arena. Naturally, support for the MPF in national elections declined until the party was dissolved in 2018.
This marks a significant contrast with the FN, which used EP resources to consolidate its own political territory. The case of the MPF shows that the nature of competition in European elections is different from that in national-level elections, as hypothesized in the SOE literature. The MPF's strong Euroscepticism might have brought supporters with a high demand for anti-EU stands in European elections. However, if the party's internal supply is not strengthened, it may lose its chance of making a mark in the national political arena.
Discussion
How can a marginalized party that has never had success in general elections not give up hope of being elected to the national parliament after decades of work? Without success in the European elections, it would have been difficult for challenger parties like the FN or UKIP to sustain their political presence over an extended period. The EP indirectly and unintentionally strengthened the FN and UKIP by providing tangible and intangible political resources. In both cases, these parties' victories in the European elections significantly influenced their internal supply. The FN leveraged its strong showing in the European elections to attract qualified candidates and secure financial support. Meanwhile, UKIP solidified its leadership, and its members gained valuable experience as professional politicians through repeated electoral successes in European elections.
Furthermore, the cases of the BNP and MPF highlight that obtaining a seat as an MEP does not ensure sustained electoral success in the following years, despite the favourable conditions provided by European elections for the rise of right-wing populist parties. The electoral pathway of the BNP and MPF implies that a right-wing populist party's strong performance at one point in time does not necessarily guarantee a repeat success at another time. However, if a party uses its incumbent positions strategically, it can strengthen itself and prepare for future elections from a long-term perspective despite the previous election's lack of importance to the public.
Utilization of the EP is not the only important element that made a difference between successful right-wing populist parties and short-lived right-wing populist parties. For instance, UKIP and the FN could benefit from the powerful financiers who expected some particular political actions from these parties. The FN received money from the Kremlin in exchange for expressing a pro-Russia stance during the Russia–Ukraine war (Follorou Reference Follorou2024) and UKIP received a huge donation from large businesses and hedge-fund managers (Marriage Reference Marriage2015; Mortimer Reference Mortimer2017). It is plausible that this kind of influx of financial resources also made the parties more prepared for the next election campaign. Still, the FN and UKIP received money from Moscow or rich anti-EU business people only after the parties had already become strong political agents who seemed to be able to deliver the will of the donors.
This study focuses on right-wing populist parties in two European countries that have adopted majority electoral systems. However, the implications of this study can be addressed through a broader examination of European political parties in other countries. In particular, the importance of utilizing alternative European political spaces is most prominent in the case of right-wing populist parties in countries where institutional barriers have effectively prevented radical parties from taking power. For instance, the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the most successful right-wing populist party in Germany, achieved its initial electoral breakthrough in the 2014 European elections. The party's success in Europe contributed to its national and international recognition, reinforcing Euroscepticism within its ranks. Following the European victory, the AfD was able to unite around a more moderate faction, enhancing the party's image and influencing its performance in subsequent state and federal elections (Arzheimer Reference Arzheimer2015: 552). While the AfD's success in the 2017 federal elections was influenced by various political events, including the sovereign debt crisis and the migration crisis, its organizational strength was also bolstered by having representation in Brussels. While the AfD, being a relatively young party of only 10 years, may not yet demonstrate long-term national persistence, its trajectory suggests that this study's findings could be applicable to party politics in other European countries.
As support for Eurosceptic parties reached an all-time high in the 2024 European elections, the findings of this study raise fundamental questions about the European integration project: for whom is the European political arena intended? Similar to national states, the EU might seek to balance accommodating diverse ideas with consolidating its status as a definitive political entity. The EP, as the only EU institution with members directly elected by EU citizens, has welcomed politicians across the political spectrum. Its PR electoral system makes the EP a more inclusive decision-making body than many national-level parliaments.Footnote 5 With the EP's increasing legislative power, the significance of MEPs' diversity in terms of political ideas and social interests has grown. Yet, the question remains open as to the extent to which the EP will allow or support radical-right parties that challenge the mandate of European political integration.
Supplementary material
The supplementary material for this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2024.34.
Financial support
This study was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2020S1A3A2A02092791).
Ethics statement
The research involved several on-site interviews with Members of the European Parliament and journalists based in Brussels. Since they were all public figures and not part of a vulnerable population, the IRB Board at the University at Albany, State University of New York exempted the study from IRB examination.
Open access
