Why Fortuynism Is Wrong for Britain's Right-Wing
The relative success of the continental right-populist movements should not blind us to their weaknesses.
I found Lauren Southern’s condemnation of Red Pill influencers interesting for a number of reasons. I am in agreement with her that the level of women-hate in this space has been sickening, and indeed I feel I was ahead of the curve here by writing my article on the importance of women in the movement all the way back in January.
Southern was much bigger in the ‘Anti-SJW Era’ than she is today. She was extremely badly treated by the authorities, who recognised her as a uniquely dangerous threat. However, she basically broke under that pressure and moved to the left, a move that seems rather fickle.
Southern emphasised that the reason why people back in the 2010s defended the ‘West against Islam’ was because it was more tolerant and liberal in regards to women’s rights. She claimed that the reason why women are moving to the left was because of the red-pill influencers who were now more willing to defend Islam than defend women’s rights, with a sense of disappointment and betrayal keenly felt within the video. One questions her consistency in this position, given that back then she extensively criticised feminism, but the position itself is rather legitimate.
Nonetheless, in this video she revealed how once common talking points now sounded extremely dated. Whilst not entirely agreeing with the position she’s coming from, I agree that there has been a change in the discourse. Parroting out this once common but now dated (at least in America and Canada) rhetoric, she symbolises how the anti-SJW Era in many ways was a continuation of New Atheism.
Many of the initial people in that movement were disillusioned New Atheists who opposed the ‘Atheism Plus’ of the SJWs. People like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins were quick to point out the hypocrisy between many liberal’s rightful criticism of Christianity yet affection for multiculturalism and Islamism. They wanted their ‘Enlightenment Fundamentalism’ consistently applied.
And in many ways they got their wish. The left these days is far less tolerant of cultural relativism, something that Sohrab Ahmari (before he sold-out) said in his brilliant article ‘The Triumph of the Enlightenment Fundamentalists’.
The Continental Right
A lot of polling shows that in Continental Europe, young people are more likely to support the populist right than their parents. This is a good sign, and a major white-pill, compared to the depressing situation in Britain and the United States, where poll after poll shows us Gen Z are ‘the Wokeist in history’, additionally painful for somebody like myself who belongs to that generation.
But in many ways, Continental Europe is ‘frozen’ in the paradigm of the anti-SJW era and has not moved away from it. It still, particularly in North Western Europe, parrots a ‘liberal anti-Islam’ line of ‘Islam is a threat to women and LGBT rights’.
Lauren Southern is correct to point out there has been a change. There was a time when The Amazing Atheist and Sargon of Akkad would lampoon Islam constantly on the issue of women’s rights and liberal hypocrisy. There are still some people in the Anglosphere who champion it; such as Douglas Murray and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, though this is mostly in Britain and the former Dominions, and largely absent from the United States.
But is this ‘liberal fundamentalism’ a good thing? Should we expect all cultures to abide by ‘universal human rights’, determined by Western liberals? How is that vision, of globalist liberalism, really any different from what the Woke preach?
The British Right is being pulled in two directions, echoing its modern role as a ‘bridge’ between the United States and Continental Europe.
On the one hand, you have the American Right, that is much more into the idea of religious freedom, and protecting religious conservatives (including Muslims) against the Woke left that want to force them to abide by liberal values they consider ‘universal’.
On the other hand you have a Continental European Right, which is into a hardline secular laicism, using ‘universal liberal values’ as a justification for opposing Islam and the ‘threat it poses to Western values’.
And whilst it’s obviously far preferable that these Continental European parties are making inroads with the young, compared to the Woke youth of Britain and America (Canada is slightly different), we do need to point out their limitations. For instance, the Sweden Democrats had no issues supporting a government that sanctioned Viktor Orban’s Hungary over ‘threats to LGBT rights’, and Jordan Bardella of France’s National Rally has a policy of deliberately not discussing issues related to transgenderism.
So, I thought it would be good to analyse this ‘liberal anti-Islam nationalist’ position, that had it’s peak in the America and Canada in the 2010s, and which Southern is clearly nostalgic for, but yet is still quite dominant on the continent (particularly in Northern and Western Europe, though not all parties subscribe to it), and is vying for influence in Britain with the current American-inflected right. Steve Bannon and Andrew Breitbart were key pushers of it, though Bannon has lost influence, and the American Right’s ideas have moved away from those of Continental Europe, with people like Chris Rufo and Curtis Yarvin being in the drivers seat, and with it a much more cultural relativist view.
So, what is this ideology? How did it come to be? What were its strengths and weaknesses, and why do I believe it ultimately is a dead end?
Fortuynism
Whilst it was the frustration of the New Atheists with liberal sympathy for Islam that turbocharged it in the Anglosphere, the person who arguably engineered this ideology was a Dutch politician called Pim Fortuyn.
Fortuyn was originally a Marxist, though he gradually moved rightwards as he saw neoliberalism as being a compliment to the 1960s counter-cultural values he embraced. This led him to leave the Dutch Labour Party and join the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) party. However, having differences with VVD, he also broke away from them and engineered his own right-wing populist movement, that he named the ‘Pim Fortuyn List’. The current Party for Freedom, led by Geert Wilders, arguably is a continuation of this party.
Fortuyn was a gay man who correctly sensed that Islam was a threat to his lifestyle, and so used the logic that liberals supposedly championed, of universal rights, to get them to not make an exception for Islam. He built his appeal by also being a populist who condemned the ‘purple coalitions’ between the major parties in Dutch politics and presenting himself as anti-establishment.
He was assassinated in 2002 by a left-wing terrorist, which caused his party to skyrocket in support, and for him to become something of a martyr. It was this event which made the Pim Fortuyn List, and later the Party for Freedom, a major political party in the Netherlands.
One also has to put Fortuynism in the context of 9/11 and the War on Terror. There was major fear about radical Islam not just amongst conservatives, but also amongst many liberals. Christopher Hitchens, one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheist movement, was one of these figures who condemned the backwardness of Islam and supported the War on Terror'. New Atheism itself should be analysed with the environment it emerged in; the ‘twin threat’ of radical Islam and the seemingly ever-greater ascendent Evangelical Christianity in the United States. We now know that the 2000s was the ‘last stand’ for the religious right in the US, but that would not have seemed so obvious at the time.
Fortuynism spread beyond the Netherlands as right-populist parties, often those with explicitly Neo-Nazi roots, tried to shed their former image. In the 2010s the Sweden Democrats adopted the ‘anti-Islam liberal nationalism’ that Fortuyn had represented, leading to defectors to create the Alternative for Sweden (a much better party). Likewise, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, after her disappointing show in 2017, used social liberalism as a means to build credibility amongst moderate voters. It may work; we will see how the 2027 election pans out.
Andrew Breitbart, who founded the Breitbart online publication, was a major sympathiser with the Fortuynist worldview, with Steve Bannon taking over Breitbart after his death. Bannon was part of what was known as the ‘Alt-Lite’, of which the anti-SJW Movement was also a part, though Bannon was of a different generation to the millennial leadership of that movement. He was an early backer of Trump, and the chief executive of his 2016 campaign, liking Trump’s focus on anti-immigration and anti-Islam whereas being more socially liberal on issues like LGBT. In many ways, Trump in 2016 had elements of Fortuynism in his worldview.
Ideological Weaknesses of Fortuynism
Fortuynism is essentially a more consistent form of Neoconservatism. It is more consistently emancipatory, focused on universal rights and the supremacy of Western liberal democracy. In contrast, many American Neoconservatives had to negotiate with the religious right, and so weren’t as militant in their opposition to religious fundamentalism, as personified by George W. Bush’s administration, who combined a domestic social conservatism with a foreign Neoconservatism.
The 2010s anti-SJW and then Trump movement differed from a decade prior mostly due to its distrust of foreign intervention. However, the fear of Islam remained; as personified with Trump’s famous ‘Muslim Ban’.
The context is also different in Europe compared to the United States. The United States, being a nation of immigrants, has a tradition of religious freedom and toleration. Many Republicans also, were it not for 9/11, looked on Islam rather favourably. Before 9/11 they had been a overwhelmingly GOP-leaning group, and in the late 2010s it looked as if a conservative/Muslim alliance against LGBT extremism was going to emerge in America and also Canada, although this has been put on hold, perhaps indefinitely, due to the impact of Israel’s October 7th.
Europe is different because its ethnic and religious makeup has been consistent for a much longer period of time. There is also a much larger quantity of Muslims per capita coming to live in Europe compared to in the United States, where they remain a small minority.
Pim Fortuyn’s views heavily embraced the 1960s counterculture, and whilst embracing Reagan’s economic policies, he disliked his social conservatism. Fortuyn also did not oppose the idea of a multi-ethnic society or immigration in and of itself. Replacement of the native Dutch population was not at the top of his concern list. Rather, his problem was ‘specifically Islam’, due to its ‘backwardness and threat to LGBT rights’ that he frequently referred to. He said time and time again that if Islam liberalised, if they fully accepted the doctrines of liberalism and proudly flew the rainbow flag, he would have no issues; but he didn’t believe they would.
Whilst opposing mass immigration from incompatible cultures is something that is almost universally shared on the Right, the specific reasons why Fortuyn did shows the limitations of this kind of common front. Fortuyn was ‘Woke-adjacent’, on virtually every other issue. Wokeness as a doctrine is inherently anti-traditional West, seeing everything through the lens of intersectionality and presenting straight White men as the enemy, so to call Fortuyn Woke would not be entirely accurate. But Fortuyn accepted the countercultural liberalism and deconstructivist elements that had provided such fertile ground for the triumph of Woke; his defence was of the post-60s West and not the traditional West, and on issues like LGBT he was indistinguishable from them.
His views have gained a large amount of establishment respectability within continental Europe precisely because he agreed with them on almost every other issue. France is a country that is very well suited to his beliefs, having a civic nationalism and hard secularism without much space for religious freedom, and indeed, this is why Marine Le Pen has adopted so many of his precepts.
Character of European Populist Parties
Of course, not all Continental European right-populist parties are the same.
The Sweden Democrats have at least called out some of the worst excesses of the LGBT agenda, but some extreme measures have been carried out in regards to ‘trans kids’, despite the popular opposition having been roused in Sweden earlier than in other countries, by a government that they are providing ‘confidence and supply’ to, and they don’t care enough to break the coalition.
Despite getting a lot of flack from the right for her ‘selling out’ on immigration, Giorgia Meloni I believe is a politician of much higher calibre than a lot of others, building bridges in a ‘seduction’ strategy akin to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, compromising on issues of minor importance to gain establishment respectability (Ukraine, foreign policy issues) whilst being firm on issues where it really matters. Despite not being religious, Meloni and her ‘Brothers of Italy’ party has held firm on the LGBT agenda, which is a major weakness of most other parties in Western Europe. She is trying to gradually reform the EU from within. Whilst I don’t agree with her on everything (the ban on artificial meat was stupid), the overall orientation of Meloni is exactly what the right needs across the West.
Likewise, Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party in Hungary, and generally all right-wing parties east of the old Iron Curtain, are much better on standing up to LGBT extremism than their western European counterparts.
But we need to think about what kinds of compromises we are willing to make. Should a right-populist party simply be a single-issue anti-immigration party? A lot of people, including many of my readers, will say yes. They think that demographics is the core issue and that compromises on all other issues should be made to do this, including selling out completely to the cultural left and trying to appeal to them.
However, the rot of Western civilisation is not due to Islam, but within our own societies. It is not any ethnic minority, but Western elites themselves, that decided to open the borders and embrace the destruction of our culture than began in the 1960s.
The Path for Britain
A Fortuynist position has its advocates in Britain, although due to a greater notion of religious freedom it has had more difficulty gaining respectability. Tommy Robinson would be the biggest advocate of it, though his thuggish, repellent personal qualities have arguably kept such a position marginal, even though some of the issues him and his ‘English Defence League’ raised, like the Rotheram and Rochsdale grooming gangs, were completely legitimate and justified.
I do not want Muslims to become a majority in my country, the Palestine issue has revealed that they possess a unique threat. They are unquestionably motivated towards anti-Whiteness and use White self-loathing to pursue their interests. But neither do I want any non-White group to become a majority, like Afro-Caribbeans. Whilst there are many Black Britons who are patriotic and loyal to this country, like Kemi Badenoch, the spread of Critical Race Theory, disproportionately amongst the youth, who identify more with African-Americans than White Britons, is a major problem. Whilst Muslim immigration is a problem, it is not necessarily ‘worse’ than any other type of non-White immigration in terms of promoting CRT and anti-White racism.
But the Muslims that already reside here, and are sole British citizens, who are law abiding and simply want to live in accordance with their culture against the totalitarian imposition of the Woke agenda, I do not have anything against. I do not think Islam specifically is the threat, rather all non-White immigration is, and it’s ‘singling out’ above all other non-Christian religions is built on liberal dogma.
Before he betrayed the movement, Rod Dreher encapsulated this beautifully. He talked about how, as an Orthodox Christian, he sympathised with the worldview of Muslims more than many of his own ethnicity, for at least they wanted to protect their children against the evil LGBT agenda.
George Galloway has the approach of building inroads with the Muslims already here, whilst opposing the mass immigration of more. It is Galloway who is pioneering an ethnic brokerage political machine, and actually utilising Muslim votes against the LGBT agenda. He has managed to build a ‘multiracial working-class coalition’ against Wokeism that people like Sohrab Ahmari and Michael Lind have advocated but has usually not worked.
The Case for Focus on LGBT
The big issue with Galloway is his staunch anti-Zionism, which keeps away Jewish money. This has allowed him to get support from Muslims but also made him a pariah amongst polite society.
Again, one must emphasise the tragedy of October 7th in Israel in stillborn-ing a multiethnic anti-Woke movement. I come at things from the opposite perspective as Scott Greer, who was suspicious of this orientation back when it was gaining momentum in 2022. I feel that the focus on LGBT extremism in that period, spearheaded by organisations like Libs of TikTok, was entirely the correct approach, and am disappointed that other issues have now taken priority.
Muslims are only allowed to spread anti-White racism, and get away with breaking the law, because of self-loathing Whites. This confirms my point that the rot is from within our own society, that let these people come in the first place, not from members of the minority groups themselves. If these groups understood from the beginning that their claims of victimhood would not be indulged, and if they didn’t like that they were free to leave, I believe the vast majority would pose no problem, living in their own segregated communities that do not try and impose on the White majority. The ones that do commit crimes should be swiftly deported, or imprisoned without any ‘racism’ considerations if they are sole British citizens.
I don’t have any issues with Muslim culture, and them teaching their children in their faith. I do wish that it ‘wasn’t here’, as Britain has been a Christian country for millennia and Islam is not a Western religion. But everybody indoctrinates their children, if wasn’t Islam, it would be Wokeism.
The LGBT movement however, built on its universalistic assumptions, is a threat to everyone, disproportionately Whites as they are unprotected by any competing belief system. The desire to groom and mutilate children is something they wish to impose. Unlike Muslims, they are not content to be left alone, they want domination and control of White society, seeing their ideology as ‘non-negotiable’ and ‘not up for debate’, and unlike Muslims, it is a hostile force that has come from ‘within’ and not ‘outside’.
To focus on promoting ‘Western Values’ against ‘Islamism’, we need to have a strong sense of what those ‘Western Values’ are. There was a time when these values were admirable and worth defending, but today, the biggest symbol of Western influence is the rainbow flag and Drag Queen Story Hour. These are not things we should ever defend, they are the prime rot within our society.
People like Richard Hanania have pointed out how right-wing admiration for Russia is primarily based on opposition to LGBT, and I agree with him. On many issues, Russia doesn’t align with the views of Western conservatives; it has tolerance for Islam, abortion is legal, and the people aren’t that religious if that’s measured by attending church services. But the one thing they do agree on is that the LGBT agenda is a menace to their country, and are taking measures to fight it.
And this is something that is more implicit than explicit, but whilst I admit I may be biased, I believe is more widely shared than is perhaps obvious, proven by Hanania’s observation of it whilst in disagreement. There is a deep, entirely legitimate and justified, resentment at the LGBT movement, for how much power they have illegitimately gained in our society with barely any opposition, the moral authority they claim over us, and the flex of their cultural power so widespread and seemingly unstoppable, purposely designed to humiliate and demoralise.
I condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine if looking at that issue entirely on its own. But seeing how the EU has made it it’s civilisational project to spread LGBT extremism eastwards, stabbing Poland’s Law and Justice, who steadfastly supported the Ukrainian war effort, in the back, for daring to defy the rainbow regime, and Estonia’s legalisation of gay marriage, one must see the war from a broader perspective, with Russia representing the forces of global anti-Wokeism.
Conclusion
I don’t expect this article to be well received. Most of the British Right seems to be oriented towards a ‘demographics first’ point of view, and the issues that animate me do not animate them to the same degree.
I am not saying I want Islam to take over the West, or that I am unconcerned about demographic displacement. I am simply saying that if we want to fight for our ‘Western Values’, we need to have a strong sense of what it is that we are defending. Fortuynism’s conception of ‘Western Values’ are not values that are worth defending, and it’s uncompromising, universalistic attitude is essentially the same as the LGBT activists that want to discriminate against Christians for not absolutely, completely submitting to their false notions of ‘equality’.
I do believe that Western values, in their traditional form, are worth defending. Representative government, the rule of law, constitutionalism, pluralism, empiricism, and religious freedom are examples. But the Woke constitute just as much, if not more, threat to those things as Muslims do, and in the case of religious freedom, pose much more. Our arguments against Muslim immigration are entirely separate, and incompatible, with those of Pim Fortuyn and those adjacent to him.
I'd recommend looking into the "separate the LGB from the TQ" argument. Many gays and lesbians are being polarized by the same woke forces impacting everyone else.