Islam versus Europe

"The Left is losing across Europe." These are the words of
David Miliband, writing in the Times today, a former foreign secretary who should have been the leader of the Labour party but was pipped at the post by his brother thanks to the trade union vote.

We are living through a period of right-of-centre political dominance in Europe not seen in the whole age of democratic suffrage. In Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden, six countries with good claims to represent the historic heartland of social democracy, there are now centre-right governments. This has not happened since the First World War.

He mentions Geert Wilders, so clearly has some clue about where the problem lies:

Parties of the Left are losing voters to the Far Right and the Far Left — just look at the anti-Islamic Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, which came third in the 2010 general election with 15 per cent of the vote. When it comes to the interwoven issues of self-interest and identity, wages and immigration, working-class voters see the Centre Left as at best suspect and at worst guilty.

But what's his solution? Stop pandering to Muslims? Stop Muslim immigration? Repatriate the Muslims who are here? Er, no. The solution is to "build a moral economy. When left-of-centre parties fight elections as private sector reformers, in the name of efficiency and not just fairness, they can win." And, eh, community organising:

I don’t believe policy answers can be found in the traditional way, with the government as a giant problem-solver. That is why I support the Movement for Change, a new leadership academy for community organisers that aims to rebuild the labour movement.

Even when they know what the problem is, the European left cannot respond to it. They cannot give the people what they want: an end to islamification. They are like communists back in the old Soviet bloc watching their economy fall apart but unable to do anything about it because of their own ideological straitjacket.