Talk:Europe of Freedom and Democracy/Archive 1

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Archive 1

National liberalism

This article that is cited to verify "National liberalism" as the ideology of EFD, does not say anything about EFD or national liberalism. Therefore I will delete both the national liberalism claim and the source. Kind regards -- RJFF (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Is the EFD far-right?

The term 'far right' to describe the EFD is not used by the mainstream media. The curent sources for this claim are not good enough. For example, the author of the self-published book is in receipt of this funding from the EU and therefore cannot be used as a source on this topic as per WP:REDFLAG. If you cannot find multiple high-quality independent sources this needs to be removed, thats the rules of wikipedia.--JacksonKnight 15:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Note; There is no doubt that some parties in this group are pretty extreme, but some are not (UKIP). Describing this entire group as far-right without an appropriate source is original research.--JacksonKnight 15:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
There are two high quality sources describing it as far right and that's more than enough. In fact, there are large numbers of sources to be found that describe this group, or its member groups, or its individual members, as far right. In the European Parliament, they are only known as disruptive trouble makers[1] and extremists who are sanctioned for disruption constantly. Mocctur (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
No. If a couple of sources call it far-right, but others do not, it means that the label is not generally agreed upon. Thus it certainly should not be called far-right in the first sentence of the article, even before the term eurosceptic. This credible source[2] calls the group anti-EU, conservative and nationalist, but not far-right. --89.27.36.41 (talk) 17:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. The placement of the term in the article should be improved. --U5K0'sTalkMake WikiLove not WikiWar 17:38, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I second that. Two sources (even if they are reliable and relevant) do not show that the group is generally considered far-right. The member parties with the most seats (UKIP, Lega Nord, United Poland) are not far-right parties. The far-right parties in the group (Danish People's Party, Greek LAOS, Slovak National Party) have only 3 seats. --RJFF (talk) 18:20, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The UK Independence Party is certainly far right in many people's opinion, even in the opinion of many of its own former members ("The UK Independence Party split when over 200 leading members resigned in protest at the party's alleged drift to the far right", Jon Tonge, British Elections and Parties Review, p. 218, Routledge, 2001, ISBN 0714652245). The party is also described as an "anti-immigration" party (Anthony Giddens, Simon Griffiths, Sociology, p. 520, Polity, 2006, ISBN 0745633781). And there are plenty of sources describing Lega Nord as a far-right party, for example Peter Merkl in Right-wing Extremism in the Twenty-first Century (p. x) (Taylor & Francis, 2003, ISBN 0714681881) describes Lega Nord as a "far-right Italian party." Mocctur (talk) 18:38, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Defectors from the party are by definition not neutral observers... Anti-immigration does not equal far-right. --89.27.36.41 (talk) 18:42, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Rob Ford, Matthew J. Goodwin in their new book specifically about UKIP and BNP call these two parties "extreme and radical right-wing" parties (Voting for Extremists, passim, Taylor & Francis, ISBN 041569051X). Mocctur (talk) 18:49, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Then they are not in the mainstream regarding UKIP. If you look at the reaction to the 2009 European Parliament election in Britain, you'll see that the most of the press regarded UKIP and BNP as very different sort of parties. --89.27.36.41 (talk) 18:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
They are both far-right parties, just one is in part influenced by economic liberalism (Ukip) and the other is based on fascist-corporatism (BNP). They aren't too dissimilar, apart from their respective economics programmes.--Autospark (talk) 19:15, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Thats WP:WEIGHT to a book written by a sociology lecturer. The broad spectrum of independent mainstream press in the UK never, ever describe UKIP far-right. However, good secondary-sources for the controversial members of EDF would make a worthy addition to this article as long as it doesnt drift into original research. (Autospark please find a single source fo calling economic liberalism far-right!).--JacksonKnight 19:24, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
They are not far right because of economic liberalism (and are they even economically liberal in the first place? I thought they were primarily nationalist), they are far right because of jingoist, anti-European and anti-immigration rhetoric, and because numerous reliable sources describe them as such. Mocctur (talk) 20:17, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Hang on, slight miscommunication. I didn't cite economic liberalism as being far-right (because it isn't), rather that Ukip is a far-right party that has some elements of economic liberalism, which admittedly would be more accurately described as Thatcherism rather than 'regular' economic liberalism.--Autospark (talk) 23:48, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry but some comments on here are frankly laughable; how misinformed some of you are. UKIP, far-right, REALLY? Do you know ANYTHING about what far-right politics is? UKIP for one, are not 'anti-immigration', as they support a policy based on the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand models, which is based on controlling migration, not stopping it. Is everyone in those countries an extremist then? Secondly, far-right politics is geered more towards authoritarianism, whereas UKIP want less of a state. We are also pro-democracy hence the name. It's this nonsense UKIP has to put up with day in, day out. UKIP are not nationalists, neo-Nazis or whatever else you wish to degrade them with. Arsenalfan24 (talk) 22:22, 19 February 2013 (UTC)
Who said that UKIP is far-right? EFD does not only consist of UKIP. The Slovak Nationalists are undoubtedly far-right, Danish People's Party and Greek LAOS are usually considered far-right as well, several notable observers also categorise Italian Lega Nord and the True Finns as far-right. So, a considerable portion of EFD is far-right. --RJFF (talk) 13:27, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
Even if this is true if the EPD aren't all far-right then you can't describe it as far-rights, just some of its members. Even then of the three you cite you're only sure about one, "usually" isn't good enough. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 22:34, 22 February 2013 (UTC)
The cited sources do describe EFD as a far-right group. It is not up to you or me to simply reject some sources, unless you claim that these sources are unreliable or fringe. --RJFF (talk) 11:32, 23 February 2013 (UTC)
  • "Far-right" is a difficult term. I don't think it should be used unless there is virtual unanimity among reliable mainstream sources. Where it is open to question, we should show the facts and let readers decide for themselves. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 20:40, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Right Wing?

The sources describing the group as right-wing are all at least 2 years old. As the composition of the group has radically changed since then, is this description accurate? Five Star (the second largest party in the group) are populist, but not right wing. Some other members are certainly right wing, but others are environmentalists etc. Can more recent sources for "right-wing" be found for the new composition, or should it be removed/replaced? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Simon A Lock (talk • contribs) 20:59, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course those references should be kept, and should only be replaced when there are reliable third-party sources about the EFD group in the 8th term of the European parliament. The 8th term has not even started yet - we do not and cannot yet know if the EFD will deviate from its previous trajectory, new member parties or not. There is no need to jump the gun and make needless changes to affect the accuracy of the article when we have insufficient information on the contrary.--Autospark (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
We might think about splitting the article. While EFDD may be the legal successor of EFD (not sure if they are), and the name and logo are similar, the composition of the group is very different. Only UKIP and TT have stayed, all other former EFD members are gone (defected or failed to be reelected), all other EFDD members are new (and not EFD). A precedent might be Europe of Nations and Independents for a Europe of Nations which have two separate articles even though the composition was mostly the same (unlike in the case of EFD/EFDD). --RJFF (talk) 13:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
It is the same organisation with a new official title (just as when the PES group became the S&D group in 2009, for example), although splitting the article for the group composition for the upcoming new parliament term is a reasonable idea with precedent, so we should strongly consider that.--Autospark (talk) 13:46, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Did the Socialists also lose 90 percent of their member parties, replaced by new ones, when they transitioned from PES Group to S&D Group? --Jaakko Sivonen (talk) 13:56, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree with splitting the article. The discontinuity between membership of the 2009 group and the 2014 group is too great to ignore. For them to be considered as the same group a similar political direction would help but the addition of M5S makes that too hard. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 15:24, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
You do have a pertinent point there, Jaakko Sivonen. Thinking on this matter further, we have two separate articles for the Rainbow Group in its first and second incarnations, so maintaining separate articles for EFD and EFDD does seem the way to go.--Autospark (talk) 20:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Not wishing to throw spanners into the works, but I'll be the devil's advocate, if I may. There seems to me to be little if any doubt that the EFDD is legally the same organisation as the EFD; they changed their name, but they haven't changed their website or their logo. It certainly appears to be a superficial change to the organism. I'm also doubtful that membership turnover alone can change the identity of a group (and in this case, the two contiguous member parties supply more than half of the new membership, so it's not a wholesale turnover anyway) - the more important question is if its core political identity remains the same and if its legal identity remains the same. If they just amended their statutes to change their name, that doesn't much change matters. Certainly that can be argued either way in this instance, but certainly the hard eurosceptic identity of EFD/EFDD appears to be remaining constant. A little instability is pretty normal for souverigniste formations in the EP- the old UEN differed quite a bit over time too. I would change the article name to EFDD and include in the first line the old name in brackets: (until June 2014, Europe of Freedom and Democracy). Lastly, I certainly don't intend to press this matter, especially as I'm late to the party, but I thought it potentially helpful to articulate the contrary case. Gabrielthursday (talk) 10:39, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't necessarily favour a two-article-solution either. The point of my previous comment was that the group's ideology and political position shouldn't be defined by old references, when there has been so much change in the group's composition. --Jaakko Sivonen (talk) 12:18, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
I do agree with you both on many levels, Gabrielthursday and Jaakko Sivonen. EFDD is legally the same organisation as EFD (just as EFD was a renamed IND/DEM), and I also doubt there will be any practical change from the very Eurosceptic, right-wing and populist group that it was during 2009–2014. I think the 'two article solution' is more to make it easier for wiki editors more than any real content-related reasons, certainly looking at articles about historical small EP political groups with volatile memberships. Are there any strong feelings that the articles should be 're-merged', and if so how would be the most effective/objective means of constructing a joint article?--Autospark (talk) 23:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
One of the useful things about re-merging the article is that it give a bit more of a narrative feel, a discussion about how the group evolved. You've got the ECR raid of the Finns and Danish People's Party and the SGP member; then the courting of M5S, a roughly left-of-centre eurosceptic party, and the final group formation. In this article, it seems a little odd to concentrate In terms of constructing a new article, I think the lead paragraph should summarise its current identity, and perhaps make reference to its origins and character in the previous Parliament. I think the structure of the current article actually isn't all that far from what a merged article would look like. As I say, I think either result is defensible, but I do favour the single article. Gabrielthursday (talk) 04:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
I support the two-article solution, per Autospark: existing precedents, slightly different names, very different compositions! However, I also think that it is useful to explain the evolution of the EFD into the EFDD. The new EFDD is not fully right-wing, as also the EFD was not (in my view). --Checco (talk) 11:54, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

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