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The Independent
13 hours ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Anti-vaxxers inspired by Trump and Reform UK make big gains in Japan
The once-fringe far-right Sanseito party emerged as one of the biggest winners in Sunday's upper house election in Japan, capitalising on voter discontent as prime minister Shigeru Ishiba's coalition lost its majority. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner Komeito won only 47 of the 125 contested seats in the House of Councillors, missing their goal of 50 required to retain control. Their combined strength in the 248-seat chamber shrunk to 122, down from 141 earlier. Despite this setback, Ishiba says he is not resigning, vowing to focus on trade negotiations with Donald Trump amid rising public frustration over soaring prices and US tariffs. His position, analysts say, is made more precarious by the fact he has already lost control of the more influential lower house in last year's election, and LDP are now ceding ground to traditionally fringe opposition parties campaigning on right-wing messages such as big tax cuts and stricter immigration controls. Sanseito secured 14 seats in the upper house compared to just one in the last election three years ago. In the more influential lower house, it currently has three seats. The rapid ascent of the party, modelled on populist movements abroad, marks a dramatic shift in Japanese politics. Its improved strength in the upper house gives Sanseito a louder national platform, which it is likely to employ to push its anti-immigration, anti-globalist agenda more aggressively. 'The LDP has turned from right-wing to a centrist position. So there is a vacuum in the ideological spectrum,' Yu Uchiyama from Tokyo University's Advanced Social and International Studies department, explains to The Independent. ' Sanseito has successfully taken the vacuum.' The origins of Sanseito The rise of Sanseito from a largely online fringe group in 2020 to a political force shows its ability to tap into growing public discontent. After initially gaining attention with its anti-vaccine and anti-masking views during the Covid pandemic – a former leader labelled Covid vaccines a 'lethal weapon' – the party rebranded with a 'Japanese First' platform focused on overtourism, economic stagnation and anti-immigration sentiment. Although the party has toned down its rhetoric since, its leadership has continued to echo what have been called conspiracy theories around public health, according to The Asahi Shimbun. As foreign workers and tourists have risen sharply in number in recent years, Sanseito has leveraged public anxieties around national identity, security, and inflation to gain wider traction, advocating stricter controls on immigration, stronger defence policies, and economic reforms. 'The phrase 'Japanese First' was meant to express rebuilding Japanese people's livelihoods by resisting globalism,' Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya, 47, told local broadcaster Nippon Television after the election. 'We were criticised as being xenophobic and discriminatory. The public came to understand that the media was wrong and Sanseito was right. We are gradually increasing our numbers and living up to people's expectations. By building a solid organisation and securing 50 or 60 seats, I believe our policies will finally become reality,' he said. How do Sanseito's gains impact LDP? Sanseito's rise is damaging the LDP by pulling away many of its core conservative voters. Analysts say some LDP supporters feel the prime minister is too moderate and lacks the strong nationalist views of former leader Shinzo Abe. They cite examples such as recent legislation to promote awareness of LGBT+ rights and issues. 'Prime minister Ishiba is considered not conservative enough by many supporters of the former prime minister Abe,' Jeffrey Hall, a lecturer in Japanese Studies at Kanda University of International Studies, told the BBC. 'They think that he just does not have the nationalistic views on history, he doesn't have the strong views against China that Abe had.' The result is not just fewer seats for the LDP, but a challenge to its position as the main voice for the Japanese right, analysts say. It also signals growing unrest within the conservative base, making it harder for the LDP to maintain unity and control. 'The political situation has become fluid and could lead to a leadership change or the reshuffling of the coalition in the coming months, but prime minister Shigeru Ishiba will likely stay to complete the tariff negotiations with the US for now,' says Norihiro Yamaguchi, lead Japan economist for Oxford Economics. In spite of its big gains, the road ahead for Sanseito remains difficult. The party lacks the 20 seats needed to submit budget bills, for instance, thereby limiting its direct influence on legislation. Who is Sanseito leader Sohei Kamiya? Kamiya is the unlikely face of Japan's populist right. As the head of Sanseito, the onetime supermarket manager and English teacher has built a loyal following online, where his videos blend nationalist rhetoric, conspiracy theories, and sharp attacks on the political elite. He was formerly a member of the LDP and received support from Abe in the 2012 election, though he lost. He went on to launch Sanseito in 2020 and became its first and only elected lawmaker in 2022. A former military reservist, Kamiya admires US president Donald Trump and often targets political and financial elites in his speeches. His campaign gained wide traction through social media thanks to coordinated messaging and provocative statements such as calling gender equality policies a mistake and warning that Japan risked becoming a 'colony' under globalist influence. As votes were counted on Sunday, Sanseito leaders, including Kamiya, used their media appearances to defend the party's contentious 'Japanese First' slogan and push back against accusations of xenophobia. Kamiya claimed that the slogan was 'about standing up against globalism and protecting the lives of Japanese citizens'. 'The notion that people who want to discriminate and kick foreigners out are flocking to Sanseito is, I think, a little wrong. We aren't that kind of party,' he said. Kamiya, whose upper house seat is secure until 2028, did not stand in Sunday's election. To soften his image and appeal beyond the party's core base of young men, he fielded several female candidates in the latest election, including the singer Saya, who won a seat in Tokyo. What worked for Sansieto? Kamiya has openly looked to Germany's AfD and Reform UK as models for how a populist party might thrive in Japan. Unlike in the US and Western Europe, populism had struggled to gain a foothold in the East Asian nation – until now. Like other opposition parties, Sanseito campaigned on tax cuts and more generous child benefits, proposals that worried investors already concerned about Japan's massive public debt. Prof Uchiyama notes that Sanseito's platform may appear ideologically inconsistent at first glance, blending right-wing nationalist rhetoric with left-leaning economic promises like greater child support. 'It's certain that Sanseito's platform seems to lack coherence. Actually their slogan 'Japanese First' is that of right-wing populists, while their expansionist fiscal policy is that of left-wing populists. However, Sanseito insists that cash handouts should be limited to those with Japanese citizenship. In this point, there is sort of coherence,' he tells The Independent. What really set Sanseito apart during the campaign was its powerful digital strategy and ability to tap into online discontent. Leveraging its more than 400,000 YouTube subscribers – nearly three times that of the LDP – the party built an influential platform to directly challenge the political establishment. 'It seems that those who supported Abe's right-wing LDP have now turned to Sanseito because the LDP under Fumio Kishida and Ishiba has got close to the centrist position. Besides, Sanseito effectively utilised SNS and YouTube,' Prof Uchiyama says, referring to social networking services. 'Voters who mainly get political information by SNS and YouTube are more likely to support Sanseito than voters who don't.' This strong online presence allowed the party to amplify its message, reach disillusioned conservative voters and spread its rhetoric far more effectively than its rivals. Sanseito's hardline stance on immigration has already nudged the country's political discourse further right, prompting the government to declare a crackdown on crimes by foreigners and pledge 'zero illegal foreigners' just days before the upper house election. The rise of revisionist parties presents a significant threat to Japan's democratic discourse and foreign policy, Uchiyama tells The Independent. 'I am afraid the rise of such parties poses a great risk to Japan's democracy. There are now many people in Japan who believe fake news and conspiracy theories,' he says. 'It will undermine democratic norms that are necessary to keep our polity healthy.'
Arab News
4 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Disinformation catalyzes anti-migrant unrest in Spain
MADRID: The rare anti-migrant violence that recently rocked a Spanish town demonstrated how online disinformation feeds xenophobic hate speech, which leapt from screens to real life with the support of politicians, experts said. Last weekend's unrest in the southeastern town of Torre Pacheco pitted far-right groups against immigrant residents, mainly of Moroccan origin, but a heavy police presence prevented serious confrontations. The altercations were sparked after a 68-year-old pensioner said three men of North African origin attacked him without provocation on July 9. Two days later, the conservative-led city council organized a protest against insecurity, which quickly escalated when far-right groups joined with hostile slogans against immigrants. That day, and for several nights, riots broke out in the streets of the southeastern city of 40,000. Authorities have arrested 14 people, including three suspected of involvement in the attack on the retiree. Also among those detained is the leader of the far-right 'Deport Them Now' group, who allegedly called for a 'hunt' of migrants on social media. The sudden outbreak of violence took Spain by surprise but anti-migrant discourse had already been brewing, partly due to disinformation circulating on social media. AFP's digital verification team in Spain has debunked many false claims linked to immigrants, mostly concerning public benefits they supposedly receive and alleged attacks by foreigners on Spanish customs. For Alexandre Lopez Borrull, a professor in communication and information science at the Open University of Catalonia, disinformation in such cases is 'the fuel and the spark at the same time.' The narrative 'is fueled over a long period of time' and when a specific event occurs, it can act as a spark in scenarios like the one that played out in Torre Pacheco, he said. A video purporting to show the assault on the pensioner, along with a list of alleged attackers, quickly circulated online — both debunked by AFP. Elisa Brey, a sociology professor at Madrid's Complutense University, likened the phenomenon to criminals setting off wildfires. 'It's hot, there's a temperature alert, and an arsonist passes by and throws a match. That is what happens with disinformation,' she said. Experts also emphasized the role of politicians, particularly the far-right Vox party, in fanning the flames of anti-migrant rhetoric. Vox has long connected immigration to crime and recently proposed, echoing other EU political parties and far-right activists, that some migrants be deported as part of a broad 'remigration' plan. Foreigners make up 14 percent of Spain's population, up from only 1.6 percent in 1998. In events like the violent protests in Torre Pacheco, malicious discourse seeps through different layers of social media before erupting into the public sphere, Brey explained. First, it simmers at an 'underlying' level on less visible platforms like Telegram, before jumping to more popular networks such as X and TikTok. Politicians then amplify the message through public statements, she said. Vox's leader in the southeastern Murcia region, which includes Torre Pacheco, blamed the unrest on 'illegal immigration,' claiming that migrants had assaulted the elderly and committed sexual violence against women. Prosecutors have opened an investigation into his comments to determine if they constitute a hate crime. Social media was used in a way that, 'in the end, it led to these events,' added Marcelino Madrigal, an expert in online platforms and cybersecurity. Madrigal also detected that parties were shifting their position on immigration with an eye on political gain at a time of speculation about early elections in Spain. 'With disinformation about immigration, the aim is to destabilize a government or a country as well as present yourself as an alternative to save us from a problem that does not exist,' he said.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Wheels Are Falling Off Netanyahu's Government
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Outside of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu appears ascendant. After the Israeli leader inflicted heavy losses on Iran last month, The New York Times dubbed the apparent victory his 'political resurrection' and 'the culmination of a hard-fought comeback from the lowest point in his long political career.' Inside Israel, however, the reality could not be more different. As has been the case for more than two years, polls continue to show that Netanyahu's coalition would lose the next election, were it to be held today. And this week, his government lost two of its parties, effectively leaving it with control of just 50 of the Israeli Parliament's 120 seats. The result: Netanyahu now sits atop a de facto minority government that is no longer able to legislate, and Israel is careening toward new elections, most likely in early 2026. The reason for this unraveling is twofold. To maintain his grip on power, despite his personal unpopularity and ongoing corruption trial, Netanyahu has relied upon two constituencies: the ultra-Orthodox religious parties (which hold 18 seats) and the far-right ultranationalist parties (which hold 14 seats). Both of these groups support policies at odds with the views of the Israeli majority, and both are now at odds with Netanyahu. For more than a decade, the ultra-Orthodox have backed Netanyahu even as many Israelis have turned on him. In exchange, the prime minister has provided generous state subsidies to ultra-Orthodox institutions and protected the community from Israel's military draft: Whereas most Jewish Israelis serve in the Israel Defense Forces, most young ultra-Orthodox men are instead paid by the government to study religious texts. This arrangement has been profoundly unpopular even among Netanyahu's voters but was tolerated during peacetime as a necessary concession for continued right-wing governance. [Read: The earthquake that could shatter Netanyahu's coalition] Since October 7, that tolerance has collapsed. Faced with an open-ended, multifront war, Israel is in desperate need of more manpower and can no longer countenance exempting the ultra-Orthodox—the country's fastest-growing demographic—from military service. Many Israelis, including those on the right, have become incensed by what they perceive as a lack of social solidarity from the ultra-Orthodox community, whose members have largely continued to go about their daily lives even as their neighbors have been forced to leave their families and businesses to fight Israel's wars. The Israeli supreme court has also ruled that the ultra-Orthodox carve-out violates the principle of equality under the law, tasking the legislature with instituting a fairer regime. This popular outcry, coupled with Netanyahu's political dependence on the ultra-Orthodox, has put the prime minister in a vise: He can either continue exempting the ultra-Orthodox and anger not just the public and the courts but also his own party, or revoke that exemption and lose the ultra-Orthodox—and with them, his coalition. Of late, Netanyahu has attempted to fudge the issue by pushing through legislation that would create a technical process for drafting the ultra-Orthodox but in practice make the new requirements easy to evade. This effort has met resistance in his party, however, and the bill has not passed—leading to the departure of the ultra-Orthodox parties from the government this week. For now, those parties have said that they won't vote to force new elections, giving Netanyahu time to try to appease them. But unless he can figure out a way to pass a bill that somehow satisfies the ultra-Orthodox and their critics, it's merely a matter of time before his erstwhile allies completely switch sides. And that's not Netanyahu's only problem. He is also facing threats of secession from his far-right partners, who are fundamentally opposed to ending the war in Gaza, because they seek to ethnically cleanse the enclave and populate it with Jewish settlements. Most Israelis oppose this far-right fever dream and support a deal that would end the war in exchange for the release of hostages. But as with military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, Netanyahu here is beholden to a radical minority whose votes keep him in power. At the same time, the Israeli leader is under growing pressure from President Donald Trump to end the Gaza war, once again putting him in an impossible position. If Netanyahu doesn't strike a deal, he risks alienating the U.S. president; if he does, he is likely to lose one or both of the far-right parties in his government. [Read: The Israeli government goes extreme right] Given these proliferating threats to his position, Netanyahu has been doing what he does best: playing for time. The summer recess for Israel's Parliament begins on July 27 and extends through the Jewish holidays, until late October. During that time, the Parliament cannot vote to dissolve itself, and so it would be hard for lawmakers to compel new elections. Netanyahu could reach a cease-fire in Gaza, for example, and the far-right would not be able to immediately bring down the coalition. The prime minister just has to run out the clock until the end of the month, and then he will have space either to get all of his partners back on his side—an unlikely prospect—or to make moves that upset his coalition but put him in a better position for the election that would be called upon the Parliament's return. Whenever that contest does happen—most likely around January—Netanyahu will face arguably the steepest political challenge of his career. Last election, his coalition received just 48.4 percent of the vote, attaining a parliamentary majority only because of a technicality in Israel's electoral system. That coalition has been losing in the polls since April 2023, and no amount of success against Hezbollah or Tehran has altered the trajectory. Thanks to his campaign in Iran, Netanyahu may be in his strongest position since the catastrophe of October 7. But after alienating so many of his allies and the majority of the Israeli people, that still might not be enough. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Slovenia bars far-right Israeli ministers for ‘genocidal statements'
Slovenia has banned far-right Israeli cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country. Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon declared the pair personae non gratae on Thursday in what she said was a first for a European Union country. 'We are breaking new ground,' she said. In a statement, the Slovenian government accused Israel's National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich of inciting 'extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians' with 'their genocidal statements'. It also noted that both cabinet ministers 'publicly advocate the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the forced evictions of Palestinians, and call for violence against the civilian Palestinian population'. There was no immediate reaction from Israel's government. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, key coalition partners in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, have drawn international criticism for their hard-line stance on the Gaza war and on illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank. Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement, has supported the expansion of settlements and has called for the territory's annexation. Settlements are illegal under international law. Last July, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel's continued presence in occupied Palestinian territory was unlawful, a decision Israel has ignored. Smotrich has previously called for 'total annihilation' in Gaza and said that a Palestinian town in the West Bank should be 'wiped out'. Ben-Gvir was an open admirer of Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli who massacred 29 Palestinians as they prayed in Hebron in 1994. He has been convicted multiple times by Israeli courts for 'incitement to racism'. Despite the ministers' positions, Netanyahu relies heavily on support from the two and from their factions in parliament for the survival of his government. On May 21, Slovenia's President Natasa Pirc Musar told the European Parliament that the EU needed to take stronger action against Israel, condemning 'the genocide' in Gaza. Fajon said Slovenia had decided to make the move after EU foreign ministers did not agree on joint action against Israel over charges of human rights violations at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday. She said other measures were being prepared, without going into detail. In June, Britain, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and Canada imposed sanctions on the two Israeli ministers, accusing them of inciting violence against Palestinians. Last year, Slovenia announced it was recognising a Palestinian state, following on the heels of Norway, Spain, and the Republic of Ireland.
France 24
10-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
As Marseille reels from early summer wildfire, France rolls back environmental protections
07:50 09/07/2025 European heatwave caused 2,300 deaths, scientists estimate Environment 09/07/2025 Paris' red-light district Pigalle turned into hipster heaven France 09/07/2025 French police raid far-right party HQ over campaign financing France 09/07/2025 'Trump may be finally be getting tired of Putin's game', analyst says Europe 09/07/2025 Day 2 of Macron's UK visit focused on politics, migration issues Europe 09/07/2025 'Worrying': Single EU member states make asylum agreements with other countries Europe 09/07/2025 EU probes far-right political group over alleged misuse of funds France 08/07/2025 France wildfire shuts down Marseille airport France
