BRUSSELS - New Europe’s online editor examines, as the Eurozone’s financial crisis looks set to continue and even deepen during 2012, why citizens are responding by voting for parties that seemingly only apportion blame and offer quick-fix solutions. 

During only the past five years, ten murders have been blamed on a neo-Nazi underground cell in Jamel, Germany and, just this year, far-right extremist Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik went on a killing spree, shooting dead 69 people at a youth camp near Oslo, Norway, in July. 

The far-right is rising again in Europe, with a new generation of young, web-based supporters embracing hard-line nationalist and anti-immigrant groups, a recent study by British think-tank Demos has revealed, after the group persuaded more than 10,000 followers of 14 parties and street organisations in 11 countries to fill in detailed questionnaires on Facebook.

Of course, there are many precedents for such behaviour in Europe’s history, with Adolf Hitler’s exhortation of the German people to remove the ‘Jewish problem’ being the most horrifying during the past century.

Now as then, a deep cynicism concerning governments and their established leaders would appear to be turning (mostly young men) against traditional society’s norms and values, and such direct action is further accentuated by more generalised fears focused on cultural identity, with immigration – particularly the perceived spread of Islam – the leading concern.

Emine Bozkurt, a Dutch MEP who heads the anti-racism lobby at the European Parliament, told the BBC: "We're at a crossroads in European history. In five years' time we will either see an increase in the forces of hatred and division in society, including ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, or we will be able to fight this horrific tendency."

And, while the mass-killer Anders Breivik was disowned by the parties with which he was affiliated, a police investigation into his contacts highlighted the Europe-wide online discussion of anti-immigrant and nationalist ideas.

There can be no doubt that, during the Eurozone crisis, there is a growing prevalence of anti-immigrant feeling, which manifests itself in particular in suspicion of Muslims, and parties that support anti-immigrant and Islamophobic ideas and ideals have spread beyond their traditional established strongholds in France, Italy and Austria to the traditionally liberal Netherlands and Scandinavia, and now have significant parliamentary blocs in eight countries. Other nations have seen the rise of nationalist street movements such as the English Defence League (EDL). 

On one side are political parties such as France's National Front, a significant force in the country's politics for 25 years, which is seen as being a realistic challenger in next year's presidential election, while on the other are semi-organised street movements such as the EDL, which struggles to muster more than a few hundred supporters for occasional demonstrations, or France's Muslim-baiting Bloc Indentitaire, best known for serving a pork-based "identity soup" to homeless people.

According to Demos, youth  was a common factor – of the almost 450,000 supporters of the 14 organisations involved in the survey, nearly two-thirds were aged under 30. Three-quarters of respondents were male, and more likely than average to be unemployed.

So, what can be done? While the poll appears to indicate that economics play a minimal role, analysts nevertheless believe that the Eurozone crisis is likely to boost recruitment to anti-EU populist parties that are keen to play up national divisions – even in traditionally liberal countries, such as Sweden and Finland, the Sweden Democrats and True Finns are growing ever-more popular, and there is a resurgence in support for the radical right in the Netherlands. 

Simply, this author believes that the only way to stem the rise of parties such as the British National Party and their ilk, which have seemingly ever-more candidates, increased media attention and rising number of votes, and are capitalising on the disengagement, disenfranchisement and fear that many voters in more deprived communities feel, is by progressive politics – the rabble-rousers and their supporters must be proven to be nothing more than a temporary blot on the political landscape, one that can be eroded only by strict adherence to values such as honesty, decency and non-violence on the part of those who vehemently (and rightfully) oppose this disturbing trend. 

History’s lessons demand that this is the path that we take – or else the new year, and the years to follow, may see brutality and persecution on the streets of Europe that it was long hoped had been banished forever.