 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Fiona Duff from the Transnational Institute. Fiona, good to have you with us. Thank you Praveer. Europe is looking very interesting politically after a long time. We have had elections in UK, we have had elections in France. Spain is having some interesting developments. Let's talk about France first. Do you think the left has really been able to pull itself up much more in the last two rounds of election before? Absolutely. I think Mélenchon's new party, which I can't pronounce that well in French either, but I think it's la France Soumise, which means France unbowed, France defiant. But they did very well in the election. This is the parliamentary elections. The parliamentary elections, yeah. The presidential elections actually they didn't do too badly either. That was the big news was the surprise of Mélenchon coming up. But also his parties inspired by Podemos and these other Bernie Sanders, all these new kinds of politics we see emerge. So now I found it very interesting. Do you see a resurgence of the left taking place in Europe now? After, for instance, what happened in Greece, there was this feeling that the left has again gone down. They've had Spain. Podemos didn't do that well as we expected. But we have had some interesting city elections and we have France. And of course, we had the big one, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. So do you think there is a, in that sense, a sense, a renewed sense that the left is coming back into Europe in politics after some fairly long while? Yes, and my sense is there's a big generational divide in Europe and what you see, particularly in Britain, with Corbyn phenomenon, but I think we'll see it increasingly, is young people wanting a new kind of politics fed up with, you see the social democrats being completely wiped out and they've lost tremendously in, well, they will lose in Germany and the polls indicate the social democrats will lose. Holland, they're completely wiped out. France, completely wiped out. So the youth want something different and they're mobilising. And the Corbyn phenomenon is largely youth driven. I mean, the divide has been primarily under 40 and over 40. And it's also interesting that the social democracy, particularly what would be called the Tony Blair, Blairite movement, if you will, was to disempower the unions, disempowered the local activists. They were neoliberal social democrats. Neoliberal social democracy internationally with all the military interventions in the world, but also increasingly centering everything around the parliamentary party. And that is what Corbyn's really drive has been, that the base of the Labour Party is what needs to be empowered and that seems to have changed the relation in the party itself. No, and I think the other thing, and maybe the international media needs to be more careful with us, it's not about Corbyn, it's not about the individuals, like it shouldn't be about Bernie Sanders or Mélenchon. No, it's about the people. And actually what I wanted to mention was that people should watch out for what's happening in Hamburg next weekend. 7 and 8 July in Hamburg will be mobilisation against the G20. And the slogan is the British Labour Party slogan. We are many, we are loud, and we will be heard. So I think tens of thousands of youths will come from all over Europe to Hamburg. Shelly Spoil. Yes, Corbyn's favourite. You saw the Glastonbury video clip, it was beautiful. So if you see this, do you think in that sense the neoliberal shift of the social democracy, which had really derailed the left in Europe, because social democracy was the leading left force in Europe for a long time. Do you think that is now changing and you are going to see more, if I use the word more radical politics, which questions the basis of the current economic order itself emerging? I was thinking about that last night in preparation for today, but it might be overconfident to say a tipping point has been fully reached, but it is pretty much there. Neoliberalism is pretty much delegitimated, particularly among youth, I would say. But one has to qualify that a bit. And I think there are specificities in different countries in Europe. In France, for example, I am not entirely sure that that is true among the youth. I think it takes different form. But Britain, I think absolutely. And it is an economic crisis since 2008. People have absolutely discussed it the way the banks have been bailed out, how people had to pay for that with the social security. The refugee crisis has been a big fault line between left and right. But I think neoliberalism is pretty much on its way to absolute de-legitimation. And I think the destruction of the world, the loss it supports, the social democratic centre-left. The second issue then, that the destruction of the centre in this sense, which is both the liberal right and the liberal left, is to win. The centre is kind of collapsing. Do you think the centre is collapsing? Therefore, white nationalism of different kinds, white nationalism of what we saw in Le Pen, what you see, Trump is an expression of. That's also on the rise that we should also look at that very carefully. Yeah, well, all the mainstream media attention has been on that, in fact. And I kept feeling, yeah, but the real story is the rise of the left. But that's true. And what's interesting, I think, is that the basis for both the far right and this new left phenomenon is similar. It's anti-elite, enormous resentment against neoliberal policies. Yeah, a sense of betrayal by the elite. And the elite also being seen as your kind of urban elite. So it's not just the parties and the political centres, but it's also a comfortable matter. Dangerous parties, it's also looked upon as a cultural elite. Which includes the left, by the way, from the right perspective. The kind of liberal left that wants to let all these refugees in and so forth. But the refugee-migrant issue is basically what distinguishes the left and the right. What about the issue of wars, for instance? The kind of wars we've seen in Libya, starting from Afghanistan to Syria at the moment. There's all the wars. We have one in Mali. We have also continuing wars in Congo, still continuing. So what about, is there a clearer understanding of the war? Because a lot of this crisis of neoliberalism is also connected to the kind of war economy they have built. Yeah, and certainly the refugee crisis is the direct result. I think on the left it's very clear. On the right, they don't seem to make the connection at all. I don't know where they think these refugees are coming from, but that connection is not made at all. Spain is a very interesting stage of development because we not only have Podemos, but we also have a lot of city-wide movement and some of the very successful ones, for instance, in Barcelona. Can you tell us a little more about that? Yeah, now, Barcelona is fascinating because they won the city, Barcelona in Común, which is a coalition of left parties. But they also won. People don't talk about it as much, but Madrid as well, Valencia. So there's quite a few really key cities in Spain which are being run along similar lines. And this in Común, in English, could translate into in common, but the common's economy has become that. And that's an interesting new movement in Europe as well. It's a broad church, but there's a very strong left dimension. But in Barcelona you've got relatively young feminists running the city now. They want to de-modify food, housing, water, electricity, all these things. So it's a very radical agenda. They have enormous legitimacy with the population. Last month they held a conference, and I know they expected around 150 people, international guests, to come and see. It was to showcase what was going on in Barcelona, and 850 turned up. But from all over the world, you know, mayors from Sudanese cities, right to the city campaign in Cape Town, called up and said, can we come? So it's a magnet for seeing and practice what could be possible. So yeah, I think people are very excited by it. You know, that brings us to the issue that how do you share these experiences with each other? How do you share what is happening in Barcelona? There's a geography, there is language. I hope Transnational Institute will continue its work and bring all of this to the rest of us, who may be denied by the virtue of the fact we don't have a European location or understand Spanish. So I am looking forward to more of interactions with you, Fiona, and the Transnational Institute, so that we can take this forward. Thank you for being attentive. This is all the time we have today in NewsClick. Please keep watching NewsClick for other episodes.