With the U.S. political landscape having been dominated by the two-party system, it is unlikely that an actual libertarian-conservative movement or party will emerge and evolve in terms of voting support. The semblance of political pluralism with the political factions in the Democrats and Republicans bloc doesn’t really change anything. If anything, this shows that system just contains various political factions under a same political label.
In a multi-party system, this wouldn’t happen: if the political faction’s stances or decisions become too different from the bloc, it’ll end up leaving the latter to create its own, distinctive political movement.
In Europe, there are a few libertarian conservative parties who had been gaining surging support — both in the polls and actual voting support — to present themselves as a credible alternative to mainstream populists on the right. The latter are characterized by a welfarist stance as well as a soft reformist stance on the E.U. and economic interventionism/nationalism.
In Poland, the anti-E.U. libertarian, conservative political alliance called Konfederacja, gained 6.81% in the popular vote, gaining 11 MP seats in the Sejm — the Polish lower house.
Established in December 2018 mainly by Janusz Korwin-Mikke and Robert Winnicki, it is opposed to the ruling PiS — Law and Justice party — in economic and foreign policies.
Konfederacja supports normal diplomatic relations with Russia, while being strongly sceptical about a pro-America foreign policy — including independence from NATO — and supportive of ending diplomatic support to Israel.
Konfederacja’s presidential candidate for the 2020 Polish presidential elections, Krzysztof Bosak, also insisted: “Economic freedom and private property help people to retain freedom and if the society consists of free people, the nation is strong,” as well as advocating better government spending, as “the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party pushes Poland deeper into debt.”
The alliance reached a record high of 12% in a poll of Social Changes on October 16-19, 2020.
In Denmark, a libertarian conservative party named Nye Borgerlige was established in 2015 by Pernille Vermund and Peter Seier Christensen, as a split from the Conservative People’s Party.
It’s shown to be tougher on immigration & deeply anti-EU, calling for the withdrawal of Denmark from EU.
As opposed to the mainstream right-wing populist Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti), Nye Borgerlige denounced their economic model, economic nationalism as being “social democratic”, as Nye Borgerlige supports tax cuts & abolishment of all corporate taxes
They don’t want immigrants who don’t “positively contribute to society”.
It also wants less laws & rules, wanting to “abolish more laws than are passed”, hinting at another libertarian policy advocating for the minimal role of the government, thus less intervention and regulation.
The party received 2,4% of the popular vote in the 2019 Danish general elections, reaching the 2% threshold & earning 4 seats in the Danish Folketing. Like the Social Democrats, it mainly took voters from the Dansk Folkeparti.
Since the last general elections, the party reached a record high of 10% in a poll of Megafon on October 19-22, 2020.
The criticisms expressed by Nye Borgerlige and Konfederacja towards their “mainstream populist” rivals are well-founded. Sadly, the PiS has been very hostile and sectarian towards Konfederacja. PiS’s wish to have the monopoly of the anti-establishment vote on the right goes to show that they are in a way not that different from the old mainstream parties.
Similarly to the U.S. administrations, the PiS is deeply opposed to having normal diplomatic relations with Russia, to the point of calling Konfederacja a “pro-Russian party” as said by Jarosław Kaczyński. To justify themselves, the PiS supposedly claims to be the “pro-western party”. The PiS is just annoyed about having some of their voters going to Konfederacja, for reasons regarding their different foreign and economic policies.
