The US-Israeli war over Iran has exposed divisions among Europe’s far-right parties and individuals.
In one camp, Atlanticists such as Nigel Farage, founder of the populist right-wing Reform UK party, support the war.
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In a recent post on X, he urged United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Stormer to “support the Americans in this important fight against Iran.”
A few days later, he said any refugees fleeing Iran should be “placed in the Middle East and not in Britain”.
Spain’s right-wing Vox party has also backed the war, criticizing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez after the left-wing prime minister condemned it as “unfair” and a “dangerous military intervention”.
Others are more skeptical.
Tino Chrupalla, co-chairman of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), has warned that US President Donald Trump is becoming a “war president”.
Markus Frohnmeier, the AfD’s leading candidate for state elections in Baden-Wurttemberg, told Welt that the war must be treated “in a sensitive manner” and that it is “in Germany’s interest” not to experience “new migration flows” as a result.
In the UK, two fighting men, Tommy Robinson and Paul Golding, disagree about the war.
Robinson, an Islamophobe and staunch supporter of Israel, enthusiastically supported it, but Golding, leader of the far-right Britain First party, took to writing to X: “Not our fight, not our war. Put Britain first.”
Other parties are hesitant.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Rally, criticized the US intervention in Venezuela in January, saying “the sovereignty of states is never negotiable”.
However, after the Iran war broke out, he expressed cautious support, telling French media that there was “nothing shocking” about President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that France was sending an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean in response to the widening conflict.
Limits of right-wing unity
Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera that the split in opinion on Iran reflects a “contradiction” about the European right.
Hard right is often seen as “a wave built on the same grievances and concerns in every country – most obviously around immigration”, he said.
“It is built on nationalism and as a result, there are limits to cooperation between different parties in different countries.”
Historically, parts of the right in countries like France and Germany have viewed the United States with suspicion, he said, but others, particularly in countries where anti-communism shaped post-war politics, see Washington as a strategic ally.
That disagreement is now reverberating over Iran.
Morgan Fincio, a Swedish researcher who studies right-wing movements, notes that the Western right has long longed for ideological unity but has consistently split over geopolitical issues.
He told Al Jazeera that the factions had previously been divided over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The divisions are now focused on Trump’s “radical new geopolitical vision, with consequences such as attacking Venezuela (and) threatening Greenland,” he told Al Jazeera.
“In recent years, (Vladimir) Putin’s Russia, Trump’s United States and (Benjamin) Netanyahu’s Israel have all courted European right-wing actors,” Fincio said, adding that “these outside powers have geopolitical preferences that they absorb from their allies and protégés.”
Those with close ties to Washington or Israel supported the attack in Iran, which killed more than 1,000 people, he said. Parties with strong ideological or political ties to Russia that maintain ties with Iran have been more wary or openly opposed.
Far-right positions on foreign conflicts are “more driven by specific geopolitical circumstances at a specific time” than principles, Fincio said.
Existing error lines
These divisions are maintaining an “already existing” division, Fincio said.
He said it remains to be seen whether the Iran war will affect the election.
In the UK, Bale said it was possible.
“Farage’s gung-ho attitude to the attack on Iran may please some of his party’s base, but overall the electorate is unenthusiastic, and Reform UK will fare less well than it did in the upcoming contests this spring.”
Reform UK is currently leading the national opinion polls.
Its leadership has supported the war, but polls suggest its voters are less enthusiastic, with a March 2026 YouGov poll showing just 28 percent of reform UK voters strongly support US military action against Iran.
More broadly, analysts suggest that a close relationship with US President Donald Trump could be politically dangerous.
“I think any European right-wing actors who are too close to Trump can discredit themselves to some degree,” Fincio said, cautioning that the long-term landscape remains uncertain.
Even when the war enters the political debate, analysts say, the right-wing is more likely to be reframed by domestic issues.
Fincio points to Sweden’s September elections as an example.
If the war appears in election campaigns, it will be discussed in terms of the risk of “exposing” Sweden to a new influx of refugees – thereby bringing the debate back to what Sweden, thanks to the (nationalist and right-wing populist political party) Sweden Democrats, is already obsessed with and obsessed with immigration.
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