EUROPEAN TRADE UNION DIALOGUE TRADE UNIONS AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM IN EUROPE Country Study Norway Jonas Bals November 2022 HISTORY OF MODERN RIGHT-WING POPULISM IN NORWAY In Norway, the history of modern right-wing pop­ulism goes back to the founding of the“Anders Lange’s Party for a Strong Reduction in Taxes, Duties and Public Interventions”, or ALP for short, in 1973. The party’s founder, Anders Lange, had roots in cir­cles of right-wing and semi-fascist activists even be­fore the Second World War. He had been a leading figure in the Fatherland League(Fedrelandslaget, 1925–1940), which was extremely hostile to the la­bour movement, and actively opposed strikes and collective bargaining. In 1977, the party changed its name to the Progressive Party(Fremskrittspartiet, FrP). It has retained its founder’s scepticism and hos ­tility to the‘socialist’ labour movement, based on a pro-market, neo-liberal critique of collective bar­gaining institutions in the line of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. In the 1970s and 80s, the right-wing nationalist, lib­eralist, and populist forces can be described more as a stone in the shoe for the Norwegian trade union movement, than a serious challenger. They had little influence on politics and society, but during the 1980s and 1990s, they gradually managed to shift the public debate. Even though electoral success came late, the party quickly succeeded in reframing the“metapolitical” space. Public debate shifted from topics such as social inequality, redistribution of wealth, and the inclusion of newly arrived immi­grants, to lower taxes and a reduction of the welfare state, and contributed actively in creating fear and suspicion towards citizens with a different skin col­our, ethnicity, or religion. As the Norwegian tax protest and anti-immigration party gained traction, and learned how to play the racism card in election times, they grew to become a more real problem for those who shared the trade un­ion movement’s ideas and values. By mobilizing work­ing-class voters, to whom the traditional conserva­tive parties never had particularly good access, they made it easier for established right-wing parties to win a majority, and correspondingly more difficult for the left. TRENDS IN THE ELECTORATE From a support of five percentage points in the 1973 general election, they reached a peak in 2009, when almost 23 per cent of the electorate voted for them. At the last general election in 2021, they achieved a sup­port of 11.6 per cent. Even though a large part of their following can be found in groups“above” or at least outside the labour movement, these numbers are roughly reflected among the members of the Norwe ­gian Confederation of Trade Unions(Landsorganis ­asjonen i Norge, LO). After more than a decade with results ranging between 0.7 and 3.8 per cent, their 1