The 2024 European Union Parliamentary elections were held between June 6 and June 9, 2024. A week prior to the elections, the Finnish government de-registered a Finnish neo-Nazi organization. As a result, the party was unable to run candidates in the election. The party leader speculated that the de-registration of the party – particularly its timing so close to the elections - was a targeted move by the Finnish government to ensure that the party would be unable to participate in the EU elections.
The following report will provide an overview of the fascist political leader's comments on the election and the party's de-registration.
Leader of Finnish fascist organization (left) at pan-European neo-Nazi conference.
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Party De-Registration, Fascist Leader's Appearance On Nordic Resistance Movement Podcast, EU Elections
In April 2024, the Supreme Administrative Court of Finland announced its decision to deregister a Finnish fascist party, claiming that the original decision to register the party was "based on error." The court explained that part of this decision to dismiss the party was based on openly racist and discriminatory party objectives, which violated both Finland's own standards for human rights and those of the European Court of Human Rights. The party's initial application process saw them rejected twice, as their "general program and rules […] conflict with human and fundamental rights." The party is also explicitly fascist, and promotes the Great Replacement Theory, a conspiracy theory which alleges that the white population of Europe is being intentionally and maliciously replaced with a non-white population.
The party's leader appeared on the Nordic Resistance Movement's English-language podcast in June of 2024 to discuss the de-registration and what it meant for his party and, more broadly, the impact on other extremist parties during the EU elections. The host questioned the party leader on why the party was de-registered, whether its members would still be able to run in the EU election, and how the party intends to be re-registered.
The host (left) and guest (right) discussing the Finnish fascist party's de-registratio
To view video, see below or click HERE
The party program explicitly laid out several policies the party hoped to enact. These policies slowed down the party's registration process significantly, both in 2021 and in 2024, as many policies were considered human rights violations. Those policies included: forced deportation based on ethnicity, census dating which would include ethnicity and percentage of Finnish heritage, reconsideration of all Finns made citizens after 1990, deportation of Jewish people, and banning homosexuality. Following the party's de-registration, the party's manifesto was harshly edited.
In the party leader's own words: "So, for example, we can say that we support or defend white Finland, or the center of our politics is Finnish nationhood, and nationhood is made by biological elements, and it's totally okay to them, but if we say that we want to deport hundreds of thousands of people, the word 'deport' is the one, the action, the intent might be the one that causes problems. And it happened to us because in those 50 pages, there was at least two different sections that were illegal […] We had, for example, an ethnic register in our party program. […] We went to court to defend that we should be able to put or add that action to our party program, because it's legal in many Western nations, it shouldn't be a reason to ban us in Finland. And they said that even though it's used in […] many other countries, it's the intent behind it. Because we would use that information to deport all non-whites."
The host asks if the party will be able to run any candidates in the EU elections, or if the de-registration had impacted the party's ability to participate. Given that the party had been deregistered only one week before the closing of candidate registration and therefore was not able to run any candidates in the EU election. He alleges that the Finnish government intentionally did this to disrupt the party's ability to participate in the elections: "They knew what they were doing."
Re-Registration Efforts
The party leader announces that the application to register had been accepted by the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court at the end of May. He notes that the party had to seriously truncate its original party program in order to meet the human rights standards required by the Finnish government and by the EU itself: "There is a silver lining at the moment. They [the Finnish government] just accepted our new party program. And it just took three weeks. And we more or less put it in two pages. Nothing fancy, nothing too detailed. Our previous program had over 15 pages and there was like, a huge amount of details and how we should succeed with our politics. And according to the Ministry of Justice, there might be illegal actions, or at least actions that are against the human rights that Finland more or less connected to, or accepted them. So, we can publish our goals or ideas, but we should never tell how we succeed those goals."
The party has begun its campaign to get the necessary 5,000 signatures required to register as a political party in Finland.
A link on the party's website invites readers to sign a digital supporter card as part of the party's registration requirements. The photo shows the party's leader (middle) collecting signatures of support in person.
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