The right-wing Finns Party does well in Finland’s election

THE FINNS are the happiest nation in the world, according to the United Nations, and tied with Sweden and Norway for the freest, according to Freedom House. They are also at or near the top in education, not to mention consumption of coffee. But after the national election on April 14th, they have given up their claim to have solved the problem of far-right populism. The Finns Party, an anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic party previously known in English as the True Finns, surged in the final weeks and took 17.5% of the vote, just a whisker behind the winning Social Democrats at 17.7%. The Social Democrats will probably now form a centre-left government, but as in so much of Europe, the far right’s strength will make things complicated.

The Finns Party’s result was almost exactly the same as in 2015. But after that election, the country’s centre-right National Coalition and Centre parties thought they had tamed them by bringing them into the ruling coalition, forcing them to take responsibility for compromises such as observing EU migration policy. But in 2017 the Finns’ frustrated hard-liners quit the government while the party’s more moderate MPs (including the then-leader) split off into a new faction called Blue Reform.

In the election, voters backed the party’s old stalwarts, while Blue Reform failed...