AUSTRIAN voters have rejected fascism by a landslide margin of over half a percent.
Austria, a country of 8.5 million people, turned out en masse to deliver a crushing blow to the far-right Freedom Party of Norbert Hofer, who limped home a whole 31,000 votes behind his Green Party opponent.
Experts believe that the scale of the victory, which saw Hofer supported by a mere 49.7% of Austrians, demonstrates that the far right poses no danger whatsoever to mainstream parties.
Political analyst Emma Bradford said: “This comprehensive defeat proves that fascism can never win, at least once postal votes are taken into account.
“Inflammatory, anti-immigrant rhetoric will get you nowhere in this day and age, certainly not within a whisker of running a country.
“I’m confident that the millions of angry, disenfranchised people who supported a gun-wielding xenophobe will quietly accept this result and get on with their lives.”
Freedom Party supporter Josef Leitner said: “I’m not a Nazi, but what we need is a party that cares about social issues but will also defend the nation. I suppose you might call it national socialism.”
