AUR’s success in the diaspora, beyond social media: how Simion’s party uses Romanians’ disappointments and the power of “people networks”

Iulia Hau, Hotnews, 9 February 2024

While the Facebook group “PNL Diaspora UK” has only 1,600 followers, “USR UK” – 8,800, and “PSD UK” has been inactive since 2022, “Alliance for the Union of Romanians – AUR UK” has reached 40,000 members.

Four years ago, in the 2020 elections, AUR won 23% of the diaspora vote, coming third after the USR-PLUS Alliance (32%) and PNL (24.9).

The party led by George Simion was the most voted party among Romanians in Italy and second in Spain. In the UK, AUR has been calling itself the “party of the diaspora” since 2019 and has built its first branch here, with 20 local offices.

As in other countries with a significant Romanian community, party members carry out complex campaigns, organize constant meetings with people or distribute free publications with anti-Western themes.

They have also launched a “hotline” – which they say helps Romanians abroad who cannot find support at consulates.

AUR and the feelings of abandonment of Romanians who emigrated

Alina Dolea, a researcher and lecturer at Bournemouth University in England, says she was not at all surprised by the results of the 2020 diaspora vote.

Since 2019, the Romanian professor has been researching the perceptions and emotions of Romanians in the UK through interviews and focus groups on major issues such as Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine.

In one of her articles, Dolea points out that despite the diversity of the Romanian diaspora in the UK, which includes entrepreneurs, professionals, highly skilled and unskilled workers, as well as migrants in vulnerable situations, what is apparent among all of them is a sense of loss of roots, family background or even social status – a constant tension between here and there, seemingly belonging to no space.

Dolea believes that AUR, through the discourse invoking “discrimination of Romanians” at home and abroad, has strongly instrumentalized the emotional costs of migration: fear, shame, the need for validation and appreciation, the constant negotiation of identity, abandonment and rejection, both abroad and in the country of birth, which is often seen as an idyllic space.

For example, in the year of Brexit, posters in Romanian warning shoplifters about the presence of plain-clothed police officers could be found on the shelves of the Tesco supermarket chain. It could thus be interpreted that all Romanians automatically became suspects, by virtue of the language spoken.

Alina Dolea believes that the communication through the AUR platform has created a kind of ecosystem, with points, cards, ranks and teams that gives you the impression that you are part of something, a network of belonging to a group that is vital for the diaspora.

Messages such as “Are you tired of seeing Romania’s resources plundered mercilessly?” or “We continue our mission to bring healthcare where the Ministry of Health has failed for the last 34 years” point to an important direction of AUR communication: the need for justice, including explicit messages about the humiliation of migrants in their communication.

AUR and national identity or how the British steal our children

The values of family, nation, faith and freedom that AUR promotes explicitly target the diaspora, Dolea believes.

“In addition to the feeling of abandonment by the authorities, many Romanians do not integrate into the societies to which they have migrated,” says Dolea.

“In addition, because many are very conservative, coming from Romanian religious communities, the AUR message is very popular.”

Radu (42), a man who has lived in London for seven years with his wife and two daughters, says he has only one goal in voting: to remove the 34-year incumbents from power.

He doesn’t necessarily want Simion to be president, but he wants a change, he wants new people in government.

Radu says it bothers him when Romanians who have left the country use the expression “back in England” in their speeches, as long as they were born and raised in Romania. He believes that a Romanian in England is just another tax payer who will benefit the locals.

The image these people have of Romania, Alina Dolea believes, is an idyllic one, one that never existed or existed only in the imagination of childhood.

“I was surprised to see the language that many still use in textbooks from the last century: “country of glory”, “our ancestral nation”, “our language, a treasure” (terms specific to communist propaganda and its attempts to Romanianize Romania, presenting it as almost pure, devoid of variety).

This conservative trend is all the more pronounced in the diaspora because the destination country is more progressive, which often leads to cultural clashes,” she says.

Dolea recounts that when he presented the results of his research at the Romanian Cultural Institute, one of the participants stood up and asked, “But what are we going to do, madam, with these British who steal our children?”

Dolea also concluded that many fear the loss of values, of language, of the fact that new generations no longer speak Romanian, “all sorts of easily instrumentalized arguments”, many valid, such as the one about language, but this too is about how you help your children negotiate cultural and identity layers”.

A different vision of the diaspora supporting AUR

Sorina Soare, a researcher at the University of Florence, studied the success of AUR and the populist movement among the Romanian diaspora in Italy, talking to numerous party members in Italy.

Some of her research findings were published in the article “Saved by diaspora? The case of Alliance for the Union of Romanians” published by Babeș-Bolyai University.

Soare argues that “the image we often have of AUR that appears in the press is that of political entrepreneurship, in which we see George Simion, with a style and behaviour that often departs from the norms of institutional behaviour”.

“Abroad, however, I think AUR is much more than that. Our research showed that people voted AUR because they knew Simion and felt he was someone they could trust. Many of them trusted his ability to interpret today’s society and find solutions.”

“But Simion is not just a charismatic figure,” says the researcher. “These people had been in contact with Simion since 2010 when he founded the Unionist Platform Action 2012 for the reunification of Moldova with Romania. They had since had the opportunity to verify the soundness of his ideals.”

Soare believes that another misunderstanding was the judgement that in 2020 AUR managed to get all the votes by promoting itself exclusively on the internet. The researcher says that you can’t reach that percentage (22%) on the internet alone and that it also helped that George Simion travelled to Italy to meet people before 2019 and they knew him for his unionist theme.

“I had the opportunity to interview people here who were very active in the Romanian community, people who raised money and bought school supplies and sent them to the country in September to children with limited material possibilities, long before AUR took over the campaign under the name of “AUR (Golden) Backpack”.

It was also interesting to see that the very active people in the diaspora acted as a credibility diffuser for AUR, encouraging those back home to vote with this new political party they had joined. So credibility was not so much given by Simion’s message, but by the solidity of this network working in formal and informal associations for Romanians,” explains the researcher from the University of Florence.

Soare insists that the people he interviewed, members of the AUR party, far from being these so-called losers of globalisation, are people worthy of all respect, even if they do not share the same political values with it.

“We didn’t run into some extremist people. Many of them had successful businesses here in northern Italy, some are doctors, many paid great attention to their children’s education, even if they had no education. I do not agree with this division, according to which there are citizens who give a positive vote, of democratic quality, and second-class citizens who would rather not express themselves. Democracy doesn’t work that way,” she insists.

Teleleu journalists exposed in an opinion piece the antagonistic illusion between the “heroes” and “victims” of the diaspora, the gap between the “educated diaspora”, the “doctors, researchers and athletes we are proud of” and the “victims”, those who are ashamed to be “shameless”, “carers”, “slaves”, a shame perpetuated by the concern about how you are seen by those at home.

Gabriel (57) is from Iasi and has been working seasonally in England for eight years, after living in Italy for 18 years working in construction.

According to Gabriel, the price of joining the EU was that we gave up agriculture and the economy and became mere consumers. We are slaves in their countries, we are not good here, but only for money – that’s it. Gabriel feels that nobody cares about Romanians. He doesn’t care about the ruling class, which wants to destroy the few remaining farmers; the foreigner… even less.

“During the pandemic, for example, through these networks of Romanians in Italy, AUR supported a campaign distributing Euthyrox in the country, an important drug for thyroid diseases, which was not easily available in pharmacies at that time.

The mobilization that AUR is showing here is not just the kind of action typical of other parties, with pens, folklore events and so on – it is a much more grassroots-oriented party. But I have to be more precise: it is not the party itself that is the basis for action, but the networks of people they have recruited,” Soare continues.

It is this grassroots activism, she believes, that has given the party roots, visibility and success.

The last time Gabriel (mentioned above) attended an AUR meeting was in November when, travelling from Canada and on a stopover in London, George Simion organised a lightning meeting in the basement of a London hotel to exchange a few words with some members of the diaspora. Although the small event was announced at the last minute, the room was packed, he says.

Soare believes that AUR is often associated in the public space with terms that are scientifically problematic. “To say that the AUR is far-right is to say that the party challenges democratic legitimacy, which is not true. It challenges certain principles, indeed, especially related to the liberal dimension of democracy.

In general, it would be more accurate to call it a populist, right-wing or radical right-wing party, a neoconservative party, but not far-right. It is not a party that can be outlawed for coming up with proposals that are not compatible with the Constitution.”

Most of the people Soare spoke to, whether associated with USR, PSD, PNL or AUR, include in their discourse an anti-establishment dimension (in opposition to the conventional social, political and economic principles of society); they do not propose a change of system, but a fight against the corruption they often denounce.

Dolea also believes that in all diasporas there is this component of disruption, shaking the state of affairs in relation to the country of origin, giving the example of the Turkish diaspora in Germany, which supports Erdogan in a very large proportion. This theme of the lack of interest of the Romanian state towards the community abroad, common in the discourse of Romanians in the UK, also appears in the case of those in Italy.

What Romanians in the Diaspora expect from AUR

Radu says he expects AUR to transform society into one that offers more opportunities to young people, more fairly distributed pensions and fewer MPs. The Romanian in the UK has followed the AUR since its inception and has supported the financial party for initiatives such as the mobile caravan.

He does not feel disappointed yet, he appreciates that they “kept their backbone from the beginning”, but is aware that this is not a guarantee once they come to power.

He is attracted by the AUR legislative proposal to lower payroll taxes and increase taxation on large companies and to apply a tax model similar to England, where you pay no tax if you have an income below a certain threshold (in the UK, this threshold is £12,570).

He says he comes home with great pleasure every time and always leaves just as disappointed, especially for his parents who, despite working all their lives, have a miserable pension.

Radu is also disappointed by the lack of opportunities for his siblings and grandchildren who, despite graduating from high school with high marks, he says, have no support from the state to give them the chance to make the most of their abilities.

He adds that he loves Romania and wants to return home at some point, perhaps after retirement. He insists that he can’t even think about going back in the next 5-6 years, before his daughters finish high school and choose their path in life.

Gabriel, a Romanian from Iasi, ran in 2012 for the Chamber of Deputies on behalf of the Ecologist Party. Gabriel hopes that AUR will succeed in getting industry and agriculture back on its feet, supporting small farmers, supporting entrepreneurs in the first few years, when they are just starting out, by exempting them from taxes – like in other Western countries.

He’s tired of constantly changing laws dictating pensions, he’s tired of special pensions. He is unhappy with the treatment of the elderly. He thinks it’s unacceptable that in the same country someone gets a pension of 25,000 lei and someone else gets 1,000.

He’s sceptical, because if he hasn’t seen anything good in 34 years, he doubts he will from now on. He thinks the level of corruption is too high, and those in power have not let it get away.

He agrees with George Simion when he says that people vote AUR because the others did nothing. He believes that the high voting rate for AUR is natural and is due to the fact that this party speaks the people’s language – exactly what the poor want to hear, because, he continues in a loud tone, the people of Romania are poor.

Gabriel also confesses that when he came back from Italy he did it because of Băsescu and Macovei “who tricked me that they were fighting for me, as an emigrant, and they were just slogans”. I then believed in Teodor Stolojan and again I was deceived. I then put my mouth on Răzvan Mihai Ungureanu, Iohannis… and the list goes on.

Gabriel has lost confidence, but hopes that perhaps parties like AUR, which have not yet been in power, will bring about a change.

Disappointment with the unfavourable business environment in Romania is also expressed by Romică (52) from Apateu (Arad), who would like to return home to open a business. He would even like to create an AUR group in Apateu to support local farmers.

He is convinced that if things were to improve in the country, 90% of the Romanians who left would return home. Before coming to the UK, Romică also lived in Spain and France, always working as a painter. He follows Simion mostly on Facebook and appreciates him because he is a fighter, a fighter, a patriot and seeks justice and fights for the good of the country. But you see they all let you down: they promise you and when they get to the top, forget it.

Political scientist: “We can equate Legionary ideas with those of Claudiu Târziu”

The question is to what extent do the expectations of people in the diaspora and the promises of the AUR meet reality?

Political scientist Cristian Pîrvulescu says that AUR discourse includes populist ideology that takes statements out of context or even makes untrue claims, the credibility of which is strongly supported by conspiracy theories.

“You know conspiracy theories? Closely related to our early education. From the earliest years of life, conspiracy stories have abounded – they are part of a child’s upbringing. Including conspiracies about Ukraine’s grain exports endangering the Romanian economy. There is no data to back this up.”

Pîrvulescu also claims that both agriculture and industry are at a higher level of development than Romania has ever seen, and this is largely due to integration into the European Union.

The political scientist states that one of the conspiracy theories behind the AUR discourse is that of an international conspiracy against Romania and a sovereign Romania that can be totally self-sufficient, being a rich enough country that has everything.

“Romania has only salt, all other riches are very difficult to exploit. They were exploited at one time, but not anymore, and they wouldn’t have a major impact on the economy anyway, except in certain economic-political contexts.”

Excluded from a united market such as the European Union, explains Pîrvulescu, Romania can only lose. The political scientist is not only of the opinion that AUR cannot deliver what it promises, but also supports an entire anti-environmental movement, which denies, among other things, the polluting effect of diesel cars.

As to whether or not the AUR party belongs to the “far right”, Pîrvulescu sees things differently from Sorina Soare:

“In Romania, legionnaire-ism was a very powerful movement – the first and probably the only movement in Romania to reach such a large mass of people. After 1990, Legionary ideas gained a lot. We can equate Legionary ideas with those of Claudiu Târziu (president of the National Leadership Council).

The only reason I would not label any Romanian party as far right is that I cannot counterbalance it with any left-wing movement. We have no left-wing parties or tradition in Romania.”

Pîrvulescu refers to the Popu-list database, a research project that provides a database of populist, far-left and right-wing parties, using a comparative-qualitative classification made by experts, which includes the AUR party in the “far-right” category.

Photo: George Simion is the leader of Romania’s main sovereignist party (source: YouTube).

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