This is Spectator Radio and you're listening to The Spectator podcast with Lara Prendergast.

This podcast is sponsored by Merrian Global Investors, bringing together the art and science of investing.

Hello and welcome back to The Spectator podcast. I'm Lara Prendergast. So as we move into

2019, two big elections could shake up the rest of the year. In May, the European elections could

see an unprecedented popular surge. So what would this mean for the European Union? And back

home, we're looking at potential general election and Corbyn's chances at government

have never looked better. We discussed what both of these things would mean for Europe and Britain.

And finally, is it ever okay to call a woman a girl? In May, Europe will go to the polls, and as

Frederick Erickson writes in this week's cover, we could see an

unprecedented populist surge. Across the continent, politicians like Marine Le Pen and parties like

Germany's AFD are receiving far more support and what's more are now maturing enough to play

the political game. So is the EU about to be fundamentally changed by the political outsiders?

I'm joined by Frederick Erickson, economist and writer, and Charles Grant,

director for the Centre for European Reform, to discuss.

So, Frederick, can you start by telling us why the upcoming elections are going to be quite so significant?

So first of all, many of the nationalist and populist parties in Europe are probably going to do much better this time than they have done in past elections.

We've seen in many national elections around Europe that many of these parties are, I mean, they are polling very well in some countries that even get into government.

And given the fact that

many voters in the past have seen European Parliament election as an opportunity to protest

and to express an opinion which is sort of more on the extreme rather than on the centrist side

of the political argument, we are probably going to find a parliament

after the election in May, which is going to have a much larger group of nationalists and populists.

...