Recently, populists around the world did not have a good run. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom was delivered a blow by the highest court of the country, deciding that Johnson’s move to suspend parliament was illegal. During the Tory’s annual four-day conference that began on Monday, party members were still left in the unclear how Mr Johnson might deliver on the convention’s motto – “Get Brexit done”. Mr Johnson is facing an October 19 deadline by which he must have a deal with European Union approved by parliament.

Meanwhile, in the US, House Democrats decided to start impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump over allegations that Mr Trump had illegally used the powers of his office to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to open an investigation into an alleged corruption case against former Vice-President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. Republicans were quick to circle the wagons, sticking to talking points that the White House had send out over the weekend. Accidentally, the memo was also sent to speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. On Monday, Mr Trump took to Twitter once more – the President had tweeted about 80 times over the weekend – to suggest that the chairman of the House Intelligence committee be arrested “for treason”. Charles Tien, Professor of Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, weighs in on the subject on The Thought Project.

In Austria, voter support for the far-right FPÖ decreased significantly in an early nationwide election that had been called after the coalition between the center-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP)and the right wing populists had collapsed over a video that showed former FPÖ chairman and vice-chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache trying to peddle government contracts in exchange for political support from a would-be Russian oligarch. The FPÖ lost about 10 percentage points, and will in all likelihood not be part of the next Austrian government. The Social Democrats dropped to an unprecedented low of 21.7 percent. The two big winners of Sunday’s election were chancellor Sebastian Kurz whose ÖVP won more than 37 percent of the votes and the Green Party who, coming in at 14 percent, achieved their best result in Austrian history. Coalition talks are expected to be difficult as only about a third of Green Party members are in favor of a coalition with the ÖVP. Partnering with the  Social Democrats, on the other hand, seems to be difficult for Mr Kurz as he appears do not get along with the party’s leader, Pamela Rendi-Wagner.