Oren Dorell

USA TODAY

The United Kingdom's historic vote to leave the European Union is emboldening far-right, anti-immigrant parties across Europe to push for their own referendums to leave the political bloc as an expression of independence and freedom.

In France, Germany and the Netherlands, anti-EU leaders hailed Britons for voting to leave the 28-nation union.

“Victory for Freedom! As I have been asking for years, we must now have the same referendum in France and EU countries,” Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's anti-immigrant National Front party, wrote on her Twitter account.

EU leaders say 'Brexit' should be ASAP

Beatrix von Storch, leader of the anti-immigrant and Euro-skeptic Alternative fur Deutchland party (Alternative for Germany), also celebrated with a tweet thanking Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration UK Independence Party, which campaigned for the "Brexit."

“All I want to say: THANK! YOU!! #NigelFarage For #Brexit and #Independenceday,” von Storch wrote.

Geert Wilders, the anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim member of the Dutch parliament and Freedom Party chairman, tweeted: “Hurrah for the British! Now it is our turn. Time for a Dutch referendum! #ByeByeEU”

Similar calls have taken place in Denmark, Italy, Greece and Sweden, a sign of the deep disaffection for the EU at a time when European countries are coping simultaneously with weak economies and a flood of migrants who are taxing their social welfare systems.

Much of backlash can be traced to the financial crisis of 2008, which caused massive unemployment and an economic malaise that persists.

EU leaders say 'Brexit' should be ASAP

Alina Polyakova, deputy director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, said the far-right parties are gaining support based on voter anxiety about immigration, terrorism and globalization policies that result in slow economic growth and job loss. People who vote for the far right in Europe tend to be working-class, less educated and more likely to work in industries where jobs have moved to Asia, she said.

“People are losing faith in free trade, in integration with different countries,” Polyakova said.

These populist movements are targeting the EU, in part, because it sets immigration and economic policies for member nations that many voters see as a loss of self-determination.

As a result, parties once considered extremist for pushing an agenda of nationalism, anti-immigration and leaving the EU are becoming part of the mainstream.

Some have helped make their parties more acceptable by dropping objectionable rhetoric of the past.

Le Pen forced her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, out of the National Front over his anti-Semitic rants. Now, she is considered a serious contender for president of France in next year's elections.

The Hungarian Jobbik party, whose former leader, Márton Gyöngyösi, once called for a list of Jews who posed a national security risk, became more popular when it stopped making such demands and focused on an anti-immigration stance similar to that of the ruling Fidesz Party.

Like other parties once considered on the far-right, Jobbik’s rhetoric “is not racist rhetoric anymore,” Polyakova said. “It’s anti-EU rhetoric, and that’s what’s captured people’s hearts and minds.”

Gyöngyösi, now vice chairman of the Hungarian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, also congratulated Britain for its vote in Thursday's referendum.

“The EU has just got the biggest slap in the face from the British people,” Gyöngyösi said, according to the party’s website. EU leaders should take the vote as an opportunity to listen to countries on Europe’s periphery or risk “a total disintegration of the (European) Union.”