Following the financial crisis and subsequent recession, plus the arrival of large numbers of refugees of the Syrian Civil War, populist political parties made significant gains across the European Union. In southern European countries, these tended to be anti-austerity left-wing parties such as Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain, while northern European countries saw anti-immigrant right-wing parties such as the UK Independence Party and the Alternative for Germany gain support. However all these parties shared a Eurosceptic and anti-elite viewpoint, and appealed to the "left-behind" who saw their livelihoods or communities as threatened by globalism and immigration. In 2015, Syriza became the largest party in the Parliament of Greece, while the right-wing populist Law and Justice became the first party since the fall of Communism to win an absolute majority in the Polish Sejm in elections the same year. At the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, the Leave option narrowly defeated the cross-party Remain option. The subsequent realignment of British politics saw the Conservatives, aligned with "Leave", and Liberal Democrats, aligned with "Remain", rise in the polls while Labour, which remained deeply divided between its open and closed wings, lost ground rapidly.