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The Reform UK leader depicts his Reform UK party as a unique occurrence that has exploded on to the world stage, its meteoric rise an exceptional historic moment. However this week, in every one of Europe’s major countries and from India and Thailand to the US and Argentina, hard-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalisation parties similar to his are also ahead in the opinion polls.

During recent Czech voting, the rightwing, pro-Russian leader Andrej Babiš overthrew the head of government Petr Fiala. A French political group, which has just brought down yet another French prime minister, is leading the polls for both the French presidency and parliament. In the German nation, the right-wing AfD party is currently the leading party. A Hungarian political force, Slovakia's governing alliance and the Brothers of Italy are already in government, while the Freedom party of Austria (FPÖ), the Netherlands’ Freedom party (PVV) and Belgian Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of anti-internationalists, inspired by far-right propagandists like Steve Bannon, seeking to overthrow the global legal order, weaken fundamental freedoms and undermine multilateral cooperation.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave reveals a recent undeniable reality that democrats overlook at our peril: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted economic liberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of firsts: “America first”, “India first”, “China first”, “Russia first”, “my tribe first” and often “my tribe first and only” regimes. It is this nationalist sentiment that helps explain why the world is now composed of many autocratic states and fewer democratic ones, and this ideology is the force behind the breaches of international human rights law not just by one nation in conflict but in almost every one of the world’s 59 cross-border conflicts and civil wars.

Root Causes Explained

Crucial to understand the underlying forces, common to almost every country, that have fuelled this new age of nationalism. It begins with a broadly shared perception that a globalization that was open but not inclusive has been a free for all that has not been fair to all.

For more than a decade, political figures have not only been slow to respond to the millions who feel excluded and left behind, but also to the shifting dynamics of world economic influence, transitioning from a US-dominated era once dominated by the US to a multipolar world of competing superpowers, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The ethnic nationalism that this has incited means open commerce is giving way to trade barriers. Where economics used to drive government policies, the nationalist agendas is now driving economic decisions, and already over a hundred nations are running mercantilist policies marked out by reshoring and ally-focused trade and by restrictions on cross-border trade, foreign funding and knowledge sharing, sinking international cooperation to its weakest point since the post-war period.

Optimism in Public Opinion

However, there is hope. The situation is not fixed, and even as it solidifies we can find hope in the pragmatism of the global public. In a poll conducted for a prominent organization, of thousands of individuals in 34 countries we find a significant portion are more resistant to an exclusionary nationalism and more inclined to embrace international cooperation than many of the officials who rule over them.

Across the world there is, perhaps surprisingly, only a small group of hardened anti-internationalists representing a minority of the global population (even if 25% in the United States currently) who either feel peaceful living between diverse communities is unattainable or have a zero-sum mindset that if they or their nation do well, it has to be at the cost of others doing badly.

But there are another 21% at the other end, whom we might call dedicated globalists, who either still see cooperation across borders through free commerce as a positive sum win-win, or are what an influential thinker calls “locally engaged global citizens”.

The Global Majority's Stance

Most people of the global public are moderate in views: not narrow, inward-looking nationalists, as “America first” ideology would suggest, or all-in cosmopolitans. They are patriotic but don’t see the world as in a permanent conflict between the “our side” and the “them”, adversaries always divided from each other in an irreconcilable gap.

Are most moderates favor a obligation-light or a responsible global community? Are they prepared to accept obligations beyond their local area or community boundaries? Affirmative, under certain conditions. A first group, 22%, will support humanitarian action to relieve suffering and are ready to act out of altruism, backing disaster relief for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” cooperation advocates empathize of others and believe in something bigger than themselves.

Another segment comprising a similar percentage are practical cooperators who want to know that any public funds for international development are spent well. And there is a third group, roughly a fifth, self-interested multilateralists, who will endorse cooperation if they can see that it advantages them and their local areas, whether it be through ensuring them food on the table or safety and stability.

Building a Cooperative Majority

So a definite majority can be constructed not just for emergency assistance if funds are used wisely but also for global action to deal with global problems, like climate crisis and pandemic prevention, as long as this case is presented on grounds of wise personal benefit, and if we stress the reciprocal benefits that flow to them and their own country. And thus for those who have long wondered whether we cooperate out of need or if we have a need to cooperate, the answer is both.

And this openness to work internationally shows how we can reverse the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can defeat today’s negative, inward-looking and often forceful and controlling patriotic extremism that vilifies immigrants, outsiders and “different groups” as long as we champion a positive, globally engaged and inclusive patriotism that responds to people’s need for community and connects to their everyday worries.

Addressing Public Concerns

And while detailed surveys tell us that across the Western nations, illegal immigration is currently the biggest national issue – and no one should doubt that it must promptly be brought under control – the snapshots of opinion also tell us that the public are even more concerned about what is happening in their own lives and within their own local communities. Recently, the UK Prime Minister gave an emotional speech about how what’s positive in the nation can overcome what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most western countries, “broken” and “in decline” are the words people have for years most commonly cited when asked about both our financial system and society.

However, as the prime minister also reminded us, the far right is more interested in using complaints than ending them. Nigel Farage hailed a ill-fated economic plan as “an excellent fiscal policy” since the 1980s. But he would also enact a comparable strategy – what was planned – the largest reductions in government programs. The party's proposal to reduce public spending by a huge sum would not fix downtrodden communities but damage them, create social division and wreck any sense of unity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be sick, disabled, poor or at-risk. Continually from now on, and in every constituency, the party should be asked which hospital, which educational institution and which public service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

Risks and Solutions

“Faragism” is economic theory at its most inhumane, more harmful even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond fiscal restraint. What the people are telling us all over the Western world is that they want their leaders to rebuild our economies and our civic societies. “The party” and its global allies should be exposed day after day for plans that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our best days could be ahead of us, we can go beyond highlighting the party's contradictions by setting out a argument for a better Britain that resonates not just to visionaries, but to realists, to personal benefit, and to the daily kindness of the nation's citizens.