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The Reform UK leader portrays his political party as a unique phenomenon that has exploded on to the world stage, its rapid ascent an remarkable epochal event. However this week, in every one of the continent's leading countries and from India and Southeast Asia to the US and Argentina, hard-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties like his are also leading in the opinion polls.

During recent Czech voting, the conservative, pro-Russian leader Andrej Babiš toppled the head of government Petr Fiala. National Rally, which has just forced the resignation of yet another French prime minister, is ahead the polls for both the presidential race and parliament. In the German nation, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is currently the leading party. A Hungarian political force, Slovakia's governing alliance and the Italian political group are already in power, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Dutch PVV and Belgian Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of opponents of global cooperation, inspired by right-wing influencers such as a well-known figure, aiming to dethrone the global legal order, weaken human rights and undermine multilateral cooperation.

The Populist Nationalist Surge

This nationalist wave reveals a new and unavoidable truth that supporters of democracy overlook at our peril: an nationalist ideology – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted economic liberalism as the leading belief system of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “America first”, “Indian focus”, “Chinese emphasis”, “Russian primacy”, “group priority” and often “my tribe first and only” regimes. It is this ethnic nationalism that helps explain why the world is now composed of many autocratic states and fewer democratic ones, and this ideology is the driver behind the violations 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 grasp the root causes, widespread globally, that have driven this recent nationalist era. It starts with a broadly shared perception that a globalisation that was accessible yet exclusionary has been a free for all that has been unjust to all.

For more than a decade, political figures have not only been slow to respond to the millions who feel excluded and marginalized, but also to the shifting dynamics of world economic influence, moving us 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 might-makes-right approach. The nationalist ideology that this has provoked means free trade is giving way to protectionism. Where economics used to drive politics, the politics of nationalism is now driving financial choices, and already more than 100 countries are running protectionist strategies characterized by reshoring and friend-shoring and by bans on international commerce, investment and technology transfer, sinking global collaboration to its weakest point since 1945.

Hope in Global Public Sentiment

However, there is hope. The situation is not fixed, and even as it hardens we can find hope in the common sense of the world's population. In a poll conducted for a prominent organization, of 36,000 people in dozens of nations we find a significant portion are more resistant to an divisive nationalist agenda and more willing to support international cooperation than many of the officials who rule over them.

Across the world there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a limited number of staunch global cooperation opponents representing a minority of the world's people (even if 25% in today’s US) who either feel coexistence between ethnic and religious groups is unattainable or have a win-lose perspective that if they or their nation do well, it has to be at the expense of others doing badly.

But there are an additional group at the other end, whom we might call committed internationalists, who either still see international collaboration through open trade as a mutually beneficial arrangement, or are what a prominent philosopher calls “rooted cosmopolitans”.

The Global Majority's Stance

Most people of the global public are somewhere in between: not isolated patriots, as “US priority” ideology would suggest, or all-in cosmopolitans. They are devoted to their country but don’t see the world as in a never-ending struggle between the “us” and the “others”, opponents permanently set apart from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Do the majority in the middle prefer a obligation-light or a responsible global community? Are they willing to accept obligations beyond their local area or community boundaries? Yes, under specific circumstances. A initial segment, 22%, will back aid efforts to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of altruism, backing disaster relief for disaster zones. Those we might call “charitable” multilateralists feel the pain of others and have faith in something larger than their own interests.

A second group comprising a similar percentage are practical cooperators who want to know that any taxes paid for global progress are used effectively. And there is a final category, 21%, personally motivated collaborators, who will approve cooperation if they can see that it advantages them and their communities, whether it be through guaranteeing them basic necessities or safety and stability.

Building a Cooperative Majority

So a clear majority can be built not just for emergency assistance if money is well spent but also for international measures 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 emphasize the reciprocal benefits that benefit them and their own country. And thus for those who have long wondered whether we cooperate out of need or if we have a necessity for collaboration, the response is each.

This willingness to cooperate across borders shows how we can turn back the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can defeat current pessimistic, isolated and often aggressive and authoritarian patriotic extremism that demonises newcomers, outsiders and “different groups” as long as we advocate for a positive, outward-looking and welcoming patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and connects to their everyday worries.

Addressing Public Concerns

And while detailed surveys tell us that across the west, 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 people are even more concerned about what is happening in their personal circumstances and within their own local communities. Recently, a prominent leader spoke movingly about how what’s positive in the nation can overcome what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most developed nations, “broken” and “in decline” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our financial system and society.

But as the prime minister also reminded us, the extreme right is more interested in exploiting grievances than resolving issues. Nigel Farage hailed a ill-fated economic plan as “the best Conservative budget” since 1986. But he would also implement a comparable strategy – what was planned – the largest reductions in public services. The party's proposal to reduce public spending by a huge sum would not fix struggling areas but ravage them, turn citizen against citizen and wreck any sense of unity. Under a hard-right regime, you will not be able to afford to be sick, impaired, poor or at-risk. Continually from now on, and in every electoral district, Reform should be asked which hospital, which school and which public service will be the first to be cut or closed.

Risks and Solutions

“Faragism” is economic theory at its most inhumane, more harmful even than monetarism, and spiteful far beyond fiscal restraint. What the people are telling us all over the Western world is that they want their leaders to restore our financial systems and our communities. “Reform” and its global allies should be exposed day after day for policies that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our greatest achievements could be in the future, we can go beyond pointing out Reform’s hypocrisy by presenting 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 British people.