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The Reform UK leader depicts his Reform UK party as a distinct phenomenon that has burst on to the world stage, its meteoric rise an remarkable epochal event. However this week, in every one of Europe’s major countries and from the Indian subcontinent and Thailand to the US and South America, hard-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalization parties similar to his are also ahead in the opinion polls.

During recent Czech voting, the rightwing, pro-Russian leader Andrej Babiš toppled prime minister Petr Fiala. National Rally, which has just forced the resignation of yet another France's leader, is leading the polls for both the French presidency and the legislature. In the German nation, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is currently the most popular party. Hungary’s Fidesz party, 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 Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all staunch nationalist groups – are part of an international coalition of opponents of global cooperation, inspired by far-right propagandists such as a well-known figure, seeking to overthrow the global legal order, weaken fundamental freedoms and undermine multilateral cooperation.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave reveals a new and unavoidable truth that democrats ignore at great risk: an nationalist ideology – once thought toppled with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted neoliberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of firsts: “US priority”, “Indian focus”, “China first”, “Russian primacy”, “group priority” and often “exclusive group focus” regimes. It is this ethnic nationalism that helps explain why the world is now composed of 91 autocracies and only 88 democracies, and this ideology is the force 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 understand the root causes, common to almost every country, that have driven this recent nationalist era. It starts with a widely felt sense 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, leaders have not only been delayed in addressing to the many people who feel excluded and marginalized, but also to the shifting dynamics of global economic power, transitioning from a unipolar world once dominated by the United States to a multipolar world of rival major nations, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The nationalist ideology that this has provoked means free trade is giving way to trade barriers. Where economics used to drive politics, the politics of nationalism is now driving financial choices, and already over a hundred nations are running protectionist strategies characterized by reshoring and ally-focused trade and by bans on cross-border trade, foreign funding and technology transfer, lowering global collaboration to its lowest ebb since 1945.

Hope in Global Public Sentiment

However, there is hope. The cement is still wet, and even as it hardens we can find hope in the pragmatism of the world's population. In a recent survey for a major foundation, of 36,000 people in 34 countries we find a clear majority are less receptive to an exclusionary nationalism and more inclined to support international cooperation than many of the leaders who govern them.

Globally there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a small group of hardened anti-internationalists 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 zero-sum mindset that if they or their nation do well, it has to be at the expense of others doing badly.

However there are an additional group at the opposite extreme, 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 a prominent philosopher calls “locally engaged global citizens”.

Worldwide Public Position

Most people of the world's citizens 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 permanent conflict between the “us” and the “them”, opponents always divided from each other in an irreconcilable gap.

Are most moderates favor a obligation-light or a dutiful world? Are they willing to accept responsibilities beyond their garden gate or city wall? Yes, under specific circumstances. A initial segment, 22%, will support humanitarian action to alleviate hardship and are ready to act out of selflessness, backing disaster relief for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” multilateralists empathize of others and believe 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, roughly a fifth, self-interested multilateralists, who will endorse teamwork if they can see that it advantages them and their communities, whether it be through guaranteeing them food on the table or peace and security.

Building a Cooperative Majority

So a clear majority can be constructed not just for emergency assistance if money is well spent but also for international measures to deal with worldwide issues, like climate crisis and disease control, as long as this case is presented on grounds of wise personal benefit, and if we stress the mutual advantages that benefit them and their own country. And thus for those who have long questioned whether we work together from necessity or if we have a need to cooperate, the answer is both.

This willingness to work internationally shows how we can turn back the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can defeat current pessimistic, isolated and often forceful and controlling nationalism that vilifies newcomers, outsiders and “others” as long as we champion a optimistic, globally engaged and inclusive patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and connects to their immediate concerns.

Addressing Public Concerns

And while detailed surveys tell us that across the west, unauthorized entry is currently the biggest national issue – and it's clear that it must promptly be managed effectively – the public sentiment data also tell us that the public are even more concerned about what is happening in their own lives and within their immediate neighborhoods. Recently, a prominent leader gave an emotional speech about how what’s positive in the nation can drive out what’s negative, doing so precisely because in most developed nations, “broken” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most commonly cited when asked about both our financial system and society.

However, as the leader also pointed out, the extreme right is more interested in using complaints than ending them. Nigel Farage praised a disastrous mini-budget as “the best Conservative budget” since 1986. But he would also enact a comparable strategy – what was intended – the biggest ever cuts in public services. The party's proposal to cut government expenditure by £275bn would not fix downtrodden communities but ravage them, turn citizen against citizen and wreck any sense of unity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be ill, disabled, poor or at-risk. Every day from now on, and in every electoral district, Reform should be asked which medical facility, which educational institution and which public service will be the first to be reduced or closed.

Risks and Solutions

“This ideology” is economic theory at its most cruel, more destructive even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond austerity. What the public are telling us all over the west is that they want their governments to rebuild our economies and our communities. “The party” and its global allies should be exposed day after day for policies that would harm both. And for those of us who believe our greatest achievements could be ahead of us, we can go beyond highlighting the party's contradictions by setting out a argument for a improved nation that resonates not just to visionaries, but to pragmatists, to personal benefit, and to the everyday compassion of the nation's citizens.