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The Reform UK leader depicts his Reform UK party as a unique occurrence that has exploded on to the global stage, its rapid ascent an remarkable epochal event. But this week, in every one of the continent's major countries and from India and Southeast Asia to the US and South America, far-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalisation parties similar to his are also leading in the public surveys.

In last Saturday’s Czech elections, the rightwing, pro-Putin populist a prominent figure toppled prime minister Petr Fiala. National Rally, which has just forced the resignation of yet another French prime minister, is leading the polls for both the presidential race and parliament. In Germany, the right-wing AfD party is currently the most popular party. A Hungarian political force, Slovakia's governing alliance and the Italian political group are already in government, while the Freedom party of Austria (FPÖ), the Dutch PVV and Belgian Vlaams Belang – all staunch nationalist groups – are part of an international coalition of anti-internationalists, motivated by far-right propagandists such as a well-known figure, seeking to dethrone the international rule of law, weaken fundamental freedoms and destroy international collaboration.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave reveals a recent undeniable reality that supporters of democracy overlook at our peril: an nationalist ideology – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has replaced economic liberalism as the leading belief system of our age, giving us a world of firsts: “America first”, “Indian focus”, “Chinese emphasis”, “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 breaches of global human rights standards not just by Russia in Ukraine but in almost every instance of global strife.

Root Causes Explained

Crucial to understand the underlying forces, widespread globally, that have driven this recent nationalist era. It begins with a widely felt sense that a globalization that was accessible yet exclusionary has been a free for all that has not been fair to all.

For more than a decade, leaders have not only been slow to respond to the millions who feel left out and marginalized, but also to the changing balance of world economic influence, moving us from a unipolar world 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 open commerce is giving way to trade barriers. Where economics used to drive government policies, the politics of nationalism is now driving economic decisions, and already over a hundred nations are running mercantilist policies marked out by reshoring and friend-shoring and by bans on international commerce, investment and knowledge sharing, lowering international cooperation to its weakest point since the post-war period.

Hope in Global Public Sentiment

But all is not lost. The situation is not fixed, and even as it hardens we can see optimism in the pragmatism of the global public. In a poll conducted for a major foundation, of 36,000 people in dozens of nations we find a clear majority are more resistant to an exclusionary nationalism and more inclined to embrace global teamwork than many of the officials who govern 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 ethnic and religious groups is unattainable or have a zero-sum mindset that if they or their country 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 committed internationalists, who either still see cooperation across borders through free commerce as a positive sum win-win, or are what an influential thinker calls “rooted cosmopolitans”.

The Global Majority's Stance

Most people of the world's citizens are moderate in views: not narrow, inward-looking nationalists, 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 “our side” and the “others”, opponents always divided from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Do the majority in the middle favor a obligation-light or a dutiful world? Are they prepared to accept obligations beyond their local area or community boundaries? Yes, under certain conditions. A first group, about a fifth, will support aid efforts to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of altruism, backing emergency help for affected areas. Those we might call “good cause” cooperation advocates feel the pain of others and have faith in something bigger than themselves.

A second group comprising 22% are practical cooperators who want to know that any taxes paid for global progress are used effectively. And there is a third group, 21%, self-interested multilateralists, who will approve cooperation if they can see that it benefits them and their communities, whether it be through guaranteeing them basic necessities or peace and security.

Building a Cooperative Majority

So a definite majority can be constructed not just for emergency assistance if funds are used wisely but also for international measures to deal with global problems, like climate crisis and disease control, as long as this argument is argued on grounds of wise personal benefit, and if we emphasize 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 necessity for collaboration, the answer is both.

And this openness to work internationally shows how we can turn back the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can defeat today’s negative, isolated and often aggressive and authoritarian nationalism that demonises newcomers, foreigners and “different groups” as long as we champion a positive, outward-looking and inclusive patriotism that responds to people’s need for community and resonates with their everyday worries.

Tackling Key Issues

And while in-depth polls tell us that across the west, illegal immigration 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 spoke movingly about how what’s positive in the nation can overcome what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most developed nations, “dysfunctional” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our financial system and community.

But as the prime minister also reminded us, the far right is more interested in using complaints than resolving issues. Nigel Farage praised a disastrous mini-budget as “the best Conservative budget” since the 1980s. But he would also implement a similar plan – what was intended – the biggest ever cuts in public services. The party's proposal to reduce public spending by a huge sum would not fix struggling areas but ravage them, create social division and wreck any spirit of solidarity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be ill, impaired, poor or vulnerable. Continually from now on, and in every electoral district, Reform should be asked which medical facility, which educational institution and which government service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

Risks and Solutions

“Faragism” is economic theory at its most cruel, 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 governments 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 ahead of us, we can go beyond pointing out Reform’s hypocrisy by setting out a case for a better Britain that appeals not just to idealists, but to pragmatists, to self-interest, and to the everyday compassion of the nation's citizens.