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The Reform UK leader portrays his Reform UK party as a unique phenomenon that has burst on to the global stage, its meteoric rise an remarkable epochal event. However this week, in every one of Europe’s leading countries and from India and Thailand to the United States and Argentina, far-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties like his are also leading in the opinion polls.

During recent Czech voting, the rightwing, pro-Putin populist Andrej Babiš overthrew the head of government Petr Fiala. A French political group, which has just brought down yet another France's leader, is ahead the polls for both the presidential race 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 power, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Netherlands’ Freedom party (PVV) and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an global alliance of anti-internationalists, motivated by far-right propagandists such as a well-known figure, aiming to dethrone the global legal order, diminish fundamental freedoms and destroy international collaboration.

The Populist Nationalist Surge

This nationalist wave reveals a recent undeniable reality that supporters of democracy ignore at great risk: an nationalist ideology – once thought defeated with the historic barrier – has supplanted economic liberalism as the leading belief system of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “US priority”, “India first”, “Chinese emphasis”, “Russian primacy”, “group priority” and often “my tribe first and only” regimes. It is this nationalist sentiment that helps explain why the world is now composed of 91 autocracies and only 88 democracies, and ethnic nationalism is the force behind the breaches of global human rights standards not just by one nation in conflict but in almost every instance of global strife.

Root Causes Explained

It is important to understand the root causes, common to almost every country, that have driven this recent nationalist era. It begins with a widely felt sense that a globalization that was open but not inclusive has been a unregulated system that has been unjust to all.

Over the past ten years, leaders have not only been delayed in addressing to the many people who feel excluded and marginalized, but also to the changing balance of world economic influence, transitioning from a US-dominated era once led by the US to a multi-power landscape of rival major nations, and from a system of international law to a power-based one. The ethnic nationalism that this has incited means free trade is being replaced by trade barriers. Where economics used to drive government policies, the nationalist agendas is now driving financial choices, and already over a hundred nations are running protectionist strategies characterized by reshoring and friend-shoring and by restrictions on cross-border trade, investment and technology transfer, sinking global collaboration to its lowest ebb since the post-war period.

Hope in Global Public Sentiment

But all is not lost. The situation is not fixed, and even as it solidifies we can see optimism in the common sense of the global public. In a recent survey for a prominent organization, of thousands of individuals in dozens of nations we find a clear majority are more resistant to an exclusionary nationalism and more inclined to support international cooperation than many of the officials who govern them.

Across the world there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a small group of staunch global cooperation opponents representing 16.5% of the world's people (even if 25% in the United States currently) who either feel coexistence 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 cost of others doing badly.

However there are another 21% at the opposite extreme, whom we might call committed internationalists, who either still see cooperation across borders through open trade as a positive sum win-win, or are what an influential thinker calls “locally engaged global citizens”.

Worldwide Public Position

Most people of the world's citizens are moderate in views: not isolated patriots, as “America first” ideology would suggest, or fully global citizens. They are devoted to their country but don’t see the world as in a never-ending struggle between the “us” and the “them”, opponents permanently set apart from each other in an irreconcilable gap.

Are most moderates prefer a obligation-light or a dutiful world? Are they willing to accept responsibilities beyond their garden gate or community boundaries? Yes, under certain conditions. A initial segment, 22%, will support humanitarian action to alleviate hardship and are ready to act out of altruism, supporting emergency help for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” multilateralists empathize of others and have faith in something larger than their own interests.

Another segment comprising 22% are pragmatic multilateralists who want to know that any taxes paid for international development are used effectively. And there is a final category, 21%, personally motivated collaborators, who will endorse cooperation if they can see that it benefits them and their local areas, whether it be through ensuring them food on the table or safety and stability.

Forging a Collaborative Consensus

Thus a definite majority can be built not just for humanitarian aid if money is well spent but also for global action to deal with global problems, like environmental emergency and disease control, as long as this case is argued on grounds of wise personal benefit, and if we emphasize the reciprocal benefits that flow to them and their own country. And thus for those who have long wondered whether we work together from necessity or if we have a necessity for collaboration, the answer is both.

And this openness to cooperate across borders shows how we can turn back the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can overcome today’s negative, isolated and often aggressive and authoritarian patriotic extremism that demonises immigrants, foreigners and “different groups” as long as we champion a positive, globally engaged and inclusive patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and resonates with their immediate concerns.

Addressing Public Concerns

And while detailed surveys tell us that across the Western nations, illegal immigration is currently the biggest national issue – and it's clear that it must quickly 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 immediate neighborhoods. Last month, a prominent leader spoke movingly about how what’s positive in the nation can drive out what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most western countries, “broken” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our economy and society.

However, as the prime minister also pointed out, the extreme right is more interested in exploiting grievances than ending them. A Reform leader praised a ill-fated economic plan as “the best Conservative budget” since the 1980s. But he would also enact a comparable strategy – what was planned – the largest reductions in government programs. Reform’s plan to cut government expenditure by £275bn would not repair downtrodden communities but damage 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 vulnerable. Every day from now on, and in every electoral district, the party should be asked which medical facility, which educational institution and which public service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

Risks and Solutions

“This ideology” is neoliberalism at its most cruel, more harmful even than monetarism, and spiteful far beyond fiscal restraint. What the public are indicating all over the west is that they want their governments to rebuild our economies and our civic societies. “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 highlighting the party's contradictions by setting out a case for a better Britain that resonates not just to idealists, but to realists, to self-interest, and to the everyday compassion of the British people.