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The Reform UK leader portrays his Reform UK party as a unique occurrence that has burst on to the global stage, its rapid ascent an exceptional epochal event. However this week, in every one of Europe’s major countries and from the Indian subcontinent and Thailand to the United States and Argentina, hard-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalization parties like 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 brought down yet another French prime minister, is ahead the polls for both the French presidency 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 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 hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of anti-internationalists, inspired by right-wing influencers like Steve Bannon, aiming to dethrone the international rule of law, weaken fundamental freedoms and undermine international collaboration.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave reveals a new and unavoidable truth that democrats overlook at great risk: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought toppled with the historic barrier – has replaced neoliberalism as the leading belief system of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “America first”, “India first”, “Chinese emphasis”, “Russia first”, “group priority” and often “exclusive group focus” 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 Russia in Ukraine but in almost every one of the world’s 59 cross-border conflicts and civil wars.

Understanding the Underlying Forces

Crucial to grasp the root causes, common to almost every country, that have fuelled this new age of nationalism. It starts with a widely felt sense that a globalisation that was accessible yet exclusionary has been a free for all that has not been fair to all.

Over the past ten years, political figures have not only been slow to respond to the many people who feel excluded and left behind, but also to the shifting dynamics of world economic influence, moving us from a US-dominated era once dominated by the United States to a multi-power landscape 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 protectionism. Where market forces used to drive politics, the nationalist agendas is now driving economic decisions, and already more than 100 countries are running mercantilist policies marked out by bringing production home and friend-shoring and by restrictions on cross-border trade, foreign funding and knowledge sharing, sinking global collaboration to its lowest ebb since the post-war period.

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 major foundation, of 36,000 people in dozens of nations we find a significant portion are more resistant to an exclusionary nationalism and more willing to embrace global teamwork than many of the leaders who govern them.

Globally there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a small group of staunch global cooperation opponents representing 16.5% of the global population (even if a quarter in today’s US) who either feel coexistence between diverse communities is unattainable or have a win-lose perspective that if they or their nation 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 international collaboration through free commerce as a positive sum win-win, or are what a prominent philosopher calls “rooted cosmopolitans”.

The Global Majority's Stance

The vast majority 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 “others”, opponents always divided from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Do the majority in the middle favor a duty-free or a dutiful world? Are they prepared to accept obligations beyond their garden gate or community boundaries? Affirmative, under certain conditions. A first group, 22%, will support aid efforts to alleviate hardship and are ready to act out of altruism, supporting emergency help for disaster zones. Those we might call “charitable” cooperation advocates empathize of others and believe in something bigger than themselves.

Another segment comprising a similar percentage are pragmatic multilateralists who want to know that any public funds for international development are spent well. And there is a third group, 21%, personally motivated collaborators, who will endorse teamwork if they can see that it benefits them and their communities, whether it be through ensuring them food on the table or safety and stability.

Building a Cooperative Majority

Thus a clear majority can be constructed not just for emergency assistance if money is well spent but also for global action to deal with worldwide issues, like climate crisis and pandemic prevention, as long as this argument is argued on grounds of wise personal benefit, and if we stress the mutual advantages that flow to 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 cooperate across borders shows how we can turn back the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can defeat current pessimistic, isolated and often forceful and controlling nationalism that demonises newcomers, foreigners and “others” as long as we advocate for a positive, outward-looking and inclusive patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and connects to their everyday worries.

Addressing Public Concerns

Although in-depth polls tell us that across the west, unauthorized entry is currently the top concern – and no one should doubt that it must quickly be managed effectively – the public sentiment data also tell us that the public are even more worried by what is happening in their own lives and within their own local communities. Last month, the UK Prime Minister spoke movingly about how what’s positive in the nation can drive out what’s negative, 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 financial system and community.

However, as the leader also reminded us, the extreme right is more interested in using complaints than resolving issues. A Reform leader praised 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 government programs. The party's proposal to cut government expenditure by a huge sum would not repair downtrodden communities but ravage them, turn citizen against citizen and destroy any sense of unity. Under a hard-right regime, you will not be able to afford to be sick, disabled, poor or at-risk. Every day from now on, and in every constituency, the party should be asked which medical facility, which school and which public service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

The Stakes and the Alternative

“This ideology” is neoliberalism at its most cruel, more harmful even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond austerity. What the public are telling us all over the Western world is that they want their governments to restore our economies and our communities. “The party” and its international partners should be exposed day after day for plans that would harm both. And for those of us who believe our greatest achievements could be in the future, we can go beyond highlighting Reform’s hypocrisy by setting out a argument for a better Britain that appeals not just to visionaries, but to realists, to personal benefit, and to the daily kindness of the British people.