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Nigel Farage portrays his political party as a distinct phenomenon that has burst on to the world stage, its meteoric rise an remarkable historic moment. However this week, in every one of Europe’s leading countries and from India and Southeast Asia to the US and South America, hard-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalisation parties like his are also ahead in the opinion polls.

In last Saturday’s Czech elections, the rightwing, pro-Putin populist a prominent figure toppled prime minister Petr Fiala. A French political group, which has just forced the resignation of yet another French prime minister, is ahead the polls for both the French presidency and parliament. In the German nation, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is currently the most popular party. Hungary’s Fidesz party, Robert Fico’s pro-Russian Slovakian coalition and the Brothers of Italy are already in power, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Dutch PVV and Belgian Vlaams Belang – all staunch nationalist groups – are part of an global alliance of anti-internationalists, inspired by far-right propagandists such as a well-known figure, aiming to overthrow the global legal order, diminish human rights and undermine multilateral cooperation.

The Populist Nationalist Surge

The populist nationalist surge reveals a new and unavoidable truth that supporters of democracy overlook at our peril: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought toppled with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted neoliberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “US priority”, “India first”, “China first”, “Russian primacy”, “my tribe first” and often “exclusive group focus” regimes. It is this nationalist sentiment that helps explain why the world is now composed of many autocratic states and fewer democratic ones, and ethnic nationalism is the driver behind the breaches of global human rights standards not just by Russia in Ukraine but in almost every one of the world’s 59 cross-border conflicts and civil wars.

Root Causes Explained

Crucial to understand the underlying forces, common to almost every country, that have fuelled this recent nationalist era. It begins 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.

Over the past ten years, political figures have not only been delayed in addressing to the millions who feel left out and left behind, but also to the changing balance of world economic influence, moving us from a unipolar world once led by the United States to a multipolar world of competing superpowers, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The ethnic nationalism that this has provoked means open commerce is giving way to protectionism. Where market forces used to drive government policies, the nationalist agendas is now driving economic decisions, and already over a hundred nations are running protectionist strategies characterized by reshoring and friend-shoring and by bans on international commerce, foreign funding and technology transfer, sinking global collaboration to its weakest point since 1945.

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 recent survey for a prominent organization, of thousands of individuals in 34 countries we find a significant portion are less receptive to an divisive nationalist agenda and more willing to support international cooperation than many of the leaders who govern them.

Globally there is, perhaps surprisingly, only a limited number of hardened anti-internationalists representing 16.5% of the world's people (even if a quarter in today’s US) who either feel coexistence between diverse communities is impossible 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 an additional group at the other end, whom we might call dedicated globalists, who either still see international collaboration through open trade as a mutually beneficial arrangement, or are what an influential thinker calls “rooted cosmopolitans”.

The Global Majority's Stance

Most people of the world's citizens are somewhere in between: 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 prefer a duty-free or a responsible global community? Are they willing to accept responsibilities beyond their local area or city wall? Yes, under specific circumstances. A initial segment, about a fifth, will support aid efforts to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of selflessness, backing disaster relief for affected areas. Those we might call “good cause” cooperation advocates empathize of others and have faith in something bigger than themselves.

A second group comprising a similar percentage are practical cooperators who want to know that any taxes paid for global progress are spent well. 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 basic necessities or peace and security.

Forging a Collaborative Consensus

So a definite majority can be built not just for emergency assistance if money is well spent but also for global action 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 mutual advantages that benefit 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 response is each.

This willingness to cooperate across borders shows how we can reverse the xenophobic tide: we can defeat current pessimistic, inward-looking and often aggressive and authoritarian patriotic extremism that demonises newcomers, outsiders and “different groups” as long as we champion a positive, globally engaged and inclusive national pride that responds to people’s need for community and connects to their everyday worries.

Tackling Key Issues

And while detailed surveys tell us that across the Western nations, unauthorized entry is currently the top concern – and it's clear that it must quickly be brought under control – the public sentiment data also tell us that the public are even more concerned about what is happening in their personal circumstances and within their own local communities. Last month, 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 western countries, “broken” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our economy and society.

But as the leader also reminded us, the far right is more interested in using complaints than resolving issues. A Reform leader praised a disastrous mini-budget as “the best Conservative budget” since the 1980s. But he would also implement a comparable strategy – what was planned – the biggest ever cuts in government programs. Reform’s plan to reduce public spending by a huge sum would not repair downtrodden communities but ravage them, create social division and wreck any sense of unity. Under a hard-right regime, you will not be able to afford to be ill, disabled, poor or at-risk. Every day from now on, and in every constituency, the party should be asked which hospital, which school and which government service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

The Stakes and the Alternative

“Faragism” is neoliberalism at its most cruel, more harmful even than monetarism, and spiteful far beyond austerity. What the public are indicating all over the Western world is that they want their leaders to rebuild our financial systems and our communities. “Reform” and its global allies should be exposed repeatedly for plans 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 presenting a case for a better Britain that resonates not just to visionaries, but to realists, to personal benefit, and to the everyday compassion of the British people.