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The Reform UK leader depicts his Reform UK party as a distinct occurrence that has exploded on to the world stage, its rapid ascent an remarkable 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 South America, hard-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties like his are also ahead in the public surveys.

During recent Czech voting, the conservative, 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 right-wing AfD party is currently the leading 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 Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of opponents of global cooperation, inspired by right-wing influencers like Steve Bannon, aiming to dethrone the international rule of law, weaken fundamental freedoms and destroy multilateral cooperation.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

The populist nationalist surge reveals a recent undeniable reality that democrats ignore at our peril: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has replaced economic liberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “America first”, “Indian focus”, “China first”, “Russia first”, “my tribe first” and often “my tribe first and only” regimes. It is this ethnic nationalism that helps explain why the world is now composed of 91 autocracies and only 88 democracies, and ethnic nationalism is the force behind the violations of global human rights standards not just by Russia in Ukraine 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 broadly shared perception 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, political figures have not only been delayed in addressing to the millions 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 ethnic nationalism that this has incited means free trade is giving way to protectionism. Where economics used to drive government policies, the nationalist agendas is now driving financial choices, and already more than 100 countries are running mercantilist policies marked out by bringing production home and friend-shoring and by bans on cross-border trade, investment and technology transfer, lowering international cooperation to its weakest point since the post-war period.

Optimism in Public Opinion

However, there is hope. The situation is not fixed, and even as it hardens we can see optimism in the common sense of the world's population. In a recent survey for a prominent organization, of thousands of individuals in dozens of nations we find a clear majority are less receptive to an divisive nationalist agenda and more willing 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 16.5% 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 win-lose perspective that if they or their country do well, it has to be at the expense of others doing badly.

However there are another 21% at the opposite extreme, whom we might call dedicated globalists, who either still see international collaboration through open trade as a positive sum win-win, or are what a prominent philosopher calls “rooted cosmopolitans”.

Worldwide Public Position

The vast majority of the global public are moderate in views: not narrow, inward-looking nationalists, as “US priority” ideology would suggest, or fully global citizens. They are devoted to their country but don’t see the world as in a permanent conflict between the “us” and the “others”, opponents permanently set apart from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Do the majority in the middle prefer a duty-free 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, supporting emergency help for affected areas. Those we might call “good cause” multilateralists feel the pain of others and believe in something larger than their own interests.

A second group comprising 22% are pragmatic multilateralists 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 approve cooperation if they can see that it advantages them and their local areas, whether it be through guaranteeing them food on the table or peace and security.

Building a Cooperative Majority

So a definite majority can be constructed not just for humanitarian aid if money is well spent but also for international measures to deal with worldwide issues, like environmental emergency and disease control, as long as this argument is argued on grounds of enlightened self-interest, and if we stress the reciprocal benefits 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 each.

And this openness to work internationally shows how we can turn back the xenophobic tide: we can overcome current pessimistic, inward-looking and often forceful and controlling patriotic extremism that vilifies newcomers, outsiders and “different groups” as long as we champion a positive, globally engaged and welcoming patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and resonates with their everyday worries.

Tackling Key Issues

Although detailed surveys tell us that across the west, illegal immigration is currently the biggest national issue – and it's clear that it must promptly be brought under control – the public sentiment data also tell us that the people are even more concerned about what is happening in their personal circumstances 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 bad, doing so precisely because in most developed nations, “broken” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our economy and community.

But as the leader also pointed out, the far right is more interested in using complaints than ending them. A Reform leader praised a ill-fated economic plan as “the best Conservative budget” since 1986. But he would also enact a similar plan – what was intended – the largest reductions in government programs. Reform’s plan to reduce public spending by £275bn would not fix downtrodden communities but damage them, turn citizen against citizen and wreck any spirit of solidarity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be ill, disabled, needy or vulnerable. Every day from now on, and in every constituency, the party should be asked which hospital, which educational institution and which government service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

Risks and Solutions

“Faragism” is neoliberalism at its most cruel, more destructive even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond fiscal restraint. What the public are indicating all over the west is that they want their leaders to restore our economies and our communities. “Reform” and its international partners should be revealed day after day for plans 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 the party's contradictions by presenting a argument for a better Britain that resonates not just to idealists, but to pragmatists, to self-interest, and to the everyday compassion of the British people.