🔗 Share this article

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

During recent Czech voting, the conservative, pro-Russian leader Andrej Babiš overthrew the head of government Petr Fiala. National Rally, which has just forced the resignation of yet another France's leader, is leading the polls for both the presidential race and parliament. In the German nation, 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 power, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Dutch PVV and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all staunch nationalist groups – are part of an international coalition of anti-internationalists, inspired by right-wing influencers such as a well-known figure, aiming to overthrow the global legal order, diminish fundamental freedoms and undermine international collaboration.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave exposes a new and unavoidable truth that supporters of democracy ignore at our peril: an nationalist ideology – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has replaced neoliberalism 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 ethnic nationalism that helps explain why the world is now composed of many autocratic states and fewer democratic ones, and this ideology is the force behind the breaches of global human rights standards not just by one nation in conflict but in almost every one of the world’s 59 cross-border conflicts and civil wars.

Root Causes Explained

Crucial to grasp the root causes, widespread globally, that have fuelled this new age of nationalism. 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.

For more than a decade, leaders have not only been slow to respond to the many people who feel excluded and marginalized, but also to the shifting dynamics of global economic power, transitioning from a unipolar world once led by the US to a multi-power landscape of competing superpowers, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The nationalist ideology that this has incited means open commerce is giving way to protectionism. Where economics used to drive government policies, the nationalist agendas is now driving economic decisions, and already more than 100 countries are running mercantilist policies characterized by reshoring and friend-shoring and by bans on cross-border trade, foreign funding and knowledge sharing, lowering global collaboration 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 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 willing to embrace global teamwork than many of the officials who govern them.

Globally there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a small group of staunch global cooperation opponents representing a minority of the global population (even if 25% in today’s US) who either feel peaceful living between ethnic and religious groups is impossible or have a zero-sum mindset that if they or their nation 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 committed internationalists, who either still see cooperation across borders 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 moderate in views: not narrow, inward-looking nationalists, as “US priority” ideology would suggest, or all-in cosmopolitans. They are patriotic but don’t see the world as in a permanent conflict between the “us” and the “others”, opponents always divided from each other in an irreconcilable gap.

Are most moderates prefer a obligation-light or a responsible global community? Are they prepared to accept responsibilities beyond their local area or city wall? Affirmative, under certain conditions. A initial segment, about a fifth, will back aid efforts to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of selflessness, supporting emergency help for disaster zones. Those we might call “charitable” cooperation advocates empathize of others and believe in something larger than their own interests.

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 final category, roughly a fifth, self-interested multilateralists, who will endorse teamwork if they can see that it advantages them and their communities, whether it be through ensuring them food on the table or safety and stability.

Forging a Collaborative Consensus

So a clear majority can be built not just for emergency assistance if funds are used wisely but also for international measures to deal with worldwide issues, like environmental emergency and pandemic prevention, 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 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 forceful and controlling nationalism that demonises newcomers, outsiders and “different groups” as long as we advocate for a optimistic, outward-looking and inclusive national pride that addresses people’s desire to belong and connects to their everyday worries.

Tackling Key Issues

And while in-depth polls tell us that across the west, unauthorized entry is currently the biggest national issue – and no one should doubt that it must quickly be brought under control – the snapshots of opinion also tell us that the people are even more worried by what is happening in their own lives and within their own local communities. Last month, the UK Prime Minister gave an emotional speech about how what’s positive in the nation can drive out what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most western countries, “broken” and “in decline” are the words people have for years most commonly cited when asked about both our economy and community.

But 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 “an excellent fiscal policy” since 1986. But he would also implement a comparable strategy – what was planned – 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 damage them, create social division and destroy any sense of unity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be sick, disabled, needy or at-risk. 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.

The Stakes and the Alternative

“This ideology” is economic theory at its most inhumane, more destructive even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond fiscal restraint. What the people are indicating all over the Western world is that they want their leaders to rebuild our economies and our civic societies. “The party” and its international partners should be revealed day after day for plans that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our best days could be ahead of us, we can go beyond highlighting the party's contradictions by presenting a argument for a improved nation that resonates not just to visionaries, but to realists, to self-interest, and to the daily kindness of the British people.