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The Reform UK leader depicts his Reform UK party as a unique 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 leading countries and from the Indian subcontinent and Thailand to the United States and South America, hard-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalization parties similar to his are also leading in the public surveys.

In last Saturday’s Czech elections, the conservative, pro-Russian leader Andrej Babiš overthrew the head of government Petr Fiala. National Rally, which has just brought down yet another France's leader, is ahead the polls for both the French presidency and the legislature. In the German nation, the right-wing AfD party is currently the leading party. Hungary’s Fidesz party, Slovakia's governing alliance and the Italian political group are already in power, while the Freedom party of Austria (FPÖ), the Dutch PVV and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all staunch nationalist groups – are part of an global alliance of opponents of global cooperation, inspired by far-right propagandists such as a well-known figure, seeking to dethrone the global legal order, weaken human rights and destroy international collaboration.

The Populist Nationalist Surge

This nationalist wave exposes a recent undeniable reality that supporters of democracy ignore at our peril: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought toppled with the historic barrier – has replaced economic liberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “US priority”, “Indian focus”, “China first”, “Russian primacy”, “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 many autocratic states and fewer democratic ones, and ethnic nationalism is the driver behind the violations of international human rights law not just by Russia in Ukraine but in almost every instance of global strife.

Understanding the Underlying Forces

It is important to understand the underlying forces, common to almost every country, that have fuelled this new age of nationalism. It begins with a broadly shared perception that a globalisation that was open but not inclusive has been a free for all that has not been fair to all.

For more than a decade, political figures have not only been slow to respond to the many people who feel excluded and left behind, but also to the changing balance of world economic influence, transitioning from a US-dominated era once dominated by the US to a multi-power landscape of competing superpowers, and from a rules-based order to a might-makes-right approach. The ethnic nationalism that this has incited means free trade is being replaced by protectionism. Where economics used to drive politics, the nationalist agendas is now driving economic decisions, and already over a hundred nations are running protectionist strategies marked out by bringing production home and friend-shoring and by restrictions on international commerce, investment and technology transfer, sinking international cooperation to its weakest point since the post-war period.

Optimism in Public Opinion

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 poll conducted for a prominent organization, of 36,000 people in 34 countries we find a clear majority are less receptive to an exclusionary nationalism and more willing to support international cooperation than many of the officials who rule over them.

Globally there is, perhaps surprisingly, only a small group of hardened anti-internationalists representing a minority of the global population (even if 25% in today’s US) who either feel coexistence between diverse communities is unattainable 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.

But there are an additional group at the other end, whom we might call dedicated globalists, who either still see cooperation across borders through open trade as a mutually beneficial arrangement, or are what a prominent philosopher 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 fully global citizens. They are patriotic but don’t see the world as in a permanent conflict between the “us” and the “them”, opponents always divided from each other in an irreconcilable gap.

Do the majority in the middle favor a obligation-light or a dutiful world? Are they prepared to accept obligations beyond their local area or community boundaries? Yes, under specific circumstances. A initial segment, 22%, will support aid efforts to relieve suffering and are ready to act out of altruism, supporting disaster relief 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 international development are spent well. And there is a final category, roughly a fifth, 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 safety and stability.

Forging a Collaborative Consensus

Thus a clear majority can be constructed not just for emergency assistance if funds are used wisely but also for international measures to deal with global problems, like environmental emergency and disease control, as long as this argument is presented on grounds of enlightened self-interest, and if we emphasize 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 answer is each.

And this openness to cooperate across borders shows how we can reverse the xenophobic tide: we can defeat current pessimistic, inward-looking and often forceful and controlling patriotic extremism that demonises newcomers, foreigners and “different groups” as long as we champion a positive, outward-looking and inclusive national pride that addresses people’s desire to belong and resonates with their immediate concerns.

Tackling Key Issues

And while in-depth polls tell us that across the west, illegal immigration is currently the top concern – and no one should doubt that it must quickly be managed effectively – the snapshots of opinion also tell us that the people are even more concerned about what is happening in their personal circumstances and within their immediate neighborhoods. Recently, the UK Prime Minister spoke movingly about how what’s good about Britain can overcome what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most western countries, “broken” and “in decline” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our financial system and community.

But as the prime minister also pointed out, the extreme right is more interested in using complaints than ending them. Nigel Farage praised a disastrous mini-budget as “the best Conservative budget” since the 1980s. But he would also enact a comparable strategy – what was planned – the biggest ever cuts in government programs. The party's proposal to cut government expenditure by a huge sum would not repair downtrodden communities but damage them, create social division and wreck any spirit of solidarity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be sick, disabled, poor or vulnerable. Every day from now on, and in every electoral district, Reform 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 neoliberalism at its most inhumane, more harmful even than monetary policy, and spiteful far beyond austerity. What the public are telling us all over the Western world is that they want their leaders to restore our economies and our civic societies. “Reform” and its international partners should be revealed day after day for policies that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our best days could be in the future, we can go beyond highlighting the party's contradictions by setting out a case for a improved nation that resonates not just to visionaries, but to pragmatists, to self-interest, and to the everyday compassion of the British people.