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The Reform UK leader depicts his Reform UK party as a unique phenomenon that has exploded on to the global stage, its meteoric rise an remarkable historic moment. But this week, in every one of the continent's major countries and from India and Southeast Asia to the US and South America, far-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalization parties like his are also leading in the opinion polls.

During recent Czech voting, the rightwing, 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 parliament. In Germany, the right-wing AfD party is currently the leading party. Hungary’s Fidesz party, Robert Fico’s pro-Russian Slovakian coalition and the Italian political group are already in power, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Dutch PVV and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an global alliance of opponents of global cooperation, motivated by right-wing influencers like Steve Bannon, seeking to dethrone the global legal order, weaken fundamental freedoms and destroy multilateral cooperation.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave exposes a new and unavoidable truth that democrats overlook at our peril: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought toppled with the historic barrier – has replaced neoliberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of firsts: “America first”, “India first”, “Chinese emphasis”, “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 91 autocracies and only 88 democracies, 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 understand the underlying forces, widespread globally, that have driven this recent nationalist era. It starts with a widely felt sense that a globalisation that was accessible yet exclusionary has been a unregulated system that has not been fair to all.

For more than a decade, political figures have not only been slow to respond to the millions who feel excluded and left behind, but also to the changing balance of world economic influence, moving us from a unipolar world once dominated by the United States to a multi-power landscape of rival major nations, and from a system of international law to a power-based one. The ethnic nationalism that this has incited means open commerce is being replaced by protectionism. Where economics used to drive government policies, the nationalist agendas is now driving economic decisions, and already over a hundred nations are running mercantilist policies characterized by bringing production home and ally-focused trade and by bans on cross-border trade, investment and technology transfer, lowering international cooperation to its weakest point since 1945.

Optimism in Public Opinion

However, there is hope. The cement is still wet, 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 dozens of nations we find a significant portion are more resistant to an exclusionary nationalism and more willing to embrace international cooperation than many of the officials who govern them.

Across the world there is, maybe unexpectedly, 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 nation do well, it has to be at the cost of others doing badly.

But there are another 21% at the opposite extreme, whom we might call committed internationalists, who either still see cooperation across borders through open trade as a positive sum win-win, or are what a prominent philosopher calls “locally engaged global citizens”.

Worldwide Public Position

Most people of the world's citizens are somewhere in between: not isolated patriots, 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”, adversaries always divided from each other in an irreconcilable gap.

Are most moderates favor a duty-free or a dutiful world? Are they prepared to accept responsibilities beyond their garden gate or city wall? Affirmative, under certain conditions. A first group, 22%, will back humanitarian action to relieve suffering and are ready to act out of selflessness, supporting emergency help for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” cooperation advocates feel the pain of others and have faith in something bigger than themselves.

A second group comprising 22% are practical cooperators who want to know that any public funds for international development are used effectively. And there is a final category, roughly a fifth, personally motivated collaborators, who will approve cooperation if they can see that it benefits them and their communities, whether it be through guaranteeing them basic necessities or peace and security.

Building a Cooperative Majority

So a definite majority can be built not just for humanitarian aid if money is well spent but also for global action to deal with global problems, like environmental emergency and disease control, as long as this argument is presented on grounds of wise personal benefit, 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 response is each.

This willingness to work internationally shows how we can reverse the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can overcome today’s negative, inward-looking and often aggressive and authoritarian patriotic extremism that vilifies immigrants, outsiders and “others” as long as we advocate for a optimistic, outward-looking and inclusive national pride that responds to people’s desire to belong and connects to their immediate concerns.

Tackling Key Issues

And while in-depth polls tell us that across the west, unauthorized entry is currently the top concern – 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. Recently, the UK Prime Minister spoke movingly about how what’s good about Britain can overcome what’s negative, doing so precisely because in most western countries, “dysfunctional” 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. Nigel Farage praised a disastrous mini-budget as “an excellent fiscal policy” since 1986. But he would also enact a comparable strategy – what was intended – the biggest ever cuts in government programs. Reform’s plan to cut government expenditure by a huge sum would not fix struggling areas but damage them, create social division and destroy any spirit of solidarity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be ill, disabled, needy or at-risk. Continually from now on, and in every electoral district, Reform should be asked which hospital, which school and which government service will be the first to be reduced or closed.

Risks and Solutions

“This ideology” is neoliberalism at its most cruel, more harmful even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond fiscal restraint. What the people are telling us all over the Western world is that they want their governments to rebuild our economies and our civic societies. “The party” and its international partners 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 pointing out Reform’s hypocrisy by presenting a case for a better Britain that resonates not just to visionaries, but to pragmatists, to personal benefit, and to the daily kindness of the nation's citizens.