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Nigel Farage portrays his Reform UK party as a unique phenomenon that has exploded on to the global stage, its meteoric rise an exceptional historic moment. But this week, in every one of the continent's major countries and from India and Southeast Asia to the US and Argentina, hard-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties similar to his are also ahead in the public surveys.

During recent Czech voting, the rightwing, pro-Putin populist a prominent figure overthrew the head of government Petr Fiala. A French political group, which has just forced the resignation of yet another France's leader, is ahead the polls for both the French presidency and the legislature. In Germany, 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 Italian political group are already in power, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Netherlands’ Freedom party (PVV) and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all staunch nationalist groups – are part of an global alliance of opponents of global cooperation, inspired by right-wing influencers such as a well-known figure, seeking to overthrow the global legal order, weaken fundamental freedoms and destroy international collaboration.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave reveals a recent undeniable reality that supporters of democracy ignore at great risk: an nationalist ideology – once thought defeated with the historic barrier – has supplanted neoliberalism as the leading belief system of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “US priority”, “Indian focus”, “China first”, “Russian primacy”, “my tribe first” and often “exclusive group focus” 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 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

It is important to grasp the underlying forces, widespread globally, that have fuelled this new age of nationalism. It begins with a widely felt sense that a globalization that was open but not inclusive has been a unregulated system 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 marginalized, but also to the changing balance of world economic influence, transitioning from a unipolar world once dominated by the US to a multipolar world of competing superpowers, and from a system of international law to a power-based one. The nationalist ideology that this has provoked means open commerce 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 mercantilist policies characterized by reshoring and friend-shoring and by restrictions on international commerce, foreign funding and knowledge sharing, lowering global collaboration to its weakest point since 1945.

Optimism in Public Opinion

However, there is hope. The situation is not fixed, and even as it hardens we can find hope in the common sense of the world's population. In a poll conducted for a major foundation, of 36,000 people in dozens of nations we find a clear majority are more resistant to an exclusionary nationalism and more inclined to support 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 world's people (even if 25% in the United States currently) 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 cost 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 free commerce as a mutually beneficial arrangement, or are what an influential thinker calls “locally engaged global citizens”.

Worldwide Public Position

The vast majority of the world's citizens are moderate in views: 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 never-ending struggle between the “our side” and the “others”, adversaries always divided from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Are most moderates favor a duty-free or a responsible global community? Are they prepared to accept responsibilities beyond their garden gate or community boundaries? Affirmative, under specific circumstances. A first group, about a fifth, will support humanitarian action to relieve suffering and are ready to act out of selflessness, supporting disaster relief for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” multilateralists empathize of others and have faith in something larger than their own interests.

Another segment comprising 22% are practical cooperators who want to know that any public funds for international development are used effectively. And there is a third group, roughly a fifth, personally motivated collaborators, who will approve teamwork if they can see that it benefits them and their communities, whether it be through ensuring them food on the table or safety and stability.

Forging a Collaborative Consensus

So a definite majority can be built not just for humanitarian aid if funds are used wisely but also for global action to deal with global problems, like environmental emergency and pandemic prevention, as long as this case 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 cooperate out of need or if we have a need to cooperate, the response is each.

This willingness to work internationally shows how we can reverse the xenophobic tide: we can defeat current pessimistic, inward-looking and often forceful and controlling nationalism that vilifies newcomers, foreigners and “others” as long as we champion a positive, outward-looking and welcoming patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and connects to their everyday worries.

Addressing Public Concerns

And while in-depth polls tell us that across the west, unauthorized entry is currently the top concern – and no one should doubt that it must quickly be managed effectively – the public sentiment data also tell us that the public are even more worried by what is happening in their personal circumstances and within their immediate neighborhoods. Last month, a prominent leader gave an emotional speech about how what’s good about Britain can drive out what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most developed nations, “broken” and “in decline” are the words people have for years most commonly cited when asked about both our economy and society.

But as the leader also reminded us, the extreme right is more interested in exploiting grievances than ending them. A Reform leader praised a disastrous mini-budget as “an excellent fiscal policy” since the 1980s. But he would also enact a similar plan – what was planned – the biggest ever cuts in public services. The party's proposal to reduce public spending by £275bn would not fix struggling areas 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 ill, impaired, poor or at-risk. Continually from now on, and in every constituency, the party should be asked which medical facility, which school and which public 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 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 exposed repeatedly for policies that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our best days could be ahead of us, we can go beyond pointing out the party's contradictions by presenting a case for a better Britain that resonates not just to idealists, but to pragmatists, to personal benefit, and to the daily kindness of the nation's citizens.