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Nigel Farage depicts his Reform UK party as a unique occurrence that has burst on to the global stage, its rapid ascent an remarkable epochal event. However this week, in every one of Europe’s major countries and from India and Thailand to the United States and Argentina, far-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalisation parties like his are also ahead in the opinion polls.

In last Saturday’s Czech elections, 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 leading the polls for both the French presidency and parliament. In the German nation, the right-wing AfD party is currently the most popular party. Hungary’s Fidesz party, Slovakia's governing alliance and the Brothers of Italy are already in government, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Dutch PVV and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of anti-internationalists, motivated by far-right propagandists such as a well-known figure, seeking to overthrow the global legal order, diminish human rights and undermine multilateral cooperation.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave reveals a new and unavoidable truth that supporters of democracy overlook at our peril: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted economic liberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “America first”, “India first”, “Chinese emphasis”, “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 this ideology is the force behind the breaches of global human rights standards not just by Russia in Ukraine but in almost every instance of global strife.

Understanding the Underlying Forces

It is important to grasp the root causes, common to almost every country, that have driven this recent nationalist era. It starts with a broadly shared perception that a globalization 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 delayed in addressing 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 multipolar world of competing superpowers, and from a system of international law to a might-makes-right approach. The nationalist ideology 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 over a hundred nations are running mercantilist policies marked out by reshoring and ally-focused trade and by restrictions on international commerce, investment and technology transfer, lowering global collaboration 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 solidifies we can see optimism in the pragmatism of the global public. In a recent survey 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 embrace global teamwork than many of the leaders who rule over them.

Across the world there is, perhaps surprisingly, only a small group of hardened anti-internationalists representing a minority of the world's people (even if 25% in today’s US) who either feel peaceful living between diverse communities is unattainable or have a win-lose perspective 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 opposite extreme, whom we might call committed internationalists, who either still see cooperation across borders through free commerce as a positive sum win-win, or are what an influential thinker calls “locally engaged global citizens”.

Worldwide Public Position

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 “our side” and the “them”, opponents always divided from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Do the majority in the middle favor a obligation-light or a dutiful world? Are they willing to accept responsibilities beyond their garden gate or community boundaries? Yes, under specific circumstances. A first group, 22%, will back humanitarian action to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of altruism, supporting emergency help for affected areas. 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 spent well. And there is a third group, roughly a fifth, self-interested multilateralists, who will endorse teamwork if they can see that it benefits them and their local areas, whether it be through ensuring them food on the table or safety and stability.

Building a Cooperative Majority

Thus a definite majority can be built not just for emergency assistance if funds are used wisely but also for international measures to deal with global problems, like climate crisis and disease control, as long as this case is presented on grounds of enlightened self-interest, and if we emphasize the mutual advantages that benefit them and their own country. And thus for those who have long questioned whether we cooperate out of need or if we have a need to cooperate, the answer is both.

And this openness to cooperate across borders shows how we can reverse the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can defeat current pessimistic, isolated and often aggressive and authoritarian nationalism that demonises immigrants, foreigners and “different groups” as long as we advocate for a optimistic, outward-looking and welcoming patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and connects to their immediate concerns.

Tackling Key Issues

Although in-depth polls tell us that across the west, illegal immigration is currently the top concern – and it's clear that it must quickly be managed effectively – the snapshots of opinion also tell us that the public are even more worried by what is happening in their own lives and within their immediate neighborhoods. Last month, a prominent leader 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 “in decline” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our financial system and community.

However, as the leader also pointed out, the extreme right is more interested in exploiting grievances than ending them. A Reform leader praised a ill-fated economic plan as “an excellent fiscal policy” since 1986. But he would also enact a similar plan – what was intended – the biggest ever cuts in public services. Reform’s plan to cut government expenditure by £275bn would not repair struggling areas but damage them, turn citizen against citizen and destroy any sense of unity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be sick, disabled, needy or vulnerable. Continually from now on, and in every electoral district, the party should be asked which medical facility, which educational institution and which public service will be the first to be cut or shut down.

The Stakes and the Alternative

“Faragism” is economic theory at its most cruel, more harmful even than monetary policy, and vindictive far beyond austerity. What the public are indicating all over the Western world is that they want their governments to restore our economies and our civic societies. “Reform” and its international partners should be revealed day after day for policies that would harm both. And for those of us who believe our best days could be ahead of us, we can go beyond highlighting Reform’s hypocrisy by presenting a case for a better Britain that appeals not just to visionaries, but to realists, to self-interest, and to the everyday compassion of the British people.