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Nigel Farage depicts his political party as a distinct occurrence that has burst on to the world stage, its meteoric rise an exceptional epochal event. However this week, in every one of the continent's leading countries and from India and Thailand to the United States and South America, hard-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalization parties like his are also ahead in the opinion polls.

In last Saturday’s Czech elections, the rightwing, pro-Putin populist Andrej Babiš toppled prime minister Petr Fiala. National Rally, which has just brought down yet another French prime minister, is ahead the polls for both the presidential race and the legislature. In Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is currently the most popular party. A Hungarian political force, Slovakia's governing alliance and the Brothers of Italy are already in government, while the Freedom party of Austria (FPÖ), the Netherlands’ Freedom party (PVV) and Belgian Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of opponents of global cooperation, motivated by right-wing influencers like Steve Bannon, aiming to dethrone the global legal order, diminish fundamental freedoms and destroy international collaboration.

The Populist Nationalist Surge

This nationalist wave reveals a new and unavoidable truth that democrats ignore at great risk: an nationalist ideology – once thought toppled with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted economic liberalism as the leading belief system of our age, giving us a world of firsts: “US priority”, “Indian focus”, “China first”, “Russia first”, “my tribe first” and often “my tribe first and only” 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 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 grasp the root causes, widespread globally, that have driven this recent nationalist era. It begins with a widely felt sense that a globalization that was accessible yet exclusionary 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 many people who feel excluded and marginalized, but also to the shifting dynamics of global economic power, moving us from a US-dominated era once dominated by the US to a multi-power landscape of rival major nations, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The nationalist ideology 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 more than 100 countries are running protectionist strategies marked out 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.

Optimism in Public Opinion

But all is not lost. The situation is not fixed, and even as it solidifies we can find hope in the common sense of the global public. In a recent survey for a major foundation, of 36,000 people in dozens of nations we find a significant portion are less receptive to an exclusionary nationalism and more inclined to support global teamwork than many of the officials who govern them.

Across the world there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a limited number of staunch global cooperation opponents representing a minority of the world's people (even if 25% 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 expense of others doing badly.

But there are an additional group at the opposite extreme, 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 global public are somewhere in between: not isolated patriots, as “US priority” ideology would suggest, or fully global citizens. They are devoted to their country but don’t see the world as in a permanent conflict between the “us” and the “others”, adversaries permanently set apart from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Are most moderates favor a duty-free or a dutiful world? Are they willing to accept responsibilities beyond their garden gate or city wall? Yes, under specific circumstances. A first group, about a fifth, will back aid efforts to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of selflessness, backing emergency help for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” multilateralists empathize of others and have faith in something bigger than themselves.

A second group comprising a similar percentage are pragmatic multilateralists who want to know that any taxes paid for international development are spent well. And there is a third group, 21%, 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 peace and security.

Forging a Collaborative Consensus

So a clear majority can be built not just for humanitarian aid if money is well spent but also for international measures to deal with global problems, like climate crisis and pandemic prevention, as long as this argument is argued 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 necessity for collaboration, the response is both.

This willingness to work internationally shows how we can reverse the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can defeat current pessimistic, isolated and often aggressive and authoritarian nationalism that vilifies immigrants, outsiders and “others” as long as we advocate for a positive, globally engaged and inclusive patriotism that addresses people’s desire to belong and connects to their immediate concerns.

Addressing Public Concerns

Although detailed surveys tell us that across the Western nations, illegal immigration is currently the biggest national issue – 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 immediate neighborhoods. Last month, the UK Prime Minister spoke movingly about how what’s good about Britain can overcome what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most developed nations, “broken” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our economy and community.

However, as the leader also pointed out, the extreme right is more interested in using complaints than ending them. A Reform leader praised a ill-fated economic plan as “the best Conservative budget” since 1986. But he would also implement a comparable strategy – what was intended – the biggest ever cuts in government programs. The party's proposal to cut government expenditure by a huge sum would not fix struggling areas but damage them, turn citizen against citizen and wreck any spirit of solidarity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be sick, impaired, needy or at-risk. Continually from now on, and in every electoral district, the party should be asked which hospital, which school and which government 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 monetarism, 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 communities. “Reform” and its global allies should be revealed day after day for plans that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our best days could be in the future, we can go beyond highlighting Reform’s hypocrisy by setting out a case for a better Britain that resonates not just to idealists, but to pragmatists, to self-interest, and to the daily kindness of the nation's citizens.