Some of today’s far right is openly violent and undemocratic – and even in its less extreme forms, far-right populism is a profound threat. But that doesn’t mean it is just a re-run of history
Politics, before it is about anything else, is about emotion. We all base our judgments about the world – the state of the country we live in, for instance, and what we’d like to do about it – on a mix of rational calculation and instinct. But for these judgments to be shaped into a political programme whose ideals are shared by millions of people, and for us to place our trust in leaders who promise to realise those goals, we really have to feel it. What, then, might be the particular set of feelings evoked by the following?
“The Britain that I love is being ripped apart by diversity, equality and inclusion.”
Suella Braverman, former home secretary, February 2026
“It’s not just Britain that is being invaded, it’s not just Britain that is being raped. Every single western nation faces the same problem: an orchestrated, organised invasion and replacement of European citizens is happening.”
Tommy Robinson, far-right influencer, September 2025
“Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care, while you’re at it take the treacherous government & politicians with them … If that makes me racist, so be it.”
Lucy Connolly, childminder from Northampton, July 2024
Look around, and you will see versions of these feelings, expressed with varying degrees of strength, wherever the far right is present. A sense of impending doom, of humiliation, of victimhood and decline. A sense that there needs to be an insurrection, perhaps even a violent one, to defend a beleaguered majority. A confusion between whether what’s required is a “revolution” or the restoration of an old order. Far-right figureheads encourage these feelings – some openly, others with a nudge and a wink.
At other times, it seems as if these feelings bubble up from below. If you have read up on the history of fascism – the murderous, reactionary mass movement that disfigured Europe in the mid-20th century – this might sound familiar. The historian Robert Paxton, one of the world’s leading experts on fascism, stressed how fascists relied heavily on an appeal to the emotions. Paxton called these “mobilising passions”. Among them were a sense of overwhelming crisis, a fear of the dominant group’s decline, a lust for purity and authority, and a glorification of violence…..
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