“Most people in the UK do not hold views of the far and extreme right, though sympathy for such ideals is probably on the increase at the same time as trust in mainstream political parties is decreasing.”
Though support for Reform UK is rising, polling suggests that Brits have a more complicated view of right-wing political ideology.
Just 2% of adults have a positive opinion of fascism, December 2024 YouGov research showed, while 32% hold a favourable view of conservatism. Socialism (38% positive), feminism (56%) and environmentalism (64%) were more positive.
“Britain is definitely not a far-right country,” says Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. “Opinion research tells us that it is largely (and indeed increasingly) a relatively liberal, multi-ethnic democracy.”
“That said, there is a small minority of Britain’s population, who tend to skew older and male and who have nativist, socially conservative and sometimes authoritarian views, often associated with the feeling that they have somehow lost out to other groups. That minority is deeply uncomfortable with and, in some cases downright hostile to, the cultural changes wrought over the last 75 years by, among other things, large-scale (often very visible and non-white and non-Christian) immigration, advances on the part of women, and the spread of more socially tolerant values more generally.”
Britain is becoming an increasingly far-right country
Far-right rhetoric has undoubtedly been normalised. Nigel Farage – leading in the polls – has proposed scrapping the visas of hundreds of thousands of legal migrants, and forcing them to re-apply under stricter conditions.
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“History shows us how quickly and fundamentally propaganda can work for leaders who are willing to channel frustrations in such times of social and economic stress against scapegoats,” says historian Alan Lester, from the University of Sussex.
“In 1930s Germany it was primarily Jews. In the 2020s Britain its is immigrants and especially people seeking asylum. In our age of social media and TV misinformation, this kind of propaganda can be especially effective. Right-wing control of much of our media means that anti-immigrant coverage is saturating.
“Although I would not say that Britain is by any means a far-right country yet, we need to recognise that racist propaganda is also working because it taps into a deeply embedded confirmation bias against people of colour that derives from centuries of colonial white supremacy. The fact that this resurgence of right-wing populism follows immediately in the wake of Black Lives Matter’s success in drawing attention to that bias and prompting certain reparative measures is no coincidence. This is undoubtedly a very dangerous moment of backlash for British politics.”
British adults are increasingly aware of this danger, more YouGov data suggests. In a poll taken immediately after a spate of riots outside asylum hotels, nearly 47% of Britons believed that right-wing extremists were a “big threat”. That was up from 32% just six months prior.
But at the same time, the idea that immigration is also a threat has been normalised. A large portion of the public believes immigration is “too high”: about 67% of Britons say the total number of people entering the UK is too high, according to an Ipsos poll from earlier this year.
The recent Tommy Robinson rally ought to be a “wake up call” for anyone concerned with democracy in this country, said Aurelien Mondon, a professor of politics at the University of Bath and the co-convenor of the Reactionary Politics Research Network. The media are largely responsible for far-right mainstreaming.
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“For most of the 21st century, [the media] have euphemised the far right by calling it ‘populist’ or legitimised it by lapping up its own narratives about being the voice of the left behind or that racism is indeed a ‘legitimate grievance’, even though they are propped up by some of the wealthiest elites on the planet. The genie is out of the bottle and it will not be those who have fanned the flames who will be able to put that fire out,” he said.
“To counter the far right decisively, we must reckon with the dire state of our public discourse and start taking the need for radical democratic reform seriously.”
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