UK

The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right

The rise of the populist right has been both remarkable and rapid. Mark Perryman introduces a day of participative discussion exploring both the reasons for the rise and the ideas we need to reverse it.

The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right on Saturday 12th July couldn’t be a more timely, and urgent, event.

When Lewes Labour began planning our July 2025 event, the proximity to the May local elections seemed to make the theme The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right a good candidate for topicality. Oh, how we wish we were wrong!  

The elections saw Reform overturn a massive Labour majority of 14,696 in Runcorn, the 49th safest Labour seat in the country. It won two mayoral elections and a majority on nine county councils, with 648 Reform UK councillors elected.

In the space of just twelve months, Nigel Farage has broken the two-party system. If Reform UK’s progress doesn’t prove to be ‘resistible’ the consequences for the 2029 General Election don’t bear thinking about. 

How do we ensure the ‘resistible’ becomes a reality?  

Last Thursday, Labour defied all predictions, not only winning the Hamilton Scottish Parliament by-election, taking the seat from the SNP, but also halting Reform UK’s recent string of victories. Farage had led the Reform UK campaign himself with nakedly racist messaging against the leader of Labour in Scotland, Anas Sarwar.    

The good news from Hamilton is the rise of the populist right can be resisted.

The bad news is: despite coming third, Reform still attracted 26.1% of the vote, far higher than anything Farage ever achieved in Scotland with either UKIP or the Brexit Party. If they translate that share of the vote into votes at the 2026 Scottish Parliament election they will be the second biggest party.

There has been a rapid rise in support for Reform UK and President Trump, and the AfD breakthrough in Germany, while elsewhere in Europe – Austria, France, Italy, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain – the populist right are either in government or leading the opposition.

The Resistible Rise of the Populist Right is a day to participate in gathering together an understanding of Far Right ideology, anti-immigration policies and nativist nationalism, that frame this rise, in order to cause it to be defeated.

The day opens with a keynote talk by Jon Bloomfield and David Edgar, the co-authors of one of the most important books of recent years on the day’s theme The Little Black Book of the Populist Right.

Jon and David’s keynotes will be an unrivalled insight into the politics behind the populist right. Q&As with each give all participants the opportunity to quiz their analysis. Chairs are Gill Short and Joy Mercer, Lewes Labour event facilitators.

The afternoon is then divided into three parallel 90-minute small group discussions, each with a single speaker opening for 30 minutes to enable the maximum participation.

Nick Lowles, Founder and Chief Executive of Hope not Hate, which describes itself as a “mission to work tirelessly to expose and oppose Far Right extremism,” will provide an in-depth briefing on how Reform UK is both a product of and producer of the Far Right.

Eleanor Shearer, Senior Research Fellow at the think tank Common Wealth and a researcher into the legacy of slavery, did research that inspired her debut novel River Sing Me Home, currently being turned into a film. Eleanor will outline the vital socio-economic context to the immigration debate that too many would rather wasn’t heard.

Sunder Katwala, Director of British Future, which produces reports on immigration, integration and national identity and author How to be a Patriot: Why love of country can end our very British culture war, will explore how to construct a popular conversation on race and nation free of the division such an exchange often generates.

To close, a roundtable of campaigners:

Annie Ralph from the Lewes Refugee Support Group joins Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Labour’s 2024 General Election candidate against Nigel Farage, and Val Ruston, Director of the Culture Connect Project in Newhaven, to respond to the day’s discussions with their practical experience of working with refugees and asylum seekers, promoting the value of diversity in communities, combating Islamophobia, encouraging ethnic minority representation in politics and more.

The event coincides with the Durham Miners Gala. It’s a  sobering thought that Durham County Council is now controlled by Reform UK.

Presented by Lewes Constituency Labour Party in association with CWU South East Region. Book your place here.