Last week’s local election results showed a sharp change in British politics. The two-party dominance of Labour and Conservative was shaken, with major gains being made by both the Greens and Reform UK – parties described as ‘populist’ within British media, as well as by politicians.
This is not a phenomenon unique to the United Kingdom (UK). Across Europe, populist parties have seen a surge in support, such as Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland; AfD), Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia; FdI), and Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość; PiS) in Poland. While not a unanimous shift, as demonstrated by the April 2026 election of Péter Magyar as Prime Minister of Hungary, the continental trend towards populism nevertheless remains clear. This forms the foundation for this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked seven experts: How should Britain respond to rising European populism?
Founding Director, Centre for Britain and Europe; and Head, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Surrey
The scale of Reform UK’s victory is stunning. The party gained more than 1,400 council seats and control of 14 councils in England in the local elections, with a performance equivalent to 26% of the national vote share. Were a general election to be held now on those trends, Reform would win the largest share of the vote, with the Greens second on 18%, and Labour and Conservative each on 17%.
These results are not an isolated phenomenon. The conditions underpinning populism – economic malaise, regional asymmetries, the disruptive effects of social media and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and deep dissatisfaction with mainstream parties – are more profound than a decade ago. Several potential responses emerge as a result.
Firstly, Labour’s leadership question: over 90 Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) have called on Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, to resign or set a timetable for his departure in order to regain voter confidence and thus actively confront the challenge of the right-wing populist Reform. Beyond this, Labour leadership requires enhanced credibility in the economic and business sphere to win back market and commercial confidence.
Secondly, a new centrist ascendancy: the point is less that populism needs to fail, but that other parties must succeed – not simply by endlessly criticising populists, but by delivering more credible governance on precisely the issues driving voters away, such as immigration, economic security, living standards, employment, and so on.
Lastly, electoral reform: the first-past-the-post system is a potential area of structural vulnerability, amplifying populist gains disproportionately. Changes in this area are overdue for any number of reasons, but last week’s local elections provide the most urgent reason of all.
In short, a response requires both institutional reform to reduce the distorting effects of the current electoral system, and a substantive political proposition from mainstream parties that can genuinely address the grievances fuelling the populist wave.
Former Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee, and former Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Germany (1997-2003)
So-called populist parties thrive because they represent the concerns of significant parts of the electorate. In Germany and France, they have been demonised and excluded from power because of the baggage of their perceived political inheritances: national socialism in the case of AfD, East German communism in the case of Die Linke, and the Vichy regime in the case of the National Rally (Rassemblement National; RN).
Reform UK and the Greens in Britain do not suffer from this problem, and it would be a mistake to characterise them as extremist or beyond the political pale. Their policies should be challenged where appropriate, but other parties should be prepared to cooperate with them where there is common ground.
If Reform is the biggest party in the House of Commons after the next general election, Nigel Farage should be given the chance to form a government. Otherwise Britain risks ending up like Germany; with a succession of unnatural and potentially unstable political coalitions that do not properly reflect the popular mood.
However, the most urgent requirement is to change the UK’s electoral system, which in an age of multi-party politics is no longer fit for purpose. To be credible, a government needs to be based on the support of a majority of those who vote.
Director of Political Strategy, ThinkLabour, and Non-Resident Fellow, Atlantic Council
Reform’s success in the local elections was the clearest sign yet of the threat it poses to Labour and to wider mainstream politics at the next general election.
In an increasingly fragmented electoral environment, Reform won support across Britain and has, for many voters, become the vehicle of widespread disillusionment with the political system. Its access to significant financial support from big donors like Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire living in Thailand, and wider ideological backing from an American administration determined to sow political division across Europe, gives it hope that it can seize national power.
Yet, while Reform won almost 1,500 English council seats and is now the second largest party in the devolved parliaments of Scotland and Wales, its vote share across the country was down compared to this time last year. The party is now coming under greater scrutiny from the media and others, and does appear – for the moment, at least – to have peaked in popular support at around 25%, both in last week’s elections and in national opinion polls.
To counter Reform, it will be vital for the Labour administration, first and foremost, to show delivery on the issues that feed support to Reform – the cost of living crisis, irregular migration across the English Channel, and poor public services. Alongside this, it also needs to demonstrate a clear values-driven approach that can mobilise anti-Reform support. Labour has lost more support to the Greens than to Farage, and this needs to be won back if the party is to see off the populist wave at the next general election.
The current upheaval in the Labour Party that has followed the local elections demonstrates that the party has woken up to the real threat posed by Reform: it has less than three years to prevent a Farage-led government in Westminster.
Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy
‘Populism’ is often conflated with the political extremes, or parties or political forces that promise to deliver a better society, but lack any concrete or funded policies. Citizens in European countries, including Britain, appear to be voting for these parties more forcefully. Even in highly established, organic democracies, such as the UK, Sweden, or the Netherlands, populist forces appear to be in the ascendancy. Britain’s recent local elections only confirm this point, where the established parties did not perform well.
Populism is not organic. It is a symptom of the failure of established political parties to improve the lives of the citizens of their respective countries. It is also a response to globalisation, open borders, and the broader political orthodoxy of the past 30 years, which never recovered from the dislocation of the financial crisis of 2007-2008. If these problems are not addressed, populists will gain further traction in the UK and in parts of Europe, potentially becoming more extreme with every passing year.
At home, Britain should react to populist forces by overcoming the grievances that give rise to them. It should lead the reform of outmoded treaties (or withdraw from them if they no longer work), do far more to stymie undocumented migration, and put cheaper and sovereign energy, and economic growth – especially in poorer regions – at the forefront of the national enterprise.
In Europe, the UK needs a new political vision for the continent, which it projects throughout European nations. This vision should offer concrete solutions to the economic and geopolitical realities of the age.
Clinging tenaciously to the established order in Europe, as it faces stagnation, as well as dislocation from within and without, will no longer work. It is time to be bolder.
Lecturer in International Relations, University of Glasgow
Reform UK has achieved overwhelming back-to-back victories in British local elections in 2025 and 2026. It is not surprising that there may be a sense that Britain is about to embrace a broader trend in European politics of far-right populist parties knocking on the doors of governmental power. However, appearances may be deceptive.
Firstly, a Reform government in 2029 is not a foregone conclusion. Its 2026 results reflected a 4% drop in its vote share from the year before, and its opinion polling shows a trend of decline. Throughout the local elections campaign, Reform candidates were curiously absent in terms of their public presence, suggesting that voters were casting a vote for Farage himself rather than an actual candidate – an inherently more difficult phenomenon to replicate in the higher profile atmosphere of a general election.
Secondly, Reform is not a new phenomenon in British politics. Farage himself has been an elected representative since 1999. Many of the most high-profile members of the party are cast-offs from a Conservative Party that seems to be in almost terminal decline. Indeed, Reform UK seems to be largely absorbing the Conservatives, with its populism reflecting a hardening of pre-existing Conservative policy and rhetoric rather than a sea change in British politics. This might place a ceiling on its potential for growth.
Finally, the idea that Reform is part of a European populist far-right juggernaut poised for political power does not hold up to scrutiny. In only a handful of cases have populist far-right parties managed to form governments, often with slim or fleeting majorities. In other cases, such as in France and Germany, far-right parties lead in opinion polls but remain unlikely to take power due to their polarising nature.
Instead, in the UK, the remainder of 2026 is more likely to be a harbinger of the adoption of a different European trend: fragmentation. With seven viable political parties, this could portend a razor-thin Reform landslide in 2029 (à la Labour in 2024), or a gridlocked and unstable Westminster.
Professor of Politics and International Studies, The Open University; and Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Britain and Europe, University of Surrey
There is a domestic and an external dimension to the rise of populism. At home, political parties across the ideological spectrum need to recognise that populists have been very effective at tapping into people’s feelings of disengagement and disempowerment in politics. Populists offer simple solutions to complex problems, aided by the apparent inability of the political ‘elite’ to make complex solutions produce clear effects.
Since politics is not going to get any easier, the response has to be one of drawing people into the process and encouraging them to see that solutions are not like online shopping – i.e., one click and it is done – but require a deep and persistent grasp of the issues. Giving people a stake and a role in politics will help to re-base expectations and to leverage the wider impact of social changes to affect desirable outcomes.
However, this cannot be a national endeavour: it should also have a collaborative international part. Supporting and strengthening democratic processes across national borders will be essential in limiting the erosion of norms and practices that has been seen in recent years. Being vocal about core British values of rule of law, human rights, and liberal democratic process should be matched by action to encourage allies and to sanction challenges to these ideals.
Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham; Senior Research Fellow, The Foreign Policy Centre; and Co-founder, Navigating the Vortex
The rise of populism in Europe takes different forms and presents different challenges for the UK. For example, sovereigntist-nationalist parties like AfD are broadly Eurosceptic, ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA)-aligned, Kremlin-leaning, and inclined to fracture European Union (EU) cohesion, including on Ukraine.
Illiberal conservatives like PiS are also Eurosceptic and MAGA-aligned, but have a hardline stance on Russia and have adopted a more Atlanticist tradition – but with support for Ukraine more qualified and conditional. Nativist statists like the RN in France have tried to distance themselves from MAGA, but cannot be relied upon when it comes to an enduring commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and support for Ukraine. And these are just the populists on the right wing…
None of these parties are in power yet, but with a presidential ballot in France and parliamentary elections in Poland (where a PiS-supported candidate won the presidency last year) both scheduled for next year, there is a chance that this might change. Germany’s fragile coalition government might also collapse before its full term is up in 2029.
This suggests both opportunities and vulnerabilities for Britain. The opportunities include more flexible security partnerships based on the logic of a ‘coalition of the willing’. There is already a proliferation of different, more-or-less permanent minilateral formats serving distinct but overlapping purposes and cutting across the traditional NATO and EU structures. The UK leads the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), co-leads the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ future Ukraine-based reassurance force, and is part of the European Three (E3) and the Ukraine Defence Contract Group (the Ramstein Group).
This is a sensible approach that plays to British military and diplomatic strengths and mitigates the consequences of both Brexit and the second Trump administration. However, this is just mitigation, not elimination, and additional vulnerabilities remain. Among them is the buildup of right-wing populist momentum across the continent that could add to the seeming inevitability of a Reform government. Even without this, the UK might find itself with a shrinking number of credible and capable security partners in the future.
Preparing for such an eventuality will require doubling down on the Strategic Defence Review, as well as investing more in the resilience of Britain’s own democratic processes and institutions so that the country remains a dependable ally for its remaining partners on the continent.
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