Populism is on the rise in Europe - but must be exposed and defeated in the UK - Bill Rammell

A year ago, the populist autocrat Robert Fico formed a Government in Slovakia.

Two months later the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, the right-wing populist, came first in parliamentary elections in Holland.

In May, Marine Le Pen’s populist far right National Rally became the largest party in the French national assembly.

This month in Germany the far-right populists of the Alternative for Germany won a historic victory in a regional election in Thuringia.

Right wing populist Victor Orban (who I once went to watch Chelsea with, but that’s a story for another time!) reigns supreme and even in Sweden, the Government relies on votes from the nationalist, populist Sweden Democrats.

And at home Nigel Farage’s Reform won 14 per cent in our General Election and got its first five MPs.

And this isn’t just a European trend.

The Populism In Power database shows that there are five times as many populist leaders and parties in power today than at the end of the cold war.

To resolute liberal internationalists like me who believe populism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, these are worrying times.

Because populists present a false analysis of society and politics.

They claim a country’s “true people” are locked in conflict with outsiders, including establishment elites. And they claim nothing should constrain the will of the true people. A dangerous, demagogic explanation of society.

And populists present simplistic solutions to very complicated problems. None of this creates solutions. And populism is nothing new.

You can trace it back to American agrarian populists of the mid-19th century, or the Narodniks in Russia in the same period. But in Europe populism is on the rise, and to confront it, mainstream parties have to understand why.

A big part of the explanation is immigration. To take the UK as an example the last Tory Government let net migration rip, at 685,000 a completely unsustainable level.

People feel this, and populists feed off the fall out. (Message to Labour, to have any chance of enduring, popular success-net migration must be reduced significantly.) Economic insecurity is also a major driver.

Since the 2008 financial crash real incomes have barely risen. And many are tempted by the simplistic and false solutions of the populists.

And on the demand side of politics people want very contradictory and undeliverable outcomes from politics.

Scandinavian levels of public services paid for by US levels of taxation.

Populists indulge these self-deluding fantasies. Mainstream parties need to confront them.

So, will the populists continue to thrive? Not in terms of enduring political success in my view. Again, take the UK.

Farage is tremendous at mobilising 15 per cent at most 20 per cent of the electorate. But he repels huge numbers more. His net approval ratings are now in deep negative territory, even amongst leave voters. And where populists do gain power, by and large they go on to lose it. Trump, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Boris Johnson. Because the contradictions, the empty slogans, the unrealistic simplicity are exposed. And people come to experience real revulsion at the mendacity of it all.

But to succeed against the populists you have to fight to expose and challenge them.

In the UK that means both Labour and the Tories can’t ignore Farage and Reform. Rather expose their support for £70 billion public spending cuts, support for privatised insurance-based healthcare instead of the NHS and cosying up to Putin.

Populism in Europe may be on the rise, but it can and must be exposed, challenged and defeated. In all our interests