Waves

While early work on the far right often traced the transition from fascism to new movements, either historically or through heuristic attempts at defining fascism (Richardson, Reference Richardson2017; Griffin, Reference Griffin, Griffin, Loh and Umland2006), far-right studies has increasingly focused on more reconstructed politics which claim to be unconnected to previous historical evils and are often accepted as such by mainstream academia. A key metaphor framing this shift in focus towards reconstructed far-right parties has been what Klaus von Beyme (Reference Beyme1988) and later Cas Mudde (Reference Mudde2019) have labelled as ‘waves’ of post-war far-right politics. While the first wave (1945–1960) was defined by neo-fascism, with no successful political parties outside of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), the somewhat amorphous second wave (1960–1980) was characterized by “right-wing populist” movements and parties, ranging from the French Poujadists to the German National Democratic Party (NPD) (Wondreys and Mudde, Reference Wondreys and Mudde2022).

Although the far right was largely constricted to the margins in these first two waves, it is worth stressing that from the 1960s – during the putative ‘second wave’ – some intellectuals on the extreme right, such as Maurice Bardèche and Alain de Benoist, realised that should they want to escape the margins of politics, their discourse had to change, if not their politics. De Benoist and the Nouvelle Droite in particular did this by borrowing from Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, which has had a clear impact on the strategies of many parties (Mondon, Reference Mondon2013). This is best witnessed in their turn away from biological racism towards ‘cultural’ racism, both building on the same processes of exclusion and yet the latter affording far more mainstreaming potential in the ‘post-racial’ world (Lentin, Reference Lentin2020). The introduction of hate crime legislation, for example, has seen adapted forms of exclusion become more prominent. Awareness of the political struggles that the extreme right itself was engaged in is essential to make sense of the changes in terminology and typology over the years as they were not passive actors and played a key role in euphemisation especially. As already discussed, far-right intellectuals and politicians were influential in the shift towards ‘cultural’ racism and Islamophobia in particular, which made plausible deniability a key strategy (Sengul Reference Sengul2022). This has often taken the form of defences of ‘free speech’ (Kumar, Reference Kumar2021; Titley, Reference Titley2020), where despite the racist targeting of Muslims, people claim it is simply a valid critique of the religion. Similarly, the rise of ‘populism’ as a descriptor found its roots in far-right actors adopting it as a replacement for more stigmatising terms and academics embracing it often for political rather than academic reasons (Collovald, Reference Collovald2004; Goyvaerts et al. Reference Goyvaerts, Brown, Mondon, De Cleen, Glynos, Katsambekis and Stavrakakis2024).

Indeed, these strategies began to bear fruit from at least the 1980s onwards, during the third wave, when ‘parties and politicians like the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) and Jörg Haider as well as the National Front (FN) and Jean-Marie Le Pen became household names’ (Wondreys and Mudde, Reference Wondreys and Mudde2022). This third wave (1980-2001) was characterised, according to Mudde (Reference Mudde2019), by the growth of the so-called ‘radical right’ and represented the largest and longest-lasting wave since the Second World War (Mayer, Reference Mayer, Winter, Busher, Ashe and Macklin2021). It saw electoral breakthroughs for the far right, but also attempts to marginalise such politics via strategies such as ‘cordons sanitaires’ (De Jonge, Reference De Jonge2019; Shuttleworth et al, Reference Shuttleworth, Brown and Mondonforthcoming). Moving from the third to the fourth, it is suggested that the key defining feature of this final wave has been the mainstreaming of the far right (Mudde, Reference Mudde2019).

A rich body of work has underscored the contributing factors and effects of mainstreaming processes (Krzyżanowski et al. Reference Krzyżanowski, Ekman, Nilsson, Gardell and Christensen2021; Mondon and Winter, Reference Mondon and Winter2020; Wodak, Reference Wodak2020; Brown et al. Reference Brown, Mondon and Winter2023; Schneider Reference Schneider2023; Gillespie Reference Gillespie2024; Kisić-Merino Reference Kisić-Merino2025), entailing shifts in what is seen as legitimate within the political mainstream. Far-right actors play a key role in mainstreaming by, for instance, creating ‘false imaginaries and “moral panic” around immigration’ (Krzyżanowski Reference Krzyżanowski2020) and subsequently depicting racist anti-immigration policies as ‘common sense’/‘rational’ solutions (Newth Reference Newth2024). However, it should also be noted from the outset that there can be no mainstreaming of reactionary politics without the more or less conscious complicity of the mainstream (Mondon and Winter Reference Mondon and Winter2020, Brown et al. Reference Brown, Mondon and Winter2023). While we return to this argument, and the wave metaphor in Section 4, for now we note that since the putative third-wave, there has been ever-increasing political, media and academic interest in the far right, leading to a proliferation of paradigms which seek to explain the politics of far-right parties and movements.

The Extreme, Far and (Populist) Radical Right

Having established characterisations for different waves, the following section turns to some of the more dominant concepts that have been used from the third wave onwards: namely, the extreme right, (populist) radical right, and far right. The rationale for focusing on these terms is three-fold. First, it aligns with recent research highlighting the prevalent role played by these three paradigms in ‘framing far-right studies’ (Mondon, Reference Mondon2023, pp.881-884). Second, these terms – in contrast to ‘(neo)fascism’ until recently at least – are the most relevant for identifying parties and individuals who have occupied the space between the mainstream and outermost reaches on the right of the spectrum. Third, and linked to the previous point, greater scrutiny over the way that these terms share fuzzy borders with one another and the mainstream is much needed.

While the lines between extreme, radical, and far right are blurred, the following paragraphs establish some key points of demarcation. Prior to unpacking these differences, it is worth providing a succinct overview of some of the key contrasting features. In terms of extreme right, we refer to the most illiberal forms of right-wing politics, which entail forms of violence, and outright hostility to (liberal) democracy. Radical right, instead, has been used to imply forms of politics combining nativism, authoritarianism and populism. While operating within the formal parameters set by liberal democracies and contesting elections, radical-right forms of politics maintain a hostility to certain liberal democratic processes. In current literature, the term far right has been used either as an umbrella concept for both the extreme and radical right (Pirro Reference Pirro2022), or as an analytical concept in and of itself, which shifts the focus towards parties which promote a racist ideology by acting in the space between the extreme and the mainstream (Mondon and Winter Reference Mondon and Winter2020).

Amongst the most common terms surfacing in the aftermath of the Second World War were ‘extreme right’ or ‘right-wing extremism’, attempting to make sense of the resurgence of politics at the far end of the spectrum which did not embrace the term ‘fascism’ themselves or at least avoided replicating it in mimetic ways. While the label ‘extreme right’ has become less prevalent in recent years due to its association with Nazism and fascism, as noted by Brown (Reference Brown2023), it still helps to ‘denote the more illiberal manifestation of far-right ideology, encompassing the use of physical violence, explicit verbal abuse and consequent operation outside of legal and democratic norms’.Footnote ² For this reason, we argue that it can help us to capture more openly extreme forms of reactionary politics, both historically and currently. Different interpretations of extreme right have, over the years, placed varying emphases on features such as a hostility to democracy, physically violent expressions of racism, support for an authoritarian, strong state, and nationalism (e.g., Ignazi Reference Ignazi1992, Reference Ignazi2003; Hainsworth Reference Hainsworth2016; Mammone et al. Reference Mammone, Godin and Jenkinseds2012). Some work even emerged during the third wave already challenging the strict dichotomy created between the mainstream and extreme (Hainsworth Reference Hainsworth2000).

The first key terminological shift in the era took place in the 1990s and 2000s when ‘radical right’ came to replace ‘extreme right’ in mainstream academic literature. While the term ‘radical right’ became widely applied to the European context, it found its source in highly politicised debates in the US, which sought to conflate radicalism on the left and right in favour of the status quo (Bell Reference Bell1963). This should have raised concerns about the appropriateness of the term as it exonerated the liberal ‘centre’ from its own reactionary tendencies (Mondon and Winter, Reference Mondon and Winter2020, pp.58-60) and created harmful false equivalences. Indeed, this term is ‘less stigmatizing and less connected to fascism and Nazism’ (Mayer Reference Mayer, Winter, Busher, Ashe and Macklin2021, p.18), largely reflecting the aforementioned success of the far right’s Gramscian-inspired counter-hegemonic project that emerged in the second wave. Yet ‘radical right’ soon became established, and scholars turned their attention to developing definitions. For example, Betz and Johnson (Reference Betz and Johnson2004) used it for parties which ‘reconcile formal support for democracy as the best system for the articulation and representation of interests with a political doctrine that is profoundly anti-liberal’.

However, it was Mudde’s (Reference Mudde2007) characterisation of the party family under the label Populist Radical Right (PRR) that proved most influential. In 2007, Mudde rightly bemoaned the ‘terminological chaos’ that characterised the fledgeling but quickly growing field of far-right studies. As an attempted clarification, his PRR paradigm brought some relative order by establishing a minimal definition based around key recurring features of PRR parties in Europe: nativism, authoritarianism and populism (Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser Reference Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser2017). As the next section emphasises, we suggest moving away from this dominant conception based on its euphemising potential and predominant focus on electoral politics and party classification. Furthermore, we regard ‘radical’ as ill-suited to describing right-wing politics (Brown, Reference Brown2023, p.20) as radicality is ‘based on rejecting the fundamental principles that govern society and creating a new paradigm’ (Andrews, Reference Andrews2018, p.xviii). Far-right politics does not challenge the broader capitalist system, and rather than promoting a radical break, aim at strengthening existing hierarchies or reinstating them. Furthermore, the way that far-right politics is aligned with and integrated into the mainstream, as evidenced in subsequent sections, emphasises that this political positioning is far from a radical departure from the current and historic state of play.

Most recently, the term ‘far right’ has become the most used in the field (Mondon, Reference Mondon2023). While clear definitions are rarely attached to it, it has become used as an umbrella concept for both the extreme and radical right (Mudde, Reference Mudde2019). This captures both faces of the phenomenon, with the extreme operating outside, and the radical (putatively) inside, democratic processes. The ‘umbrella term’ thesis was further developed by Pirro (Reference Pirro2022) who used it to argue that there were increasingly shared repertoires between the radical and extreme right, thus using ‘far right’ to analyse how ‘radical right’ politicians such as Matteo Salvini had ‘nurtured links with the extreme right Casa Pound and […] Forza Nuova’. In this article, we build on Mondon and Winter’s definition (Reference Mondon and Winter2020) which sees it as an analytical concept in and of itself in contrast with both the extreme right and mainstream, but emphasising fuzzy and movable borders. As such, we define it as a political position which can therefore be adopted by a wide range of actors, as Section 3 explains.

Euphemisation: Populist Hype and the (Over/Mis)use of Nativism

One key trend in far-right studies is that of euphemisation, a phenomenon which has taken place, in part, through the interconnected phenomena of populist hype and the (over/mis)use of nativism in categorisations of the far right. Euphemisation denotes ‘the use of less threatening terms [which] downplays the danger and harm of far/extreme-right politics’ (Brown and Mondon, Reference Brown and Mondon2021; Shuttleworth et al. Reference Shuttleworth, Okonkwo, Bremner and Mondon2024, p.8). A case in point is how ‘populism’ has developed in many circles into a generic term for far-right politics (Glynos and Mondon Reference Glynos, Mondon, Cossarini and Vallespin2019) this entails not only conflation with what would be more accurately described as nativist (or indeed, racist, see below) but also a proliferation of the label to dizzying levels and based on poor academic practice (Hunger and Paxton, Reference Hunger and Paxton2022). A growing body of work has emphasised the numerous problematic implications of this self-perpetuating trend (De Cleen et al. Reference De Cleen, Glynos and Mondon2018; Eklundh Reference Eklundh2019, Reference Eklundh2020; Maiguashca, Reference Maiguashca2019; Dean and Maiguashca, Reference Dean and Maiguashca2020; Brown and Mondon, Reference Brown and Mondon2021; Goyvaerts, Reference Goyvaerts2021; Mondon, Reference Mondon2023), where the term is welcomed by the far right because of the discursive link it creates to ‘the people’, where highs and lows reinforce exclusionary hierarchies, and where false equivalences are created between left and right. Anthony Giddens’ (Reference Giddens and G1982) concept of double-hermeneutic helps to highlight how by using terms such as ‘right-wing populist parties’, scholars are reinforcing (consciously or not) the idea that such politics represent ‘the people’, when they in fact serve the interests of the elite (De Cleen and Ruiz Casado, Reference De Cleen and Ruiz Casado2024). Despite such manifest problems, it has proved extremely challenging to stop the term ‘populism’ from snowballing, with these warnings often going unheeded. Terms such as ‘(radical) right-wing populism’ (Betz Reference Betz1994; Betz and Johnson Reference Betz and Johnson2004; Zaslove Reference Zaslove2011) neglect one of the crucial distinctions that Mudde’s (Reference Mudde2007) original conception of the PRR paradigm emphasised between nativism and populism, the latter of which was interpreted, at best, as secondary to the politics of such parties. Even though this conceptual blurring was not necessarily inherent to the original definition of the PRR paradigm, we must question how and why it has become so easy for it to be used in inaccurate, but also counterproductive, ways. While such reflection might suggest a reinvigoration of the initial conceptualisation, we believe that the best way to approach this is a decoupling from populism, as elaborated in our third section.

A further issue of euphemisation emerges in relation to the over/misuse of the term nativism. According to several studies, nativism is taken to be the central ideology of the radical right (Mudde Reference Mudde2007; Reference Mudde2019, Betz Reference Betz2019, Pirro 2020). The most widely accepted and cited definition is that of a combination between nationalism and xenophobia, an ideology ‘which holds that states should be inhabited exclusively by members of the native group (‘the nation’) and that non-native elements (persons and ideas) are fundamentally threatening to the homogenous nation-state’ (Mudde, Reference Mudde2007, p.19). While nativism is certainly preferable to populism in terms of identifying the far right’s core ideology, it nevertheless holds euphemistic qualities when it is not viewed as a form of racism for two interlinked reasons. First, the claim that nativism has the potential to be ‘non-racist’ (Mudde, Reference Mudde2007, p.19 ) is highly problematic, neglecting the processes of racialisation core to constructing both the so-called ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ (Newth Reference Newth2023a, Reference Newth2023b. Such an assertion relies on limiting racism only to its ‘illiberal’ (Mondon and Winter, Reference Mondon and Winter2020) or ‘frozen’ (Lentin, Reference Lentin2020) forms, rather than acknowledging less explicit articulations and its wider embeddedness in the racialised social system (Bonilla-Silva, Reference Bonilla-Silva1997, p.467). The use of ‘nativism’ therefore has the capacity to minimise the exclusionary nature of such politics and become a ‘fuzzy’ word for the racism inherent to far-right ideology (Betz, Reference Betz2017; Reference Betz2019). If we are serious about challenging racism’s wider structural and institutional embeddedness in society, then it is essential to acknowledge and precisely define the racism inherent to the far right. Closely related to this, the term places the focus on a defence of so-called ‘native-born’ citizens (Brown, Reference Brown2023; Newth, Reference Newth2023b), viewing it almost as a ‘natural reaction’ stemming from ‘anti-immigrant attitudes’ (Hervik, Reference Hervik2015). It therefore creates a false binary between so-called ‘indigenous’ white populations and racialised minorities. If we think about such an assumption in the context of the Americas, for example, it ‘reinforces the core myth of settler colonialism, namely, that the lands in the North American continent were empty prior to the seventeenth-century arrival of British settlers’ (Bauer et al. Reference Bauer, Juarez Miro and Giraldo2024; Veracini, Reference Veracini, Ness and Cope2021), thereby erasing the genocide of Native Americans. In this way, while nativism may allow us to unpick exclusionary facets of the far right, it can actually obscure more than it elucidates.

Reinforced Binaries

Further to its euphemising potential, understanding nativism (coupled with authoritarianism) as the core feature of such parties has often led to analyses which reinforce the apparent exceptionalism of the far right. It creates an implicit – and often explicit – binary whereby far- and radical-right actors are framed as the exclusive harbingers of nativist, authoritarian and populist politics, while the mainstream is treated as a bulwark against them (Mondon, Reference Mondon2025). The extent to which such forms of politics are, however, reserved solely for the far right has been the subject of significant scrutiny over recent years (Mondon and Winter, Reference Mondon and Winter2020; Brown, Reference Brown2023). For example, Giorgos Katsambekis (Reference Katsambekis2023) notes the general lack of engagement with authoritarianism in the field (despite its prominent position in the PRR triad), yet he highlights how its presence within mainstream structures has been especially absent from analysis. If nativism, authoritarianism and populism are defining characteristics of the radical right, do we risk implying that this is where such issues start and stop? By establishing neat party classification systems, we risk syphoning off exclusionary politics from its wider embeddedness in society and its expression and defence by other key actors (Robin Reference Robin2017).

Furthermore, while research on the far right has ballooned, the so-called ‘mainstream’ has received much less sustained attention (Kallis Reference Kallis2013), often defined more by what it is not than what it is (Brown et al. Reference Brown, Mondon and Winter2023; Brown, Reference Brown2024). The relative lack of in-depth engagement with the meaning and function of the mainstream has only strengthened the binary and the notion that it naturally acts consistently in opposition to the far right. In the comparatively few attempts to define the mainstream in political science literature, these kinds of assumptions have been reinforced, where mainstream parties are seen as electorally dominant, centrist, and specifically not far/radical right, parties (e.g., Akkerman et al, Reference Akkerman, de Lange and Rooduijn2016; Meguid, Reference Meguid2005; Pop-Eleches Reference Pop-Eleches2010). More recently, Crulli and Albertazzi (Reference Crulli and Albertazzi2024, pp.23–24) have proposed a bi-dimensional approach ‘where each party family (and sub-family) sits in relation to government participation and public opinion’. While they incorporate a welcome reflection on the contingency of the mainstream, the framework still reinforces the prerogative of party classification.

What remains dominant in the field is an assumption of fixed and immutable categories within the realms of liberal democratic electoral competitions and political office. This establishes clear boundaries for belonging/non-belonging to the mainstream and leads to a linear approach to mainstreaming (Brown et al. Reference Brown, Mondon and Winter2023). The way in which we understand the mainstream has significant consequences for how we then understand the far right and its role in (re)producing daily political discourses and ideas (Mondon and Winter Reference Mondon and Winter2020; Goyvaerts Reference Goyvaerts2021; Schneider Reference Schneider2023). This is evident not only in scholarly publications, but also in collaborations between academics and mainstream journalists which rely on party categorisations. Such an approach risks overlooking the ways in which mainstream parties and individuals may adopt far-right positions at any given juncture (Henley, Reference Henley2024). As Liam Gillespie (Reference Gillespie2024) suggests, even in more critical approaches to mainstreaming, we can fall into similar traps by creating an artificial separation between the mainstream and far right, painting an inaccurate picture of liberalism’s longstanding production and reproduction of racism, white supremacy and other forms of exclusion. In light of the challenges presented in this section, we now turn to outlining a revised understanding of far-right politics along two interlinked lines. We argue that the resurgence of reactionary politics, which has become particularly pronounced since 2016, should in fact be regarded as a fifth wave in which the far right is effectively mainstream.

The Rise and Evolution of the ‘New’ Far Right and the Central Role of the Mainstream in Mainstreaming

These kinds of ideas have also permeated into contemporary interpretations of the extreme and far right in the UK, with the failure of the British National Party (BNP), for instance, seen as further evidence of its rejection. Furthermore, UKIP’s historical development from a single-issue focus on Europe has seen it often avoid inclusion in the far-right category, with euphemising terms such as ‘eurosceptic’ being preferred, even when the party had taken a clear turn to the far right. Although there has been less reticence post-Brexit in this regard, the party’s inclusion in the far right is still not well-established in field.

A key turning point in the new stage of far-right mainstreaming was the 2014 European elections. This does not mean that it marked an unexpected break, however. The roots of this new development can indeed be traced back to the tensions core to mainstream politics in the UK. In particular, they can be found in the uneasy coexistence of some areas of politics becoming increasingly liberalised both in terms of economics and culture, with some sections of the population arching back to ‘the good old days’ of empire and the vast majority losing out as austerity started to bite. It is no coincidence that Nigel Farage and David Cameron became leaders of their party the same year in 2006. Back then, Cameron described UKIP as ‘a bunch of … fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists mostly’ (Taylor, Reference Taylor2006). In fact, the rise of the more culturally liberal Cameron, who would also become one of the key architects of austerity, created space for someone like Farage. Electorally, UKIP could appeal to both those finding themselves orphaned by the demise of the extreme right, but also to the more reactionary sections of the Conservative Party who became disillusioned by the new leadership. Discursively, the combination of austerity, Labour’s move away from its traditional working-class heartlands and the evolution of the working class itself meant that there was also space for a party on the right to claim the ‘left behind’,Footnote ⁵ regardless of whether there was any truth to it (Mondon and Winter Reference Mondon and Winter2019).

However, none of this was inevitable and mainstream elites from politics, media and academia were instrumental in paving the way for the rise of UKIP, but more importantly in normalising far-right politics, with or without Farage. This could not be clearer than in the skewed reading of the 2014 European elections. UKIP appeared to have quickly caught a significant share of the vote in such electoral settings, receiving 15.6% of the vote in the 2004 and 16% in 2009. Yet these are second-order elections, prone to low turnout and high protest vote. They are particularly favourable to far-right parties which campaign on anti-EU messaging, as is witnessed across Europe, especially with proportional representation allowing smaller parties to make electoral gains and have more sway. The picture becomes further nuanced when accounting for the traditionally low turnout in EU elections: in 2004, UKIP received 6% of the registered vote and 5.6% in 2009. A similar pattern emerged in 2014 when UKIP achieved 26.6% of the vote, which was described as an ‘earthquake’ in the typical hyperbolic fashion that reporting on the far right takes (Wintour and Watt, Reference Wintour and Watt2014). This marked the start of the ‘left behind’ myth which served Farage well as it diverted attention away from his elitist politics which favours the wealthy (Mondon and Winter Reference Mondon and Winter2019).

While we are not contesting that UKIP won the election, it remains that Farage and his party received less than 10% of the registered vote. And yet, this was not the line taken by the mainstream elite, whether in the media, academia and politics. The following years witnessed not only the constant platforming of Farage across the mainstream media, but also that of key issues such as immigration. Even starker is the decision by Cameron to promise a referendum on the EU as part of his 2015 campaign for the general election, while no other party except UKIP had campaigned on this issue in recent years. This decision was hardly based on popular grievances but on the vote of fewer than 10% of the electorate in a setting prone to protest votes. The 2005 and 2010 general elections clearly showed the limits of UKIP’s appeal. In 2005, the party received 1.4% of the vote and in 2010, it took 2%. Even in 2015, in an incredibly fertile environment where its pet issues were front and centre during the campaign, UKIP received ‘only’ 8.3% of the vote. This is not to deny the concerns that the rise of UKIP raises, but rather to show that at the time, it was by no means a popular party and that the decision to give it such a prominent place in public discourse was squarely in the hands of mainstream elites.

Following Brexit, UKIP lost its main raison-d’être and Farage stepped down as leader, seeing its levels of support plummet. Other parties emerged in its place, notably the Brexit Party which later became Reform UK, but it was not until the general election in 2024 that the far right started to make headlines again. Claims of another ‘earthquake’ emerged when Reform UK gained representatives in parliament, despite the fact that the party performed similarly to UKIP in 2015 (8.4% of registered voters against 8.3%) and came second in fewer constituencies. Yet once more, far-right politics has been allowed to clog up public discourse, with Farage able to claim victory after victory as both Conservative and Labour politicians outdo themselves in moving ever further right, even when it goes against what surveys suggest people may want or care about (Mondon Reference Mondon2022). The turn towards what is traditionally considered far-right politics can also be seen in the mainstreaming of Islamophobia, particularly through the Prevent policy (Abbas Reference Abbas2022). Again, this has not been done under the pressure of the far right or ‘public opinion’, but in a top-down manner where politicians of all stripes have furthered the demonisation of Muslim communities, emboldening more extreme actors on the right to take matters into their own hands.

Fuzzy Borders

In our current reactionary moment, any pretence of a strict binary between the mainstream and the extreme has become unsustainable as borders between these actors have blurred to the point of indistinction, if they ever existed. As noted in Section 3 of our article, viewing far-right politics as a discourse/political position, rather than a distinct party categorisation, enables a sharper analysis of how the mainstream has adopted policies in line with this positioning. This, in turn, illustrates our argument that – notwithstanding the importance of the previous waves of far-right politics – it is pertinent to talk about a fifth wave of the far right. In other words, rather than a mainstreaming of the far right, far-right politics is in fact mainstream.

The extreme anti-immigration stance of the Conservative party while in power echoed that of many unmistakably far-right parties, both in terms of policy proposals and discourse. In 2012, the ‘Hostile Environment’, as then-Home Secretary Theresa May unashamedly called the brutal anti-immigration policy, was already a clear indication of the increasingly rightward direction of travel in UK politics (Goodfellow Reference Goodfellow2020; Jones et al. Reference Jones, Gunaratnam, Bhattacharyya, Davies, Dhaliwal, Forkert, Jackson and Saltus2017). The so-called ‘Rwanda Plan’ for deporting asylum seekers devised by the Boris Johnson administration received full-throated praise from Matteo Salvini, leader of Italy’s far-right Lega Party. Later, Rishi Sunak made ‘Stop the Boats’ one of his ‘five promises’ to the electorate. Via a carefully co-ordinated and stage-managed partnership with Italy’s far-right Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, Sunak pledged to stop the ‘thousands of migrants’ who ‘cross the Mediterranean to Italy, entering Europe illegally’, under the specious guise of ‘stopping criminal people smugglers’. Indeed, Meloni’s own ‘Albania Plan’, which outsources management of asylum seekers to its former Balkan colony, took its cue from the Rwanda Plan.

Rather than oppose the Rwanda Plan on humanitarian grounds, Keir Starmer’s Labour Party has continuously denounced it as a ‘gimmick’ and a ‘waste of taxpayers’ money’ (Al Jazeera, Reference Jazeera2024). Starmer’s ‘alternative’ proposal of a ‘Border Security Command’ to ‘smash criminal gangs’ as a way of stopping the boats, shows how ‘stop the boats’ discourse has become part of the mainstream ‘common sense’ in UK politics, simply expressed through another three-word soundbite. Despite his condemnation of the Rwanda Plan in one breath, in the next, Starmer maintained the UK government’s close relationship with Italy’s far-right administration via his endorsement of Meloni’s Albania Plan (Adu, Reference Adu2024), all the while saying that Sunak had been ‘the most liberal prime minister we’ve ever had on immigration’ (Malik et al. Reference Malik, Balls, Jones and Abbey2024). In their first year in office, the Labour Party continue to push further right, televising immigration raids and boasting about the numbers of people deported.

While this section has up until this point focused on immigration, this is not the only ‘far-right’ culture war issue on which the mainstream has adopted similar positions. Both parties, as well as much of the mainstream media, have fuelled the transphobic moral panics which follow the same playbook as typical far-right politics (Amery and Mondon, Reference Amery and Mondon2024). Sunak and Starmer’s comments on trans rights and gender have at times been indistinguishable from that of far-right figures such as Meloni and Orban. Meanwhile, the authoritarianism displayed by both Conservative and Labour governments in the face of climate protestors is a clear illustration of a mainstreaming of the authoritarian measures which have traditionally been associated with the far right (Katsambekis, Reference Katsambekis2023). Further to this, the anti-scientific and climate denialism traditionally associated with so-called ‘populists’ (Meijers et al. Reference Meijers, van Drunen and Jacobs2023) has been replicated recently by Starmer, for instance stating that he ‘will not sacrifice Great British industry to the drum-banging, finger-wagging Net Zero extremists’ (Starmer, Reference Starmer2024a). Starmer’s use of the term ‘extremists’ depicts any dissent against his Carbon Capture and Storage policy as a security threat. Meanwhile, the Labour government’s opposition to Net Zero also mimics the official discourse of Farage’s Reform Party (Reform UK, 2024).

Similarly, both the 2024 Labour and Conservative Party conferences illustrate how little difference there is between these two mainstream parties in terms of their adoption of far-right discourse. For Labour, we can note the zero-tolerance shown to any form of dissent, including the violent removal of two pro-Palestinian protestors. Furthermore, the prominence of the ‘Border Security Command’ banner at this conference (Sparrow, Reference Sparrow2024) and the party’s conference arrangements committee (Labour Party, 2024) is again an illustration of just how hegemonic the ‘Stop the Boats’ discourse has become. Regarding the Conservative Party conference, a race to the bottom ensued between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick as to who could say the most reactionary thing. Jenrick’s comments on Britain needing to leave the ECHR pre-empted Farage’s adoption of the same discourse (Walker and Dugan, Reference Walker and Dugan2024). Meanwhile, Badenoch’s comments in a pamphlet circulated during the conference, which stigmatised both autism and anxiety in children, further reflect a growing reactionary current in the party (Courea, Reference Courea2024). In many ways, this was a continuation of reactionary discourse facilitated by the National Conservativism conference in 2023 which saw the coming together of far-right and so-called ‘centre-right’ figures and a mainstreaming of far-right conspiracy theories (Walker, Reference Walker2023). It is telling that in recent years, we have seen the rehabilitation of Theresa May, the architect of the hostile environment, in liberal circles.

Perhaps nothing better shows this increasingly blurred state of affairs than the response to the racist attacks which took place in the UK in the weeks following the fatal stabbing of three children at a Taylor Swift-themed event in Southport. There are two issues to highlight: first, is that despite the clearly racist nature of the riots, Keir Starmer showed some hesitation in labelling these groups as ‘far-right’, initially opting for the euphemising term of ‘thuggery’ (Starmer, Reference Starmer2024b), a term which also holds racist origins. This was in line with wider descriptions of the attacks in the media and politics as exceptional events. This is despite the very clear link between the rioters’ chants and the discourse that has been peddled by both the Conservative government and the Labour Party while in opposition. It is no coincidence that one of the main chants of the rioters (which was also emblazoned on banners) was that of ‘Stop the Boats’ (Savage, Reference Savage2024). Rather than a passing slogan, this had in fact been for some time (and continues to be) UK government policy in the face of the so-called ‘small boats crisis’.

This begs the question of who is/are ‘the people’ in mainstream discourse today. Is it the few hundred racists attempting to burn hotels with asylum seekers in them whose grievances are qualified as legitimate by some mainstream actors? Or is it the thousands of counter protesters organising to protect communities at the sharp end of racist violence? Or is it the hundreds of thousands of protesters peacefully demonstrating against genocide, while those are called ‘hate marches’ by Suella Braverman (the then-Home Secretary)? Similarly, who can claim the mantel of the ‘left behind’? Is it the concerning but limited section of the electorate willing to turn to the far right, who generally does not hail from the worst off in society? Or is it the many more who have seen their livelihoods get far worse under the politics of austerity while those telling them to tighten their belt or blame their situation on immigrants have filled their pockets and become caught in countless corruption scandals? Is it the Just Stop Oil protesters given years in jail for demanding action against climate change, the racist rioters given shorter sentences, or those encouraging said racist attacks being given more platforms for their hate speech? The answers to such questions should be obvious to anybody with an understanding of far-right politics, yet the UK government’s response to the spate of racist attacks and pogroms in the UK is indicative of how the mainstream continues to normalise reactionary narratives. Despite condemning what the government labelled ‘far-right thuggery’, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper argued that such ‘disorder’ should not ‘silence a serious debate’ on migration (Yates, Reference Yates2024). These comments from Cooper, who had prior to the riots stoked the flames of racist politics by advocating for a ‘blitz’ against ‘illegal migrants’, illustrates the mainstream’s key role in this fifth wave of far-right politics.