"This time last year, I had just moved back to Britain from the US and was enjoying the almost universal envy of American friends. While they were looking down the barrel of a second Trump presidency with its guarantee of chaos and division, we had elected Keir Starmer by a landslide and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. I remember people congratulating me on the prescience of my move, which I absolutely took even though politics hadn't been part of my decision."
"I guess the answer to that is Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party, which has somehow managed to harness the anger, disappointment and shame felt by large numbers of people who voted for and were then let down by Brexit, and are now in search of another fire to light. To this extent, the roots of the rightwing march last weekend and the rise of Reform generally feel broadly of a piece with their US antecedents:"
A return to Britain coincided with a sense of political comfort after Keir Starmer's landslide while American observers feared a second Trump presidency. Nigel Farage and Reform UK have captured anger, disappointment and shame among many Brexit voters who felt let down and are seeking a new cause. The rightwing march and Reform's rise show parallels with US populist movements, reflecting a willingness to upend a system seen as having failed to reward people. Farage appears frivolous compared with Trump or Boris Johnson and faced ridicule from Democrats when he testified before a House judiciary committee on free speech.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]