The riots which swept the UK following the tragic events in Southport were in no small part the consequence of disinformation and decades of right-wing populist nationalist and radical/far-right nativist discourse and rhetoric.
If politicians, responsible media and citizens are to resist extreme right populism of the kind practiced in Britain by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives, Laurence Fox’s Reclaim, Paul Golding’s Britain First, and Tommy Robinson, amplified and repeated every day in the powerful, influential and underregulated right-wing print, broadcast and online news media, voters need to be informed, in a clear way, of precisely how right-wing extremists construct their divisive discourse and fuel and exploit the anti-elite climate.
In this article, drawing on the work of Austrian linguist and emerita distinguished professor at Lancaster University, Ruth Wodak, I explore the rhetorical and discursive techniques deployed by right-wing extremist political parties – in the UK exemplified by Farage’s Reform UK Party – and make some tentative recommendations on how we might better resist and reduce their polarising influence.
The influence of Reform UK
Even though the UK’s first-past-the-post electoral system is heavily loaded against minor parties, and Reform UK Ltd now has just five MPs, Farage’s party is, and will likely remain, influential in shaping public and political opinion. As UKIP and the recent UK general election result demonstrated, minor parties can exert significant sway if they threaten to siphon votes from the major parties.
Arguably, the Tory government’s and right-wing news media’s obsession with asylum seekers arriving on ‘small boats’, Muslims, migrants, ‘lefty lawyers’ and demographic changes is a direct response to the relentless focus on these issues by Farage. Reform UK enjoys significant media support from the billionaire-funded print and broadcast ‘news’ media, not least by Christian hedge-funder Paul Marshall, who employs three of Reform UK’s five MPs on GB ‘News’ and has recently bought The Spectator, appointing Michael Gove as editor, and Charles Moore, formerly of the Telegraph, as chair.
Reform UK’s emphasis on the previous government’s perceived shortcomings – high taxation, a ‘poor’ Brexit deal, overuse of lockdowns, ‘economically damaging’ net zero, ‘anti-driver’ pollution measures, ‘high’ net migration, ‘ineffective’ border controls, too much influence over domestic legislation from the European Convention on Human Rights, and the ever present ‘threat’ from an ill-defined ‘wokeism’ – is music to the ears of the Tory right and the far-right. Criticisms such as these have been relentlessly (re)articulated and amplified by fellow GB ‘News’ presenters Lee Anderson, Richard Tice, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Martyn Daubney and many other presenters and guests.
Since Brexit, the Tories have been pushed ever further right by fear of populists like Farage, Tice, and Anderson, dragging Labour and the ‘centre ground’ ever further rightward – which is precisely what Farage, Anderson, Rees-Mogg, and Tice’s, employer Marshall, and Reform UK’s extremely wealthy donors want.
Following the implementation of Brexit on 31 January 2020, Farage opportunistically reoriented Reform UK by opposing lockdowns and net zero, paralleling global right-wing populist anti-lockdown and anti-climate science sentiments.
Reform UK’s criticism of climate science
Reform UK MP’s use of anti-climate science rhetoric is well documented, as are its donors’ connections to fossil fuel interests and anti-net zero lobby groups. In October 2021, then leader Tice criticised plans to decarbonise the economy, saying the UK should instead focus on fracking.
Writing in the billionaire-owned Telegraph in October 2023, Tice said that net zero is an “absurdity” and “the greatest act of financial self-harm ever imposed on a country” that will “achieve nothing” – a message he relentlessly amplifies on GB News and on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).
A DeSmog analysis in 2023 found that almost a third of presenters on GB News have used their platform to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate breakdown. At least ten of the broadcaster’s 31 presenters made statements on air in 2022 rejecting or challenging widely accepted scientific findings about how humans are affecting the climate, and the role the climate crisis plays in extreme weather events and the displacement of large numbers of people, adding to and fuelling perceptions of a ‘migrant crisis’.
A separate Desmog report examined Marshall’s hedge fund investment in fossil fuels. Marshall is the chair and chief investment officer of Marshall Wace, a London-based hedge fund that he co-founded in 1997, now one of the world’s largest hedge funds – an investment vehicle that bets on rising and falling share prices – which owns shares worth £1.8bn in fossil fuel firms.
Reform’s use of extreme right discourse and rhetoric
Like all Western political parties on the extreme right, Reform UK positions itself as ‘anti-elite’. This is despite being funded, platformed and supported by some of the richest people on earth, and despite Farage being a privately educated former commodities trader, and Tice and Habib being privately educated multimillionaire property tycoons.
As an expert on far-right European discourse, Wodak’s work shows how Reform UK mobilises the same basic framing, discourse and rhetoric as all other Western political parties on the extreme right. Much of this was explored initially in her 2020 book: The Politics of Fear: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourse.
Wodak identifies several dimensions to the ideology that underlies populist far-right parties.
The discourse of national chauvinism
The most apparent dimension of far-right discourse is a strong national chauvinism or even nativism – a radical exclusionary form of nationalism, according to which states should be solely inhabited by members of the ‘native’ ‘indigenous’ group.
This nativism is very exclusive to a specific set of insiders, who focus on creating “an anti-pluralist country, a country which is allegedly homogeneous, which has one kind of people who all speak the same language, have the same culture, or look the same… [Having] this imaginary ‘true people’ is very important”. Extreme/far-right populists decide who belongs and who does not belong to the ‘true people’.
Wodak shows that unlike in previous historical periods, when the extreme right aimed its rhetoric against a relatively small number of social groups and minorities, today the new right has “an enormous range of possibilities of people to exclude and discriminate against”.
For the far-right, it is essential to have a group of outsiders to cast as scapegoats responsible for the major problems and the multiple crises a country’s citizens face, which makes for “an easy narrative for very complex issues”.
Conspiracy theories such as ‘The Great Replacement’ are integral to the far-right agenda and are supportive in constructing who is positioned as to blame for a given country’s current real and perceived crises and complex problems.
In 2019, Farage faced renewed criticism for discussing tropes and conspiracy theories associated with the far right and antisemitism after it emerged he said migration would “imperil the future of our civilisation” and called Goldman Sachs “the enemy”.
And in 2023, in a discussion about migration with Habib on GB News, disgraced former presenter Laurence Fox said to Habib, “You cannot have a culture so unremittingly replaced. I feel like my culture is being replaced in front of my eyes” … before jokingly asking Habib: “In the interests of balance, are you and I just white supremacists?”
A selective focus on law and order
Next comes a highly selective focus on law and order, with international conventions, laws, and agreements disregarded, while domestic laws are interpreted selectively: planned a non-violent climate protest? ‘Lock them up’. Jailed for racism and/or inciting violence? ‘A victim of two-tier policing’. Vandalising Ulez cameras? ‘A citizen’s duty’. Protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza? ‘Hate marches’. Racist riots? ‘Legitimate concerns’.
“Along with the scapegoat”, Wodak explains, “comes ‘the topos of the saviour’, the ‘strong man’ leader who will save the ‘true American’ or the ‘true Austrian’ or the ‘true British’ people from all those dangers: they will ‘solve’ the problems, protect the people, and they promise hope”.
Farage clearly identifies himself in this role and is happy for his supporters to project this role onto him, while Tice has repeatedly claimed that “Only Reform can save Britain”.
Conservative values and cultural touchstones
Another ingredient is endorsing ill-defined conservative values and perceived cultural touchstones, such as emphasising their ‘anti-woke’ ideology and the importance of ‘Christian values’ – often referred to by many on the more extreme right as ‘Judeo-Christian’ values – to their country’s national identity.
A further central component of far-right discourse is ‘anti-elitism’ – often pushed by privately educated multimillionaire elites like Farage, Tice and Habib, current and former highly paid academics like Matt Goodwin, Jordan Peterson and David Starkey, and conservative political commentators like Douglas Murray, all of whom invariably have strong links with free-market think tanks – in the UK based in and around 55 Tufton Street.
Their discourse and rhetoric targets (other) elites or an ill-defined ‘establishment’, which for them can include managers, civil servants, teachers, journalists, experts, intellectuals, lawyers, judges, liberals, centrist and left-leaning politicians, or simply almost any of your political opponents – “all the people who allegedly don’t listen to ‘us’ and who have very different interests from ‘the true people’”, as Wodak puts it.
Basically, Wodak contends that from the extreme right’s point of view, they feel ‘attacked’ (hence the dehumanising ‘invasion’ rhetoric) and therefore must ‘defend’ themselves and their national identity by ‘fighting back’ and protecting the ‘real’ people: a simplistic yet powerful narrative and framing that is echoed by those involved in the recent violent attacks on police, mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers in the UK.
There is an imagery of homogeneous ‘indigenous’ people: “the true Austrians”, the “true French”, the “true British or English” etc – a racist, nativist conception of white people who have lived with their families there for centuries. The concept of ‘citizenship’ is irrelevant to them.
Lies and transgressions
Another recent development of the extreme right’s political strategy relates to the transgression of social and political norms, perhaps used most conspicuously by Donald Trump and Boris Johnson: what Wodak calls the “shameless normalization” of blatant lies and bigoted scapegoating speech by unapologetic political actors.
It’s something we have seen in abundance in Britain over many years from a range of right-wing politicians: from disgraced former prime minister Johnson, disgraced former home secretary Suella Braverman, former Tory party deputy chair, GB News presenter and Reform UK MP, Lee Anderson, and Reform UK’s former co-deputy leader Habib, who in an April 2024 interview with Julia Hartley-Brewer said that he would “absolutely” be prepared to let asylum seekers drown while crossing the channel.
Wodak demonstrates how many on the extreme right now lie and say terrible things as if it were normal, and it doesn’t seem to matter. Sexism, homophobia, racism, misogyny – anything is possible. Political discourse has become much more brutal and explicit, many taboos have been transgressed, and it is no longer necessary to use coded language to discriminate.
Dangerously polarising agenda and rhetoric
Mainstream media and political discourse and many once relatively moderate conservatives have in recent years adopted not only this previously unacceptable rhetorical style but also much of the far-right agenda, demonstrating how British mainstream politics has embraced and normalised far-right rhetoric, policies and ideology.
Wodak notes that this discourse is not only deliberately inflammatory but also dangerously polarising, which is harmful for citizens, society, and democracy, and reveals a fight for hegemony: a fight that many media organisations, for example Byline Times, Stop Funding Hate, and Double Down News, along withtrade unions, many progressive charities, groups and activists participate in, around “who sets the media agenda; what is reported; and who controls the media”.
The slide toward ‘illiberal democracies’ must be resisted if we are to retain the freedom of the press and independent journalism, independent legislative and judicial powers, independent teaching and science, and the embrace of universal human rights, respect for international law, and democratic elections. Virtually all opinion polls and high-quality research studies suggest a clear majority of voters in any given country see the importance of these and want to retain them.
Far-right populism on the rise in Europe
Wodak herself is Austrian and has witnessed many recent ‘natural experiments’ in populism throughout continental Europe. She cites several reasons for the rising popularity of far-right populism, including the end of the Cold War and the resultant increase in migration from Eastern Europe into the West, and more recently from conflict zones and countries at the sharp end of environmental disasters now more frequent due to climate change.
Eastern European migrants, previously seen as refugees from communism who were once welcomed and even feted, have morphed into unwelcome and fear-inducing interlopers (despite being white and from Christian cultures).
Widely adopted neoliberal policies have changed labour practices in the West, creating precarity and inequalities that the right could exploit and build on – just as they did in the pro-business responses to the global financial crisis of 2008 (‘saving the banks instead of the people’), and increased globalisation.
Wodak shows how it is now very common for conservatives to make it possible and more likely that the extreme right will win votes, because they are pressured into embracing their agenda, which they mistakenly think will gain votes, when almost invariably the votes eventually go to the extreme right, which makes it easier for the far-right to challenge or even displace more moderate conservative parties and even gain power. We have seen this in the US with Trump, in Hungary with Orban, in Brazil with Jair Bolsonaro, in Italy with Giorgia Meloni, in Poland with Mateusz Morawiecki and in Argentina with Javier Milei.
Right-wing extremists have a uniform and specific imagery of what countries should be: neoliberal/libertarian; white; Christian; traditional heterosexual families with many children; basically democratic, but with democratic institutions in need of reform.
The use of fear to divide and rule
Wodak’s analysis identifies new developments in the ancient political strategy of ‘divide and rule’, central to which is the creation of fear, usually either from fabricated or manufactured crises, or by exaggerating or distorting existing crises:
“Far-right populist parties thrive whenever there is a crisis. They either construct or exaggerate a crisis or instrumentalize existing crises. They create unreal scenarios of threat and danger, and then they position themselves as the only party and the only politicians who can save ‘us’ from this crisis and danger. In this way, they first create fear and then hope. This is an interdependent pattern. Which is, of course, not new, which has existed for many, many centuries; but they are very clever at employing this pattern.”
Far-right populists identify crises, and then they say, ‘Well, someone is guilty’, so they create scapegoats, and then they say, ‘I will save you’, and then they promise to make America/Britain (etc) great (again) creating (false) hope.
The formula is almost laughably simplistic – but highly effective.
However, Wodak points out that decent, sensible, unifying politicians and parties are not afforded this strategy and are thus at a significant disadvantage because they say ‘OK, we have problems, but they are complex, and we will try to solve them’. Unlike politicians and news media on the extreme right, they are not prepared to create a group of people guilty of causing all a country’s complex problems, or to claim that they have the (simplistic) solution to everything.
Common sense
For all their faults, prejudices and dangers, far-right populists rarely treat people with condescension or explicitly tell people what to do or think. What they are (often disingenuously) trying to represent is: ‘I am one of you, I have ‘common sense’, I speak in a language that you can understand, and we don’t need all these experts telling us what is best for us.’
An extensive body of academic research examines how far-right populist politicians deploy the phrase ‘common sense’ in their rhetoric and on social media in order to manipulate voters into accepting ideologically extreme positions which are neither common, nor sensible.
Wodak emphasises how there is an appeal to emotions, and especially an appeal to what they call ‘common sense’ which is basically a way of saying ‘We just know, we sense it, we don’t need to study anything or listen to experts or academics and all that’.
On the other hand, they also tell people: ‘You don’t have to be ashamed, you are victims of these professional women, or you are victims of these minorities, but I will give you back the position you had in society – I will make you strong [again]’.
What can be done to resist the lure of far-right populism?
Progressives – who oppose racism, misogyny, homophobia, disablism, discrimination, job insecurity, environmental degradation, extreme wealth accumulation and concentration leading to inequality of opportunity, poverty and homelessness – can learn from the far-right: for example, in noting the importance of speaking clearly, candidly, and directly to voters, rather than speaking ‘down’ to them.
Progressives must also expose and challenge their rhetoric which says ‘I say what you don’t dare to say. We hate Muslims, you don’t say it, but I can say it, therefore I am brave. And everyone is against me, so I’m a victim of the Muslims, Chinese, Jews, migrants, [George] Soros, striking doctors, asylum seekers, minorities, protestors, BBC presenters, actors, teachers, academics, experts, ‘lefty lawyers’, the ‘woke’, the liberal metropolitan elite’ etc. While this may appear authentic, it is anything but.
Far-right populists tell ‘indigenous’ men that their rights have been ‘stolen’ by ‘less deserving’ women and ‘invading alien’ minorities, and that consequently ‘civilisation is under threat’. This is of course a grotesque and manipulative Big Lie, strategically deployed by every reactionary dictator, authoritarian leader and far-right extremist throughout history.
This Big Lie serves to stoke fear, anger, resentment, hate, polarisation and mistrust of scientists and other experts, democratic institutions, and democracy itself, dividing voters, communities and countries.
It also disguises and distracts from arguably the main reason why life is so hard for millions of people, namely: the shameless normalisation of lies, bigotry, greed, inequality, exploitation, selfishness and corruption by ultrarich men and profit-driven multinational corporations. Those who hoard wealth, power and influence by seizing control of the major forms of communication in order to flood people’s consciousness with the Big Lie and other toxic misleading discourse and rhetoric, helped by their radicalised supporters who unreflectively repeat and amplify it all day, every day, on every available channel.
Brand ambassadors for freedom, health, wealth, safety, and common sense
A compelling argument, made by American political scientist Rachel Bitecofer and others, says that the best way for progressives to wage –and win – electoral war is to fight far-right propaganda not with dry facts and statistics but with emotional appeals and by presenting themselves as ‘brand ambassadors for freedom, health, wealth, safety, and common sense’ – the opposite of the extremist fearmongering right.
Concerning the important role of the media, Wodak suggests that any national news media not owned or captured by right-wing billionaire elites should consider not responding with relentless headlines, lead stories and commentary about political scandals or far-right provocations.
Far-right populists crave and need the attention and they want to set the framing of all issues – so don’t give it to them. Instead, report on them, briefly, as a banal topic, and always reframe it: in TV and radio interviews, comment on what they say, and clearly explain to the audience what is happening, instead of letting them control the situation. If they become aggressive, say, ‘We can’t continue the interview if you get so aggressive’. Take back control!
Finally, drawing on decades of research and European election outcomes analysis, Wodak warns that on its own, good clear critique and reframing is insufficient to defeat the far-right. She makes an appeal to progressive parties to be much clearer in offering the electorate something to vote for:
“If there is a good opposition, if there’s an alternative program, you might have a chance [to defeat far-right populism]. If there is no alternative program, other parties will not defeat them; one has to provide alternatives, provide more participation so that citizens feel that they are acknowledged and that their worries are being taken seriously.” – Wodak.
More from Dr Russ Jackson:
- An open letter to the BBC
- Are the Left really losing the culture war?
- What’s the culture war really about?
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