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Unwelcome by Whom? Financial Times Laments 'Unwanted' U.K. Surge of Right-Wing Populism

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  4:30 PM on May 03, 2025

Yesterday, we told you how Germany labeled the Right-leaning AfD party 'extremist.' It's undoubtedly the first step to an outright ban on the party (because that worked out so well in the past).

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And in the U.K., the surge of Right-wing populism is troubling the Left, including the journalists at the Financial Times:

They write:

The populist-nationalist bug first gripped the UK in the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU. Yet Britain has long seemed an outlier among its peers in having no hard-right party that was a credible electoral force. The anti-immigrant, arch-Brexiter Nigel Farage’s previous parties did well in European parliament ballots. But they never made big inroads into domestic electoral politics. The striking breakthrough of his latest project, Reform UK, in England’s local elections means UK politics now look more like those of its EU counterparts. Its century-old two-party duopoly is fraying.Reform’s super Thursday demonstrates that its blend of far-right anti-immigration and anti-net zero stances with some soft-left positions on industry is capable of transforming its recent opinion poll surge into real votes. In different locations it gave both main parties a drubbing. Its by-election victory in Runcorn and Helsby in the north-west, had been a safe Labour seat. It secured the mayoralty of Greater Lincolnshire, a Tory stronghold, and won control of more than half a dozen county councils, mostly from the Conservatives.

Reform’s super Thursday demonstrates that its blend of far-right anti-immigration and anti-net zero stances with some soft-left positions on industry is capable of transforming its recent opinion poll surge into real votes. In different locations it gave both main parties a drubbing. Its by-election victory in Runcorn and Helsby in the north-west, had been a safe Labour seat. It secured the mayoralty of Greater Lincolnshire, a Tory stronghold, and won control of more than half a dozen county councils, mostly from the Conservatives.

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The opponents of this populism never stop to ask why the populist parties are gaining traction with voters. But this writer will do them a solid and try to explain it, using small words so they understand:

Other parties have failed voters. They have imported violent, culturally incompatible migrants from backwards countries who assault and murder citizens. They have embraced insane policy positions on trans issues, telling voters men have cervixes and women have penises, and then punishing people who dissent. They don't address grooming gangs, but throw memers behind bars.

People are fed up.

That's why the surge is happening.

And if people are favoring populism and voting for the candidates, it's not unwelcome.

The Left doesn't welcome it, and they apparently speak for everyone else.

Nailed it.

By their cliques, it is. And they don't look outside their little social circles.

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This is the same thing the Left tries in America: they'll argue the things President Trump does are 'not who we are.'

It is, because that's who we voted for.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

This is the correct answer.

They deserve no better.

Funny how that happens when the 'wrong' party gets the majority of the votes.

That's what this is about.

It's that simple.

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Time and again, the Left champions democracy right up until they lose.

Then they attack the voters and the parties they support and undermine democracy.