How should Labour and the Tories respond to the populist right? Lessons from Europe
In Germany’s snap parliamentary elections, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) doubled its vote share to 21%, leaping from the fifth-largest party in Germany’s lower house to the second. In the UK, Reform UK is rising in the polls.
The populist radical right is on the rise across Europe, and mainstream parties are grappling with how to respond.
The German “firewall” approach involves treating them as a pariah. This means refusing to enter coalition with them, as well as excluding them from parliamentary posts and refusing to debate or engage with their parliamentary motions. After Germany’s election, the first-place party, the Christian democrats (CDU/CSU), has no majority and will need at least one coalition partner to form a government. But it will not ask the AfD – and nor will any other party due to the firewall.
There are clear threats to this approach. Often the appeal of the populist right is that they are plucky outsiders, challenging a self-interested political cartel that ignores the views of the people. What better way to prove this case than by ignoring the democratically elected populists too?
Furthermore, the firewall has clearly not worked in dampening support for the populists in Germany, as well as in France. This is especially the case when the populists have allies in the media, have privileges given them by the constitution or parliamentary rules (for example, membership on committees), or strong regional bases.
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Mainstream parties must also decide whether to maintain their own policy positions or ape those of the populist radical right, especially on key topics like immigration and welfare.
For social democratic centre-left parties, academic research is clear: do not move towards the populist radical right on policy.
Typically, the voter base of social democratic parties is made up of two coalitions: the educated, urban and liberal middle classes, and the old core of industrial workers who tend to hold more authoritarian attitudes. In attempting to win over voters lost to the populist right by copying their policies, these parties tend to lose more voters on their liberal-left wing than they win on their populist-right wing.
A seat at the table: AfD co-chair Alice Weidel joins mainstream party leaders after the German election.
Andreas Gora/EPA-EFE
For the centre-right, the decision is harder. They face a similar challenge to the centre-left in that their support coalition is often made up of social authoritarians (who are more likely to be populist radical right-curious) and more centrist free-market liberals. Moving towards the populist right will alienate the latter camp, so it is not a silver bullet for bringing voters back into the fold.
By not talking about policy areas which are clearly salient to the public, centre-right parties risk seeming out of touch. In contrast, talking about these issues increases their salience and highlights their rivals’ positions – but the centre-right may not be rewarded for this if they are seen to have been forced into changing policy by the populist radical right.
Academics have explored this question in various ways. A 2021 study looked at voters’ ideological positions and subsequent propensity for voting for the centre-right or populist radical right. Another, published in 2022, examined changing party positions through manifestos and subsequent voter flows between the populist radical right and the centre-right across 13 western European countries. The evidence suggests that when parties adopt populist radical right positions, voters are more likely to defect to the radical right instead.
The final strategy is the complete opposite to the German firewall: bring the populist radical right into government. The Austrian case is instructive here. In 1999, the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (OVP) entered a coalition with the populist radical right Freedom Party (FPO), which lasted until 2005. The pressures of government resulted in the FPO imploding and losing roughly two-thirds of its seat share in the next general election.
But the FPO has increased its seat share in every subsequent election, reentering government in 2017 and emerging as the largest party in the 2024 general election. The centrist parties have now taken a firewall approach, forming a coalition without the FPO – and the FPO have soared in the polls. By bringing them into government in the first place, the OVP legitimised the FPO in the eyes of many voters.
What should mainstream parties do?
For the centre-left, the choice is obvious: resist the urge to ape the populist radical right and instead (following the lead of the Danish Social Democrats) adapt to a party system where the populist right cannot be gotten rid of, but is a problem to be managed.
Centre-left parties need a robust message on immigration but they should not forget economics. They should primarily focus on traditional concerns around social protection and defending workers against the effects of globalisation.
This has clear implications for the debate around Blue Labour ideology – that the Labour party should combine leftwing economics with more socially authoritarian stances on crime and immigration, plus a greater emphasis on community over the state and market – and how closely Keir Starmer should be paying attention to it.
For centre-right parties like the UK’s Conservatives, there are no easy options.
The UK does not have the historical baggage of Germany which sustains the firewall against the AfD. But Reform UK is also less extreme than its German counterparts, so its electoral ceiling is likely to be higher than the AfD’s. And the first-past-the-post system makes the consequences of a three-party system much harder to predict.
Reform – like Ukip in the early 2010s – cannot be treated as a pariah, especially since it already has parliamentary representation which will probably be extended to Holyrood and the Senedd. The party also has a largely friendly rightwing media landscape. And perhaps most importantly, the Conservative party is split about whether to do a deal with Reform – if, of course, it actually wants said deal.
Openly ignoring the issues Reform campaigns on will not work. Immigration is too much of a salient concern among voters (especially on the right) to ignore. While banging on about immigration will only add fuel to Reform’s fire, the Conservatives do need to say something – and that should start with “sorry for the last 14 years”.
The Tories cannot openly move to the right without losing some of their centre flank. Of the seats won in 2024, Reform came second in nine, while Labour and the Liberal Democrats came second in 87 and 20 respectively. In 2024, for every vote the Conservatives lost to Reform, they also lost a vote to the Liberal Democrats or Labour.
There is no “magic formula” for the centre-right to vanquish the populist radical right. Instead, they need to nail a tricky combination: a clear vision of what they believe, a consistent policy platform that flows from these beliefs, and a charismatic leader who can communicate this to the public. More
