Why UKIP and the radical right matter for Progressives

Policy Study

Robert Ford (University of Manchester) and Matthew Goodwin (University of Nottingham)

Nigel Farage and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) are leading the most significant revolt against the British political establishment for a generation. UKIP have successfully widened their ‘hard’ Eurosceptic message to encompass strident opposition to immigration and populist attacks against established political class.

UKIP are currently winning over more than one in ten British voters and at the European Parliament elections will win over more than one in four. Nigel Farage’s party has a fighting chance of becoming the first new party since the 1920s to top the poll in a nationwide election.

So where did this revolt on the right come from? And what lessons does it hold for progressives elsewhere in Europe? 

Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin are co-authors of Revolt on the Right: Explaining Public Support for the Radical Right in Britain (March 2014)

This essay originally appeared on the Policy Network website