Right-Wing Populism: Difference between revisions

As a life-long Eurosceptic, Farage joined UKIP- a party mainly focused on the secession of the UK from the EU- on its foundation in 1993. He would subsequently be elected as leader of UKIP on two seperate occasions- firstly serving from 2006-2009 and then from 2010-2016. Under his second period of leadership in the 2010s, UKIP would experience a significant growth in support, attracting the growing eurosceptics in the country and defecting [[File:Con-t.png]] Tories who were disappointed in the more liberal direction the party was going under [[File:Cameronism.png]] [[Liberal Conservatism|David Cameron]], alongside former voters of the [[File:BritNeoFash.png]] neo-fascist [[File:BNP.png]] [[British Fascism|British National Party]] who found UKIP easier to stomach due to the latter’s non-fascist background. During this time, UKIP was branded as a [[File:Clib.png]] [[Classical Liberalism|Classical Liberal]]/[[File:Libertarian.png]] [[Libertarianism|Libertarian]] party with nationalistic and populist tendencies. UKIP also caused much controversy, due to their heavy focus on anti-immigration and British nationalism, which caused people to deem them as "racist" and "xenophobic". While not getting any seats in the UK parliament due to the country's FPTP system, it got the third highest popular vote in the 2015 UK election and got the most seats in EU parliament in 2014.

In 2016, The UK voted to leave the EU in a referendum, which was what Farage and the rest of the party wanted from the beginning. Farage stepped down as leader due to finally accomplishing his life-dream and UKIP was now left without both its charismatic leader and its raison d'etre. However following a widely-perceived watering down of Brexit by Prime Minister [[File:OneNatFem.png]] [[One-Nation Conservatism|Theresa May]] in 2018, UKIP had an opportunity to regain its former momentum. But instead, the party moved more to the fringe right under Gerard Batten, who hired far-right figures like [[File:TomRob.png]] [[Alt-Lite|Tommy Robinson]] and focused more on opposition to [[File:Muslim 2.png]] [[Islamic Theocracy|Islam]]. This caused Farage to leave the party and start another under the name of the "Brexit Party", which took all of UKIP's seats in EU parliament. After the UK officially left the EU in 2020, Farage again retired from politics. However, in June 2024, a month before the 2024 general election, Farage returned to politcs, reclaiming his sport as the Reform Party (formerly named the Brexit Party) 's leader, and standing for election as a MP.