I’ve been working on the problem of far right authoritarianism and what the social change sector can do about it here in the UK for the last two years, and my thinking is sharpening. There’s a lot happening and much to be hopeful about, but still a lot to be done. I’m writing this to share some clarity about what I think is needed now and an update about my work on this – and to launch my new Movements to Meet the Moment newsletter – find out more and sign up here.
Complacency is a mistake
Since Andy Burnham took over as leader of the Labour party we’ve seen a ‘Burnham bounce’ as the UK Government’s popularity has grown. Latest polls suggest they could win a general election with a narrow majority if one were called today. Civil society does seem to be having more traction with the new Government. But this is leading to many leaders breathing a sigh of relief, refocusing energy on lobbying and policy work on incremental improvements related to their issues with renewed enthusiasm. I think this is a mistake for the reasons below…
- A week is a long time in politics – things can change fast.
- Far right and authoritarian policies are being mainstreamed across most parties including Labour and the Conservatives, on issues from trans rights, migration and climate to the erosion of civic space / democracy.
- Even if current estimates hold until we have a general election (which seems unlikely), Reform would still win 100+ MPs. They already control 24 councils, are the biggest party in 16 more and have thousands of councillors.
- Extreme far right groups like Patriot Platfom are continuing to grow support and profile.
- Bad actors, tech algorithms, biased media discourse, mis and disinformation are continuing to draw public support towards far right authoritarian ideas.
- Racism, Islamophobia, Anti Antisemitism, transphobia and homophobia are growing. This is translating into abuse online and on the streets, with a rise in racist, Islamophobic and Anti Semitic hate crime and attacks.
“The far right is more extreme, bigger and bolder than ever before. Reform UK’s rise, growing street protests, and increasingly hardline rhetoric are reshaping the political landscape, while public opinion is shifting and polarisation deepens.“
Hope Not Hate State of Hate report 2026
Of course, you might be able to make incremental progress on your issue though lobbying, policy work, legacy media and some traditional digital campaigning etc. I’m not saying don’t do that at all. But I would strongly caution against thinking this is still a good overall strategy which could help you achieve your organisation’s mission and vision in the longer term. The entire playing field continues to skew things towards the ideas of the authoritarian far right.
We need new strategies to build power and address that (as I’ve written about before and proposed a framework to think about in Meeting the Moment). Kudos and appreciation to everyone already doing this work. There are a LOT of brilliant projects and approaches (including these), new and old, taking the need to meet the moment seriously
Globally autocratic forces still have the upper hand…
The V-Dem Institute’s 2026 report on the state of global democracy now counts the UK (along with 25% of other countries including the USA, Italy, and Croatia) as ‘autocratizing’ – meaning power is consolidating, and democracy is eroding.
There are now more autocratic than democratic Governments globally. 76% of the world’s population are living in autocracies.
Bad actors fuelling the authoritarian far right are collaborating in international networks across borders – funding parties, think tanks, media infrastructure, influencer networks, convenings, election campaigns, and mis/dis information.
Big tech is working to replace democracy with corporate rule
Tech platforms are consolidating wealth and power, as so much of the internet runs through a handful of sites and apps. The ‘broligarchy’ is using the power of its platforms to influence elections in far right authoritarian directions – the recent interference from Meta in shutting down Lula’s account’s ability to pay to promote posts in Brazillian elections as well as using similar tactics against the No Kings movement in the US on a major mid-term election campaigning day are just two recent examples of this. Other interference tactics deployed by Meta in the 2026 Brazillian elections alone (and evidenced here) includes allowing illegal use of AI, biased AI algorithms, organic content and moderation blocks, all favouring authoritarian over progressive content.
“As the US-based technology industry has more explicitly aligned itself with an ascendant global far-right, we have seen platforms not just subtly reconfigure their platforms and accompanying trust and safety institutions, but also explicitly wield those institutions in an effort to boost right-wing political movements.” Tech Policy Press
There are many, many other examples of this happening on other platforms like X, and Musk’s role in the US authoritarian takeover is well known and documented, as is his support for the far right party Restore in the UK. Bezos and Amazon have funded Republican causes and election denial, and he has given a lot of public praise to Trump in his second term.
On and on it goes. If you’re interested in a deep dive into this check out Gil Duran’s The Nerd Reich – Silicon Valley Fascism and the war on democracy.
But there is plenty of reason for hope
Earlier this year, we saw Magyar oust Orbán from power in Hungary after 16 years of authoritarian far right rule – the same Orbán cited as an inspiration by the likes of Trump and Modi. Just last week, the decisive defeat of Trump’s Republicans in the US midterms has put a serious dent in their authoritarian project.
Two weeks ago, after two years of student protests against corruption in Serbia (kicked off when the concrete canopy in Novi Sad station collapsed killing 16 people) the movement’s pressure forced President Vučić to call a snap election. The movement put together a challenger party – the Student List, and against all odds they won, with the authoritarian strongman conceding defeat after 14 years in power! It’s an incredible story of a leaderless movement transforming people power into electoral power in a relatively short time. It is possible to dream big, imagine something very different for your country, and to build the power to make it happen. We could learn a lot in the UK about about what we imagine is possible.
And we’ve seen the return of Lula to power in Brazil with a renewed commitment to democracy – turning things around in the weeks after Bolsanaro’s son won the first round of voting. This is a major victory for progressive pluralism. There are lots of tactics to take inspiration from, including the ‘Lula’s army’ whatsapp group which attracted over 10 million supporters, who were given daily ‘missions’ to promote Lula on social media and increase voter turnout.
Three strategies we need
I’m finding it helpful to break down work needed across the social change ecosystem into three strategies, which we need in operation over the short, medium and much longer term to move towards a better future we can build together.
1 – Defend
This strategy is focused on security, protection and resilience. It includes defence of communities and organisations under attack from the far right – through acts of solidarity, security measures (in person and online), crisis communications, legal support, advice and action, psycho-social support, grief work and more. Organising and relational infrastructure also delivers this because ultimately our best defence comes from being in relationship, supporting each other and acting together.
It’s important to remember that the impacts of what is happening are not felt equally – for individuals, communities and organisations whose work and identities are under attack the threat is acute. That means this strategy should also be applied within organisations, to protect individuals who are most targeted and most affected (people who have migrated to the UK, people of colour, Muslims, Jewish people, trans people etc).
This is mostly short term work needed now to ensure that our people, communities and organisations are as safe as possible, so that we can move forwards together.
2 – Disrupt
This broad strategic approach disrupts the power of the authoritarian far right wherever they are exerting it – in legacy media and online through promoting hateful narratives and mis/disinformation, on the streets when masked vigilantes march and threaten communities, at the bottom lines of tech billionaires, and at the ballot box in elections. Many tactics can deliver this disruption – satire, cultural interventions, boycotts, investigative journalism, get out the vote campaigns, organising, strategic litigation and so on.
This is medium term work, important to focus on with timelines over the next three to five years more generally as well as towards specific elections (locally in May 2027, nationally in 2029 assuming the next UK general election is held then).
3 – Build
This is where the pro-active, long term strategic work comes in. We need to build the capacity for power through ideas and imagination, narratives, collectivity and agency, and we need to wield it together from local to global.
First off we need to have compelling ideas about where we’re going to and how to get there – we need to dream a more beautiful world before we can make it happen. Part of the current domination of authoritarians comes from the ‘doomerism’ keeping us stuck in cycles of defining the problem and assessing the current trajectory as inevitable. Titles of books like End Times Fascism, however good their content, don’t help. We don’t need to be ideologically united to dream of a better future, we can let a thousand flowers bloom as long as we believe in them.
We need to build narrative power to assert the possibility, then the inevitability, of the world we want to see. Through building a fair media ecosystem (including independent local media, big tech regulation and replacement, networks of influencers, and epistemic security), cultural interventions, and strong organising projects we can bring ideas, frames and messages into pub and kitchen table conversations.
And we need to organise, building relational power, in communities of geography, identity and interest, as well as across and between all of these. Marginalised groups are central to this work so we can pull against the division that has already been seeded. We must begin with listening rather than seeking to convince others we are right, bridging across difference and collaborating with people who have different experiences, perspectives and ideals to our own. When we feel a sense of togetherness across difference, we can take powerful actions together.
This is long term work aiming at the horizon of the next decade and those that follow. The authoritarian far right have got to where they are by playing the long game – to turn things around we need to do the same
We don’t need every organisation to invest in all three of these strategies, but we do need to cover them all between us if we’re serious about protecting those who are already being horrendously impacted, interfering with the far right’s consolidation of power and actually growing our own to enable us to do something different in the years to come.
Hope, joy and humour
“Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.” bell hooks Talking about a Revolution
It’s time to move beyond endless articulations of the problem to solutions. The future hasn’t been written yet, and despite the grave challenges there are serious opportunities. In this attention economy, we might be able to draw people in with doom, but when things feel hopeless this doesn’t motivate people to take action.
If we want to attract people’s attention, hold it, and direct it towards action we need movements that are funny, hopeful and joyful. If the work feels like a grind we are getting through to reach some happier future we’re doing it wrong. It is possible to build the social infrastructure required to transform systems over generations in a way that brings the future we’re working towards into being here and now. That is a practice of joy.
What have I been up to?
For the last two years I’ve been talking to people across the social change sector about the threats of far right authoritarianism, the strategic responses we need, how organisations are responding and the gaps we still need to fill.
I’ve written two substantial research papers with Jim Coe:
– Meeting the Moment exploring what we need to do across the social change ecosystem to push back and build something better; and
– Towards Meaningful Action focused on how NGOs are impacted, the challenges they face with taking proportionate action, and how these challenges can be overcome
I wasn’t able to fundraise for the project I conceived was needed at the beginning of the year, to connect across siloes and specialisms around strategic approaches. In the mean time, many collective projects have started within the relative comfort of issue and approach siloes, where the relationships that make collaboration possible already exist. So I’ve been coordinating online meetings connecting conveners of different collective projects to try and build out the relationships needed for wider collaboration. And I’ve been attending events and meeting new people 1:1 most weeks, making introductions and connections. All the while I’ve been speaking on panels and at events, advising on NGO and funder strategies, and running workshops. Some work has been paid consultancy, some partially funded, some unpaid.
I’m launching a newsletter!
I still have the Building Beyond Authoritarianism slack group (get in touch if you want to join), and I’m exploring other ways to build an online community to facilitate conversations – but this needs trust to work, and with the subject there are security considerations, so it isn’t straightforward. It feels important to be able to share more widely across the ecosystem a sense of what others are doing, to share learning, updates and opportunities – so I’m launching a newsletter. I hope to send them once a month – please let me know if you have anything to share.
A few more exciting developments in the last month:
- I organised an Anti-Authoritarian Network Weaving event with Ben Margolis bringing together leaders convening their own collective projects – thanks to Ben for the ‘Defend, Disrupt, Build’ framing above, and to all who came for contributing their ideas.
- I’m part of cohort 2 of D-Hub‘s Global Democracy Masterclass – a fellowship programme with 35 others working to counter authoritarianism all over the world. We’re meeting weekly online to explore the learnings from D-Hub’s excellent Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit and we’re convening in person in late November to learn from each other. I will be planning some webinars to bring learning back to the UK in the coming months.
- I’ve received a pot of funding for research! I’m still making plans for this but as well as bringing some international learning to the UK I am working with Jim Coe on a new paper exploring how we erode the power of the bad actors fuelling the far right.
- I’m about to get another small pot of funding for more infrastructural work, which will enable me to do more, but I’m still working out what will be most strategic (although some work around building narrative power seems likely).
My further plans are funding dependent but I’m still committed doing all I can to ensure:
A) The UK social change sector is better equipped to face and counter threats to organisations, communities and individuals arising from the mainstreaming of far right authoritarianism
B) Those facing discrimination and risk are supported and elevated in their work
C) Action in response to the threats is better focused and coordinated.
If you’ve enjoyed my writing and would like to support me to create and share more, or to continue my work on the far right, you can buy me a coffee. I share my work here for the love, in the hope that its useful to strengthen movements, and that’s the biggest reward. But I’ve been working a lot unpaid on far right stuff, trying to fit it in around freelance work, so more donations would enable me to give it more time. If you feel moved to donate something (no pressure at all) it would be gratefully received.
