That grinding sense of exhaustion after every election in the UK has to change; we’ve had enough of two-party politics and first-past-the-post and the failed two-party system. Nobody wants to vote as a damage limitation exercise. Holding your nose, ticking a box for the least bad option, and hoping for the best, only to find the ‘best’ felt suspiciously like a slower, slightly more polite version of the same old austere managed decline. That feeling isn’t an accident. It’s the managed despair that keeps a broken two-party system on life support.
But what if that exhaustion is the signal that the game itself is changing? The 2024 election gave Labour a government, but it didn’t provide them with the courage to act on their mandate for real hope. With public support already fraying, a vacuum is opening up on the Left. And it is into this vacuum that the Green Party is stepping, powered not just by a sharp new strategy but by a tidal wave fuelled by hope. With membership surging past 124,000—making them the third-largest party and closing in on the Conservatives—this is no longer just a protest vote. It’s a movement gathering unstoppable force.
This movement is being channelled into a patient, four-phase plan to build a new politics from the ground up.
Phase One: Lay the Foundations in Our Communities. This is where the new energy is most visible. The strategy has already started not in Westminster, but in your town hall, and it’s being executed by a rapidly growing army of activists. The Greens’ 859 councillors are the tip of the spear, but the shaft is the thousands of new members turning up to canvass, deliver leaflets, and stand for election themselves. Every pothole fixed, every local renewable energy scheme approved becomes a proof of concept, building an infrastructure of trust that is powered by sheer people-power.
Phase Two: Inspire a National Conversation. With those local foundations secured by a legion of volunteers, the next step is to take the vision national. This means doubling down on a message of hope that resonates because it’s authentic. The membership surge isn’t happening in a vacuum; it’s a direct response to policies that offer a stark, positive choice: a wealth tax on billionaires to fund public services; bringing energy and rail back into public hands; rent controls to tackle the housing crisis. The strategy is to link these bold ideas to people’s daily lives, framing environmentalism not as a sacrifice, but as the essential toolkit for a fairer, more secure society—a message now amplified by over a hundred thousand voices.
Phase Three: Offer a Clear Choice in the Heartland. This is where the plan becomes truly focused, and where the new-found scale of the party becomes a powerful force for change. The aim is to methodically concentrate on over 100 constituencies where disillusionment with the old parties is highest. An ambition like that would have been a fantasy a few years ago. Now, funded by membership fees and powered by thousands of activists with the enthusiasm the major parties can only dream of, it becomes a credible alternative. This is how you create a green breakthrough: by having the boots on the ground to give voters a genuine choice, converting apathy into engagement and winning a formidable bloc of Green MPs.
Which brings us to Phase Four: Reshape the System for Good. This is the ultimate goal. The most realistic path to power isn’t winning 326 seats outright, but winning enough—perhaps 40, perhaps 60—to hold the balance of power. A strong bloc of Green MPs, backed by the largest and most engaged activist base in the country, would enter a hung parliament not merely as junior partners, but as architects of a new democracy with a non-negotiable mandate: electoral reform. With nearly 70% of the public supporting Proportional Representation, this is the moment you translate people-power into permanent, systemic change.
So, what does this mean for you, nursing that feeling of political burnout? It means recognising that the cage has no bars, and that you are not alone. The first step is internal: stop seeing politics as something done to you. But the most vital step is external. The energy fuelling this entire strategy isn’t coming from focus groups; it’s coming from people like you. When you join this movement, you aren’t just adding your name to a list. You are the fuel. You are the hands that help lay the foundations in Phase One, the voice that inspires the conversation in Phase Two, and the engine for the breakthrough that will make the old politics obsolete.
It is time for change, and it’s happening now. Real green shoots, new progressive ideas, are breaking through the manufactured concrete consensus that the only direction is right and then far-right.
People are resonating with that deep ache for something fundamentally different, a yearning for a world not defined by the relentless pursuit of profit or the cynical machinations of power, but by genuine human connection and collective well-being. We’ve had enough of the politics of despair, the economics of extraction. What we desperately need now is a politics of hope and an economics of care.
This isn’t just a nice idea; it’s an urgent necessity in a UK landscape dominated by a uni-party consensus that offers little more than managed decline, all while the far-right seeks to deepen the chasms between us. The ‘Friendly fascism’ and centrist authoritarianism we see here thrives on a profound lack of hope, on the exhaustion wrought by a system that consistently prioritises abstract market forces over the tangible needs of people. The hypernormalisation of austerity, the dehumanising rhetoric aimed at anyone struggling to survive, the relentless information overload – it’s all designed to drain our will to fight for something better.
So, what do we actually do? We plant the seeds of that hope, and we cultivate that care, refusing to let the cynicism of others define our future. For me, and for a growing chorus of voices, that means actively building a political movement that embodies these very principles – and that’s precisely what we’re doing with the Green Party. While others offer more of the same, praying at the altar of Neo-liberalism and allowing big money and foreign influence to dictate their every move, we are forging an alternative rooted in genuine compassion and a vision for a just future.
A politics of hope means daring to imagine a country where everyone has a safe, warm home, where our NHS is not just protected but properly funded, where our communities are vibrant and resilient, and where our planet is not sacrificed for short-term gain. It means challenging the insidious lie that there is no alternative to the current trajectory. And an economics of care means fundamentally reorienting our priorities: away from endless growth and towards meeting the needs of all, ensuring dignity for workers, protecting our precious natural resources, and fostering genuine well-being over corporate spreadsheets. It means valuing the essential work of caring for each other, for our children, for our elders, and for our environment, not just the financial transactions that boost GDP.
The culture war, stoked by the far-right and amplified by a complicit media, is a deliberate distraction from this fundamental shift. It’s designed to keep us from uniting around shared values of hope and care. We must see through it and expose it for what it is: a cynical ploy to protect the interests of the powerful by fragmenting the rest of us. When they scream about ‘woke’ ideology, we talk about universal basic income, robust public services, and truly affordable housing – the bedrock of an economics of care.
Fascists thrive on scarcity and fear. A politics of hope and an economics of care counters this directly by affirming abundance and mutual aid. We refuse to let them redefine who is ‘deserving’ of care; we insist that every life has intrinsic value. And when it comes to the Labour and Conservative uni-party, beholden as they are to big money, we expose their rhetoric for what it is: a thinly veiled defence of the status quo, offering managed decline instead of genuine transformation. Austerity instead of abundance.
My own journey has shown me that breaking through these entrenched narratives requires persistent, empathetic communication. We need to reach those who feel disillusioned, those who have been let down by decades of Neo-liberal consensus, and show them that hope isn’t naive – it’s a powerful engine for change. The Green Party’s rapid growth isn’t just about environmentalism; it’s about a fundamental commitment to a politics of hope and an economics of care, a vision that resonates deeply with people who are tired of being told there’s no alternative.
Paulo Freire’s call for critical consciousness is absolutely paramount here. We must question the very foundations of an economic system that prioritises profit over people, and a political system that claims to be democratic while being controlled by external forces. We must empower ourselves, and our communities, to imagine and build an entirely new way of organising society – one based on collaboration, compassion, and true sustainability.
Yes, the fight is monumental. The forces of cynicism and greed are deeply entrenched. But we cannot surrender. We must protect our humanity, our empathy, and our capacity for hope, because these are our most potent weapons. Join your local Green Party. Get involved. Speak truth to power. Demand a politics of hope and an economics of care, not just as abstract ideals, but as the foundational principles of a society truly fit for the 21st century. The most anti-fascist act any of us can make, in the face of managed decline and manufactured misery, is to stubbornly, defiantly, hold onto that vision and work every single day to bring it into vibrant, caring reality.
We need to talk about Nigel. It’s the cognitive dissonance that gets you first. The charming common sense everyman voice, the pint in hand, the easy confidence of someone who sounds both posh and plausible. And then come the words. Bitter, divisive words, spouting the worst kind of rhetoric, but delivered as if he’s just commenting on the weather. As if it’s perfectly normal, perfectly acceptable, to speak of your neighbours and fellow citizens with such casual contempt. The truth is, it isn’t. And that gap—between the slick presentation and the toxic substance, is the most dangerous political space in Britain today.
This performance is not an accident. It’s a finely-tuned political instrument designed to do one thing: to make the unthinkable seem reasonable. The charm is the anaesthetic before the surgery. It lowers your defences, making you receptive to the simple, satisfying diagnosis for that low, persistent hum of anxiety we all feel. It takes your legitimate anger about a broken system and, with a friendly wink, points it towards a simple enemy. It’s a strategy, and it works by making prejudice sound like common sense.
Once you’ve accepted the premise, the policies write themselves. Look at the plans for immigration. They are the logical conclusion of this normalised division. Abolishing the right of people who have lived and worked here for years to call this country home? It stops sounding cruel and starts sounding like ‘management’ when you’ve been told they are a burden. Tearing up international human rights laws? It’s no longer a shocking breach of our values, but a ‘necessary step’ to deal with an invasion. Each policy is another brick in a wall built to divide us, turning the complex failings of the state into a simple story of ‘us versus them’.
Then comes the second front of the attack, aimed not at our borders but at the very heart of our communities. The war on “woke.” The crusade to scrap diversity and equality initiatives. This is the mission to purify the ‘us’ group. It’s a direct assault on the messy, complex, brilliant reality of modern Britain. It sends a clear message that fairness has gone “too far,” that protecting minorities is an attack on the majority. It is a project designed to dismantle empathy, to label tolerance as a weakness, and to give bigotry a political permission slip.
And here is the raw truth we must confront: none of this is about fixing the problems that keep you up at night. Your council tax, the state of the NHS, the price of the weekly shop—these are just the emotional kindling for their fire. The goal isn’t to solve anything. The goal is to keep you angry. It is a political model that thrives on our exhaustion and profits from our division. It is a poison that paralyses our ability to look at our real problems and work together to solve them.
So, what on earth do we do? The first act of resistance is to break the spell. It is to see the performance for what it is: a con. It means actively refusing to swallow the daily diet of rage being served up. Practise ‘informational hygiene’. Guard your own resilience as if it were armour, because that’s exactly what it is. To stay calm and clear-headed in a storm of manufactured hysteria is a radical act.
But personal resilience is just the start. The real antidote to this division is connection. This is the unglamorous, vital, and urgent work ahead. It means rebuilding the bonds they are trying to sever, one conversation at a time. Talk to your actual neighbours. Have the quiet courage to challenge the divisive rhetoric when you hear it from a friend, not with aggression, but with a firm refusal to let it stand. And yes, get involved. Join the most boring-sounding local committee you can find. Be part of the levy that shores up the flood defences of our shared civic decency.
Because that is precisely what is at stake. They are selling a story of a broken Britain that can only be saved by breaking it apart even further. Our job is to tell a better story—and not just to tell it, but to live it. A story built not on fear and suspicion, but on the quiet, stubborn, and profoundly British belief that we are, and always will be, better than this.
In more detail with links
London, UK – A range of policies proposed by Reform UK, particularly concerning immigration, multiculturalism, and equality, have faced widespread criticism for being racist, divisive, and detrimental to social cohesion, according to analyses from political opponents, media reports, and think tanks. While Reform UK asserts its platform addresses legitimate public concerns, critics argue that many of their proposals target minority groups, fuel anti-immigrant sentiment, and could erode community harmony.
Immigration Policies at the Forefront of Controversy
Reform UK’s stringent immigration policies have drawn the most significant condemnation. Proposals to freeze non-essential immigration, leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and implement offshore processing for asylum seekers have been labeled as “racist” and “immoral” by opponents.[1] Critics, including Labour leader Keir Starmer, argue that such measures scapegoat immigrants for broader societal problems and normalize state-sanctioned racism.[1][2]
One of the most contentious proposals is the plan to abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), a move that could affect hundreds of thousands of legal residents. Starmer has vehemently opposed this, stating it would “rip this country apart” by targeting neighbors and contributors to the economy.[1][3] In response, Reform UK’s head of policy, Zia Yusuf, accused Labour of telling the electorate to “pay hundreds of billions for foreign nationals to live off the state forever, or we’ll call you racist!”[1]
Further proposals, such as a 20% National Insurance surcharge on employers hiring foreign workers and restrictions on international students bringing dependents, have also been criticized as discriminatory and echoing past anti-immigration rhetoric.
Challenges to Multiculturalism and Equality
Reform UK’s stance on multiculturalism and its pledge to scrap Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives have intensified accusations of divisiveness. The party’s manifesto states it would replace the Equality Act, which it claims “requires discrimination in the name of ‘positive action'”.[4] Party leader Nigel Farage has been a vocal critic of DEI, and following success in local elections, has vowed to dismantle what he terms the “DEI industry” in councils under Reform control.[5][6]
Legal experts have warned that abolishing DEI roles could breach the Public Sector Equality Duty, a legal requirement for public bodies to eliminate discrimination and promote equality.[5] Critics argue these policies threaten years of progress on workplace equality and could embolden prejudice.[6] The Good Law Project has accused Reform UK of using women’s safety as a “cover for racism” by linking migration to sexual assault without credible evidence.[7][8]
Divisive Rhetoric and the Impact on Social Cohesion
Commentators suggest that Reform UK’s policies and rhetoric are tapping into a sense of public disillusionment and despair, refracting class anger through a racist lens.[9] The party’s success is seen by some as being built on exploiting fears about immigration and a loss of national identity.[9][10] The rhetoric used by some associated with the party has also come under fire. An undercover investigation revealed a Reform UK canvasser using a racial slur against Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and suggesting migrants crossing the Channel should be shot.[11]
While Keir Starmer has labeled some of Reform’s policies as racist, he has been careful to state that he does not believe all Reform voters are racist, acknowledging their frustration with the political status quo.[2][12][13] However, critics maintain that the party’s platform risks normalizing extremist views and undermining the social fabric of the UK.[9][10] A poll by British Future found that four in ten people believe Reform is a racist party, a perception more pronounced than that of UKIP in 2015.[14]
Reform UK defends its policies as necessary for border security and preserving British culture and values.[15] The party’s rise in popularity, particularly its strong performance in the 2024 general election and its significant presence on social media, indicates that its message resonates with a substantial portion of the electorate.[16][17] Nevertheless, the divisive nature of its platform continues to be a central point of contention in British politics.
An election manifesto is a promise, a plan, a road map to a better world. The seductive whisper that everything can be fixed, and simply. That a broken Britain can be made whole again with a dose of “common sense.” Reform UK has mastered this promise, presenting a vision of slashed taxes and booming growth. But when you pull back the curtain on the grand pronouncements, you don’t find a politics of hope. You find the ghost of failed ideas, a familiar, punishing script of austerity and trickle-down economics designed to benefit the few at the devastating expense of the many.
So, let’s talk about the price tag on this promise. To fund their carnival of tax cuts, Reform plans to find £150 billion in annual savings. A key part of this involves slashing £50 billion from what they call government “waste.” It sounds painless, like trimming the hedges. But the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a group not known for hyperbole, warns this would “almost certainly require substantial cuts to the quantity or quality of public services.” This isn’t trimming fat; it’s amputating limbs. It’s the sound of your local library closing, the GP appointment you can’t get, the pothole that never gets filled. This is the quiet, grinding misery of austerity, and they are planning it on a scale that would make George Osborne blush.
But where is all that money going? While our public services are starved, Reform intends to cut corporation tax and practically abolish inheritance tax for all but the wealthiest estates. This is the tired, old magic trick of trickle-down economics: the belief that if you shower money on the richest, some of it will eventually splash down onto the rest of us. Yet we’ve seen this show before, and we know how it ends. The IPPR think tank crunched the numbers and found the wealthiest households would gain enormously, while the poorest gain next to nothing. It’s not a rising tide lifting all boats; it’s ordering another bottle of champagne for the super-yacht while puncturing the life rafts.
Frankly, this isn’t just a cruel vision for Britain; it’s fantasy economics. The architects of this plan are building a house on foundations of pure wishful thinking. The IFS has stated bluntly that “the sums in this manifesto do not add up,” labelling the entire package “problematic.” They calculate that the proposed tax cuts would cost tens of billions more than Reform claims, while the savings are wildly optimistic. This isn’t a serious plan for government. It’s a fiscal implosion waiting to happen, a reckless gamble where the chips are our public services and the futures of millions.
To see this plan for what it is—a politics of exploitation masquerading as hope—is the first act of defence. But understanding the deception isn’t enough. The most powerful response isn’t to despair, but to build. The true antidote to a politics that seeks to divide and dismantle is the patient, unglamorous work of shoring up our communities. It means looking up from our screens, talking to our neighbours, and strengthening the bonds that this ideology needs us to forget we have.
So, what’s the path forward? It begins with reclaiming your own agency. Start by practicing some informational hygiene; read past the headlines and question the easy promises. But then, take that awareness outside. Find the most boring-sounding local committee you can and join it. A library support group, a park watch, a tenants’ association. This is the real work. It’s the levy that shores up the flood defences. Because when they come with their politics of misery, they will find that the fabric of our communities is far stronger, more resilient, and more hopeful than their cynical calculations could ever imagine.
And for those of you who like facts here’s the data:
Reform UK’s Economic Blueprint: A Politics of Misery Masked as Hope
Central Premise: Reform UK’s economic proposals, centred on sweeping tax cuts and contentious spending reductions, represent not a politics of hope, but a thinly veiled return to austerity and trickle-down economics that favours the wealthy at the expense of public services and the vulnerable.
In the contemporary British political landscape, Reform UK has positioned itself as a radical alternative, promising to slash waste, cut taxes, and unlock economic growth.[1] However, a closer examination of their 2024 manifesto and subsequent policy announcements reveals a framework built on familiar, and many argue failed, economic ideologies. The party’s platform, which proposes massive tax cuts funded by equally large spending reductions, has been flagged by economic experts as “financially unrealistic” and reliant on “extremely optimistic assumptions.”[2][3][4] This analysis suggests that behind the rhetoric of hope lies a program of deep austerity and trickle-down economics, threatening the very fabric of public services and social support systems.
The Austerity Agenda: Deep and Unspecified Cuts
Reform UK’s fiscal plan is predicated on achieving £150 billion in annual savings to fund nearly £90 billion in tax cuts and £50 billion in spending increases.[5] A significant portion of these savings, £50 billion to be exact, is expected to come from cutting “wasteful” spending across government departments.[5][6] However, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has warned that saving such a substantial sum would “almost certainly require substantial cuts to the quantity or quality of public services” and go far beyond a simple crackdown on waste.[5][7]
This approach is characteristic of austerity, where broad, often unspecified, cuts to public expenditure are implemented to reduce the budget deficit, frequently impacting frontline services. The IFS has stated that Reform UK is proposing a “very different vision for the role of government,” one that involves “much lower taxes, paid for with large, unspecified cuts to public services.”[7] This raises serious concerns about the future of essential services that citizens rely on.
Further austerity-aligned policies include the proposed £30 billion annual saving from scrapping net-zero commitments and green energy subsidies.[8] While presented as a measure to reduce household bills, this move would dismantle long-term environmental strategies and could have far-reaching economic and environmental consequences. Similarly, a planned £15 billion cut to the welfare bill is aimed at getting people “back to work,” a common refrain in austerity narratives that often overlooks the complex reasons for unemployment and economic inactivity.
Trickle-Down Economics: Benefiting the Few, Not the Many
At the heart of Reform UK’s economic strategy is a series of tax cuts that disproportionately benefit businesses and high earners, a hallmark of trickle-down economics. The theory posits that reducing the tax burden on the wealthy and corporations will stimulate investment, create jobs, and ultimately benefit everyone. However, historical evidence and economic studies have repeatedly challenged this notion, showing that such policies often exacerbate income inequality without delivering significant economic growth.[9][10]
Key proposals from Reform UK include reducing the main corporation tax rate from 25% to 15% and abolishing inheritance tax for estates under £2 million.[11][12] The IFS has noted that the costing for the corporation tax cut is less than half of what official estimates suggest the long-run cost would be.[5] These measures, along with plans to raise the income tax personal allowance to £20,000, would indeed leave more money in some pockets.[11] However, analysis from the IPPR think tank indicates that the wealthiest fifth of households would gain significantly more from these changes than the poorest 20%.[13]
This approach has been criticized as a “right-wing, free-market libertarian playbook” that would do little to help the working-class families Reform claims to champion, while providing a substantial boost to the super-rich.[13] Critics argue that this focus on top-end tax cuts ignores the immediate needs of a population grappling with a cost of living crisis and struggling public services.[14]
Unrealistic Projections and a “Problematic” Package
The feasibility of Reform UK’s entire economic plan has been called into question by leading economic analysts. The IFS has bluntly stated that “the sums in this manifesto do not add up,” describing the package as “problematic.”[3][5] They project that the proposed tax cuts would cost “tens of billions of pounds a year more” than Reform anticipates, while the spending reductions would save less than stated.[3][5]
This significant fiscal gap suggests that, if implemented, Reform UK’s policies would either lead to a massive increase in government borrowing, a move that could destabilize the economy, or necessitate even deeper cuts to public services than currently admitted. The party’s rejection of criticism, with leader Nigel Farage describing the proposals as “outside the box,” does little to inspire confidence in their fiscal credibility.[3]
The Politics of Misery
By cloaking austerity and trickle-down economics in the language of “common sense” and “hope,” Reform UK presents a vision that, upon closer inspection, threatens to entrench inequality and dismantle the public sphere. Their proposals rely on unrealistic savings to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, a formula that has historically led to underfunded public services and a fraying social safety net.[15]
This is not a politics of hope for the average worker, the pensioner, or the family reliant on the NHS. It is a politics of exploitation and misery, where the burden of fiscal adjustment falls on the shoulders of the many, while the benefits flow to the few. The promise of a revitalized Britain, freed from the shackles of high taxes and “wasteful” spending, is a seductive one. However, the reality of Reform UK’s economic agenda is a future of diminished public services and widened social divisions.
Modern authoritarianism has evolved. No longer solely reliant on the brute force of the 20th century, a new model of control has emerged: informational autocracy. This contemporary form of rule prioritises the sophisticated management of information flows over overt repression, manufacturing legitimacy by curating a reality where the regime is competent and opposition is illegitimate. While these autocrats maintain the façade of democracy through managed elections and hollowed-out institutions, their true power lies in dominating the narrative. In this digital age, social media platforms have become the principal arena and accelerator for this strategy, fundamentally transforming the complex relationship between the state, a knowledgeable “informed elite,” and the general populace. Social media acts as both a tool of co-optation and a vector for chaos, enabling autocrats to silence dissent while exporting tactics that actively erode democratic foundations worldwide.
At the heart of informational autocracy lies the strategic management of the “informed elite”—a segment of society comprising intellectuals, journalists, and professionals who possess the critical capacity to recognise and expose the regime’s flaws. Traditionally, this group poses the greatest threat to authoritarian stability, and social media presents a dual-edged sword for their neutralisation. On one edge, platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and WeChat serve as tools for surveillance and control, allowing regimes to monitor the elite’s online activities, identify dissenters for targeted repression, and deploy subtle censorship through algorithmic demotion or shadow-banning. On the other, these same platforms are used for co-optation, recruiting influential figures to amplify state-approved narratives and lending a veneer of credibility to propaganda. In Turkey and Hungary, for instance, allied influencers and troll farms are leveraged to dominate online discourse, effectively turning a portion of the informed elite into digital mouthpieces for the state.
This capacity for control, however, is not absolute. The democratising nature of social media simultaneously threatens to disrupt the informational asymmetry that autocrats depend on. By allowing information to bypass state-controlled media, these platforms can potentially expand the informed elite, making it too large to co-opt or silence entirely. This forces regimes to intensify their grip on the broader information ecosystem, often through outright media monopolisation. This tension reveals the core paradox for modern authoritarians: the very platforms that offer unprecedented control also carry the seeds of their potential undoing. They fracture the elite’s traditional role as gatekeepers of information while simultaneously empowering grassroots dissent.
The very architecture of social media is uniquely suited to advancing the goals of informational autocracy. Platforms’ business models, predicated on maximising engagement, inadvertently favour the sensational, divisive, and emotionally charged content on which autocrats thrive. Algorithms designed for virality rather than veracity create echo chambers that reinforce regime propaganda and shield citizens from dissenting views. This allows rulers to “flood the zone” with disinformation, blurring the lines between fact and fiction until the public becomes cynical and disengaged. False political narratives, as studies have shown, spread significantly faster than truth, creating a “post-truth” environment where objective reality is secondary to partisan identity. This systematic degradation of trust in institutions—from the media to the electoral process—is not merely a byproduct of social media; it is a central objective of informational autocracy, and platforms provide the most efficient means to achieve it.
Perhaps most insidiously, the tactics of informational autocracy are no longer confined to authoritarian states. Social media has created a borderless information environment where these strategies are exported globally, seeping into and poisoning democratic societies. Autocrats have learned to weaponise the very freedoms that define democracies, using the openness of platforms to interfere in elections, amplify social divisions, and discredit liberal values as chaotic and weak. State-backed actors from Russia and China have perfected the art of cross-border disinformation, creating what can be seen as a “disinfo axis” that coordinates to undermine democratic solidarity on the world stage. In response, threatened democracies may find themselves adopting autocratic tools—such as increased censorship or surveillance—to combat these hybrid threats, risking an erosion of the very principles they seek to protect. This global spillover normalises autocratic practices and accelerates a worldwide trend of democratic backsliding.
In conclusion, informational autocracy represents a pernicious and adaptable evolution of authoritarian rule, and social media serves as its central nervous system. These platforms have revolutionised the autocrat’s toolkit, enabling a subtle yet pervasive form of control built on narrative dominance rather than physical coercion. By transforming the role of the informed elite into a dynamic contest of control and resistance, and by leveraging algorithms that prioritise engagement over truth, social media directly fuels the erosion of public trust and institutional legitimacy. This model is no longer a distant threat but a clear and present danger to established democracies, which now face an onslaught of digitally-native autocratic tactics designed to turn their own open systems against them. The struggle for the future of democracy is therefore inextricably linked to the battle for the digital public square, demanding a new focus on platform accountability, digital literacy, and the cultivation of an “info hygiene” resilient enough to withstand this slow-acting poison.
We were all raised on stories of obvious tyranny. We were taught to look for the book burnings and the public shamings. We were told to listen for the sound of the cage door slamming shut. But what happens when the cage has no bars? What happens when the prison isn’t a place, but a state of mind, meticulously constructed to feel like freedom?
This is the world of informational autocracy. It’s a far slicker, more sophisticated beast than the clumsy dictatorships of the last century. It doesn’t need to rule by fear when it can rule by manufactured consent. This new model of power doesn’t abolish elections; it mimics them, ensuring the outcome is a foregone conclusion while maintaining a veneer of legitimacy. It doesn’t ban the free press; it buys it, starves it of advertising, or floods the zone with so much state-sponsored noise that the truth is simply drowned out. Look at Putin’s Russia, Orbán’s Hungary, or Erdoğan’s Turkey. The playbook is the same: project an image of competence and stability, paint all opposition as chaotic or treacherous, and ensure the majority of the public never gets a clear enough signal to know the difference. The primary goal is not to terrorise the population, but to convince them. And the engine room of this entire operation is the device in your pocket.
Enter the social media platform: the greatest accelerator of informational autocracy ever invented. These systems are not neutral tools; they are battlegrounds designed for a very specific kind of warfare. Their algorithms, built not for truth but for traffic, are perfectly tuned to reward the divisive, the sensational, and the outrageous. It’s no accident that, on platforms like X, false political stories are proven to spread 70% faster than the truth. Outrage is profitable. Division drives engagement. In this environment, an autocrat’s propaganda isn’t just another post—it’s premium fuel for a machine designed to run on it. We are not just the audience; we are the unwitting foot soldiers, sharing and amplifying narratives that fracture our own societies. But this battle isn’t just for the hearts and minds of the masses. There’s a more specific, more strategic target in its sights.
Every society has an “informed elite”—that small but crucial group of journalists, academics, professionals, and artists who have the access and the training to see through the noise. In the old world, an autocrat had to arrest or exile them. In the new world, the strategy is far more subtle. Social media allows the regime to monitor them, identifying dissenters for a quiet campaign of shadow-banning, legal threats, or professional exclusion. Even more effectively, it allows them to be co-opted. A slice of the elite is turned into well-paid influencers, their credibility used to launder regime propaganda. The very tool that could expand the ranks of the informed by democratizing information also shatters their authority, turning public discourse into a chaotic free-for-all where a verified expert has the same algorithmic weight as a state-funded troll farm.
It leaves us in the crossfire of a silent, borderless war. The tactics perfected in Moscow and Beijing are now exported globally, seeping into the bedrock of democracies. This is the slow poison: the erosion of public trust, the exhaustion of civic life, and the creeping sense that objective truth no longer exists. This is the ultimate goal. The aim isn’t just to win an argument; it’s to create an environment where the very idea of a shared reality seems naive. It is to foster a deep, weary cynicism that leads to democratic fatigue, where we disengage not because we are forced to, but because we are too tired to continue.
So, what is the way out? It is not to find a mythical, uncompromised platform or to wait for a single heroic leader. The resistance begins with a conscious and deliberate act of what can only be called informational hygiene. It starts with us. We must become fierce curators of our own information, deliberately seeking out and paying for quality, independent journalism. We must take our conversations offline and into the real world, rebuilding the connective tissue of society in our own communities. And above all, we must build our own resilience as if it were armour. They are counting on our burnout. An exhausted, cynical public is their ideal political landscape.
This is the work. It is not glamorous. It is not easy. But it is real. The most radical act in an age of quiet persuasion is a loud and curious mind. Keep yours sharp. Keep it open. And never, ever let them convince you to close it.
Fascism has changed, as kids we were taught to look out for the jackboots and salutes now the bars aren’t made of iron anymore; they’re made of information, and the prison isn’t a place, but a state of mind. It’s one thing to see the shape of this new cage, but another thing entirely to know how to unlock the door. The sheer scale of it all can feel paralysing. That is precisely what they are counting on. But the antidote isn’t a single, heroic act of rebellion. It’s the small, consistent, and deliberate practice of clear-headed defiance. These individual acts aren’t the endgame, though. They are the training ground for rebuilding public trust and collective power from the ground up.
So here’s what you do.
First, become a fierce curator of your information and a trusted amplifier of the truth. Stop doomscrolling. Stop passively accepting the algorithm’s feed as reality. Deliberately seek out independent voices, local journalists, and long-form content. If you can afford it, pay for quality journalism; it is the last line of defence. And once you find a piece of solid reporting or a vital local story, your job is to share it. Not by screaming into the void online, but by sending it directly to three or five people in your life who you know will take it seriously. Be the signal, not the noise.
Second, take your conversations from the social sphere into the civic one. Breaking your echo chamber is vital, but it cannot end with a chat over a pint. You must take that renewed understanding offline and into the real world. Join something. A local library, a school parents’ association, a tenants’ union, a conservation group. Find the most boring-sounding local committee you can. Power abhors a vacuum, and these hyper-local spaces have been abandoned, left to those with narrow agendas. Go and fill them. This is where the connective tissue of society is either woven or unravels. This is the difference between talking about politics and doing politics.
Finally, build your resilience as if it were armour, because it is. Recognise that this fight is a marathon, not a sprint. They are counting on your burnout. An exhausted, cynical, and overwhelmed public is their ideal political climate. Every time you log off, go for a walk, and come back clear-headed, you are actively thwarting a political strategy. Replenish your spirit not as an escape, but as a necessary act of training for the long road ahead. A resilient, clear-headed, and good-humoured citizen is a nightmare for those who rely on our exhaustion.
This is the work. It is not glamorous. It is not easy. But it is real. The most radical act in an age of quiet persuasion is a loud and curious mind. Keep yours sharp. Keep it open. And never, ever let them convince you to close it.
The alt-right’s online dominance stems from savvy, adaptive tactics that exploit platform algorithms, human psychology, and cultural voids, turning fringe ideas into mainstream forces through emotional resonance and community building. While the left should never mimic their toxic elements (e.g., hate, disinformation), there’s value in borrowing structural and strategic tools to counter far-right gains and rebuild progressive momentum.
Drawing from 2025 analyses, the key is ethical adaptation: Focus on hope, facts, and inclusivity to create “alt-left pipelines” that radicalise toward justice, highlight economic inequality not racial division.
Below are transferable lessons with deployment ideas tailored for a progressive agenda.
1. Build a Multi-Voice “Roster” for Narrative Dominance (The WWF Model)
Lesson from Alt-Right: They succeed via a diverse “ecosystem” of creators—intellectuals, meme-makers, podcasters—who cross-promote, feud playfully, and create social immersion, making ideas feel organic and inescapable (e.g., from Jordan Peterson to Nick Fuentes). This multiplicity normalises extremism, as one voice becomes a chorus.
Action Point: Create a “Red-Green roster” of 20-50 voices (e.g., eco-activists, union organisers, TikTok storytellers) focused on inequality/climate. Use X Spaces for collaborative “story arcs” (e.g., debates on wealth taxes) and Patreon-funded collabs to foster community. Aim for viral, relatable formats like short explainers on “why your rent doubled.” In 2025, leverage decentralised platforms to evade moderation while building loyalty.
2. Craft Gradual “Pipelines” for Positive Radicalisation
Lesson from Alt-Right: Their pipeline hooks users with benign frustrations (e.g., “woke overreach”) then escalates via algorithms to echo chambers, blending humour and validation to build commitment. This self-radicalises without overt pushes.
Action Point: Design an “alt-left pipeline” starting with empowering content (e.g., TikToks on “union wins” or “free college stories”) that funnels to deeper dives (e.g., podcasts on systemic racism). Use AI tools ethically for personalised recommendations, targeting disillusioned centrists with “hope hooks” like community success tales. Avoid outrage; emphasise “business offers” (e.g., “Join for better wages”). A 2025 survey shows this could sway working-class voters by addressing alienation head-on.
3. Weaponise Memes, Humour, and Emotional Storytelling
Lesson from Alt-Right: Irony, memes, and outrage farming (e.g., baiting replies for algorithmic boosts) create addictive engagement, polarising while evading bans. They tap anger over issues like immigration but dilute for broad appeal.
Action Point: Flood platforms with joyful, subversive memes (e.g., “Billionaires vs. Your Rent” cartoons) and emotional narratives (e.g., worker strike videos with uplifting arcs). Use X for “provocative but substantive” threads that provoke right-wing overreactions, then amplify the absurdity to highlight hypocrisy. Focus on “politics of substance” like cultural symbols of solidarity (e.g., union anthems remixed). In 2025, prioritise TikTok/Reels for Gen Z, where emotionally charged content drives 2x engagement.
4. Invest in Local Organising and Power-Building Networks
Lesson from Alt-Right: Online tactics feed offline infrastructure (e.g., rallies channelling frustration into loyalty), absorbing dissent via co-optation and purges. They build from the ground up, turning digital anger into real power.
Action Point: Mirror this by linking online campaigns to local “power rosters” (e.g., neighborhood groups for mutual aid). Use X/Discord for one-on-one recruitment: “What matters to you? Let’s organize.” Channel energy into sustained wins like tenant unions, not just viral moments. 2025 reports stress matching right-wing billionaire media with grassroots funding for community hubs. Avoid Alinsky-style baiting; instead, “grey rock” trolls with factual redirects.
5. Pursue Long-Term Institutional Capture and Patience
Lesson from Alt-Right: They play the “long game” (e.g., infiltrating education/media over decades), using feigned ignorance to waste opponents’ time and normalise via backlash. Short-term wins (e.g., elections) are secondary to cultural entrenchment.
Action Point: Shift from reactive “debates” to proactive institution-building (e.g., progressive media co-ops, school boards). Use “inb4” preemptive framing (e.g., “Before you ask about taxes, here’s how billionaires dodge them”) to control narratives. In 2025, amid platform toxicity, decentralise to Bluesky/Mastodon for safe scaling. Measure success by sustained engagement, not viral spikes.
Ethical Guardrails and Risks
Adaptations must prioritise anti-hate safeguards e.g., community guidelines against doxxing and fact-checking to avoid disinformation pitfalls. Risks include internal purges or echo-chamber toxicity, as seen in past left online spaces.
The goal: Turn alt-right “tactics of scarcity” into left abundance—building power through solidarity, not division. As one 2025 analysis notes, the left’s edge is substance; deploy these tools to make it viral.
Picture the scene: a political Royal Rumble. For years, the ring has been dominated by two tired, lumbering heavyweights, Labour and the Conservatives, whose moves are predictable and whose passion is long gone. The crowd is bored. Restless. Angry. Sensing weakness, a new tag team has stormed the ring: Nigel Farage on the microphone, the master promoter, and Tommy Robinson as his street-fighting enforcer. They’ve got a simple, brutal story the crowd can chant along to. The old champions look lost. Then, just as the match seems to be slipping away, two new contenders jump the ropes, ready to fight. And they have a game plan.
First in the ring is Gary Stevenson, the brawler from East London. He’s not here for the fancy stuff. His finishing move is The Truth, and he delivers it with the force of a powerhouse. He steps up to the mic and hammers home one relentless, uncomfortable fact: this country is being bled dry. A billion pounds, untaxed, generates a million pounds a week in passive income. It’s a runaway train, and your life is on the tracks. He doesn’t need a script; his authenticity is his weapon. The crowd believes him because he is them. But a brawler, no matter how powerful, needs a strategist in his corner.
That’s where Zack Polanski comes in. He’s the high-flyer, the tactician. He sees the whole ring, understands how the ropes of the climate crisis are connected to the turnbuckles of social inequality. He’s not just here for one match; he’s building a political stable—a revitalised Green Party—to fight for the championship belt. He sees the anger in the crowd and knows it’s the energy source that can power a real movement, transforming boos and cheers into a political force that can’t be ignored. But what’s their strategy against the current, failing champions?
Let’s be blunt: the reigning champions, Labour, are finished. They look the part, but they’re slow, complacent, and fighting the last war. They’re “in hock” to their corporate sponsors, their billionaire donors. They’re deaf to the roar of the crowd. Stevenson tells how he tried to hand them the playbook for victory, a plan for a wealth tax the public is crying out for, but they weren’t interested. They’re about to make a rookie mistake—a disastrous November budget that will leave them wide open. And that’s when the real villains of this story will make their move.
Because the most dangerous force in the ring isn’t the tired champion; it’s the perfectly executed heel tag team of Farage and Robinson. This is Stevenson’s crucial insight. Their success comes from a “WWF-style multiplicity of voices.” Farage, the slick promoter, works the media, cutting promos that blame every problem on the outsider. Robinson, the enforcer, takes that same message to the streets, creating chaos and viral clips. Together, they create a constant wall of noise that feels bigger than it is, making their fringe ideas feel like the mainstream. They have filled the void left by the champions.
So here’s the game plan. You don’t beat a tag team like that one-on-one. You build a better stable. A bigger one. The strategy is to turn the entire crowd into a new faction, a multiplicity of voices for fairness and hope. It needs ordinary people telling their own stories, becoming the third, fourth, and fifth person in the ring. It needs political leverage, with the Greens winning seats and making a wealth tax the non-negotiable price of power. The choice is now a straight one: a championship victory for a Britain of shared prosperity, or a permanent win for the promoters of hate and a future of slums for the 90%. The bell is about to ring.
Feeling powerless is part of the plan. They want you to believe this is all too big, too technical, and too inevitable to fight. They are counting on your resignation as they assemble the cage around you, piece by piece, hoping you’ll be too tired or distracted to notice. But their entire, multi-billion-pound system has a fatal flaw, a single point of failure. That single point of failure is you.
We have options. They require effort, courage, and a refusal to be intimidated. Here’s a breakdown of the response options we have as citizens, from the simple to the deeply committed.
1. The Information War: Know Your Enemy and Spread the Word
First, don’t be a passive consumer of this. The primary battleground right now is awareness.
Educate Yourself and Others: Read everything you can. Understand the technology (Foundry, Gotham), the key players (Palantir, Peter Thiel), and the political machinations. When you talk about it, be informed. Use the facts.
Share Intelligently: Don’t just scream into the social media void. Share the articles and the evidence with people in your life who might listen. Send it to your family WhatsApp group. Talk about it with friends. The aim is to break this story out of the ‘conspiracy’ box and into the mainstream conversation.
Frame the Debate Correctly: When you talk about it, don’t let them frame it as “convenience vs. privacy.” Frame it correctly: Freedom vs. Control. It’s not about faster logins; it’s about the state’s ability to switch you off.
2. Political Pressure: Rattle the Cage
The system might feel rigged, but it’s not soundproof. They still need a veneer of public consent.
Your MP is Your Employee: Write to your MP. Don’t send a generic email; send a pointed one with specific questions. “Have you read Palantir’s contracts with the NHS?” “What are your specific concerns about linking a Digital ID to their software?” “Will you publicly pledge to vote against any mandatory Digital ID scheme?” Go to their local surgery and ask them face-to-face. Record their answer.
Support Advocacy Groups: Organisations like Big Brother Watch, the Open Rights Group, and others are fighting this at a policy level. Support them. Amplify their work. They have the resources to launch legal challenges and lobby Parliament effectively.
Sign and Share Petitions: While they can sometimes feel like shouting into the wind, official parliamentary petitions that reach a certain threshold must be debated. It forces the issue onto the official record.
3. Economic Resistance: Starve the Beast
This is a big one, and it’s where we have more power than we think.
Use Cash: This is the single most powerful act of passive resistance. Every note you spend is a small vote for privacy, for anonymity, and against a fully traceable digital currency. When shops ask you to pay by card, politely refuse where you can. Make cash a visible, normal part of daily life.
Scrutinise Your Services: Look at the companies you do business with. Is your bank a partner in the new identity frameworks? Does your tech provider have a record of collaboration with state surveillance? Where possible, move your money and your data away from those who are building the cage.
Support Privacy-First Technology: Use encrypted messaging apps like Signal. Use privacy-respecting search engines. Ditch services that harvest your data as their business model. The more of us who do this, the more we normalise privacy.
4. The Final Line of Defence: Non-Compliance
This is the sharp end of it, and it requires real resolve.
Refuse to Volunteer: When the Digital ID is first rolled out, it will be “optional.” Do not opt-in. Do not download the app. Do not be a guinea pig for your own cage. The lower the initial uptake, the harder it is for them to claim it has public support and the more difficult it becomes to make it mandatory.
Public Protest: If and when the time comes, be prepared to take to the streets. Peaceful, mass protest is a fundamental British right and a powerful part of our history. It shows the government that public anger is real and cannot be ignored.
Build Local Resilience: The more we rely on centralised state and corporate systems, the more power they have over us. Support local businesses. Start community skill-sharing networks. Build relationships with your neighbours. The more resilient and self-sufficient our communities are, the less we need their systems.
None of these is a magic bullet. But they are not mutually exclusive. We can do all of them. It’s about creating a multi-fronted resistance: informational, political, economic, and social.
They are counting on us to be too tired, too distracted, and too divided to fight back. Let’s disappoint them.
If you are an investor you could move holdings from the following funds to more ethical ones:
Top 10 Largest Institutional Holders of shares in Palentir. The following table lists the top holders by shares outstanding, including shares held, percentage of total shares, and approximate value (based on recent market prices around $177–$180 per share).
Quentin Budworth 